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Submitted By: dixiegainer@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Combined with the plans of the Oregon Task force on Universal Health Care (created by the passage of SB 770 in 2019), Oregonians would come under total government control of their health care. The plan is to outlaw private health care, depriving citizens of choice. If you didn’t like your health care, there would be no place else to go.

The measure says the state must provide “cost-effective, clinically appropriate and affordable health care.” Who will decide what is “clinically appropriate?” The state, not you or your doctor. To get paid and to keep their licenses, doctors will have to comply with whatever the government tells them. They will be effectively working for the state, not their patients. Do we want the government that deprived COVID patients of effective treatments and threatened the licenses of doctors who prescribed them given even more power to control all health care in Oregon?

The implementation of state control over health care would mean not only loss of doctors’ freedom to practice as they see fit, but it’s reasonable to assume that vaccine mandates would return and expand to other vaccines, because unvaccinated people would theoretically cost the state more. Patients who refused to take mandated treatments might lose their health care altogether or be punished in other ways. The COVID pandemic taught us that the public health authorities have no hesitation about mandating experimental vaccines and depriving people of their jobs if they don’t comply, and there’s no reason to believe it would be different under universal health care.

For all the problems with private insurance, universal health care would only magnify those problems, and there would be no remedy. Patients would get what the state decides, and nothing else.

The state would control hospitals as well. We saw this with CMS (the Center for Medicare Services) and COVID. CMS pays the majority of hospital bills. When CMS banned ivermectin and ordered treatment with Remdesivir and ventilators that killed most patients, the hospitals obeyed, because CMS paid large bonuses for compliance and threatened to withhold payments for noncompliance. Many people died from these “treatments,” and there was no remedy. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Do we want to expand that kind of control to the entire health care system in Oregon?

There’s also no guarantee that we would have access to alternative practitioners under universal health care, and even if we did, those practitioners would be controlled by the state. They would have to practice as required by the state. We would have to battle for the kind of practitioners we wanted covered and their freedom to practice as they think best. They would be constantly under threat of losing their licenses or income if they went outside the lines, so to speak. But isn’t that why patients want alternative practitioners? Because they think and practice in creative ways?

Do citizens want the Oregon Health Authority, which implemented vaccine mandates and still maintains them on health care workers, which made permanent mask mandate rules and to this day mandates masks in all health care settings, running all of our health care? Do we really want to give them more power?

Exhausted by the vaccine mandate battles? Universal health care would only increase the politicization of health care. Under universal health care, we could expect more politics and more censorship of dissenting views. California just passed a law stripping doctors of their licenses if they don’t follow the government narrative on how to treat COVID. The same and worse could happen here, and they wouldn’t have to pass a law to do it. If the state pays, it makes the rules.

Other possible unintended consequences: universal health care could cause the best doctors to move to freer states where they could practice their profession without interference, and wealthy people would likely also leave to avoid the onerous taxes. (The 15% additional income tax to pay for it is likely a floor, not a ceiling.) Oregon would become poorer and poorer as those with means moved away and taxes increased to make up the loss, while the only doctors left would be those willing to function as mere technicians following approved algorithms. The high level “practice” of medicine where doctors use clinical judgement and skill, already under threat in the current regulatory environment, would be snuffed out for good.

Furthermore, what reason is there to believe that Oregon could tackle such a massive overhaul? The logistics of such a change are breathtaking, and if they failed, the consequences would be dire. Yet Oregon couldn’t even build a state health care exchange website. To this day, it uses the federal one. This is also the state that couldn’t get unemployment checks out during COVID, runs a DMV that is still dysfunctional, and it’s hard to get anyone to even answer the phone.

The measure says that the state must balance between the right to healthcare and funding other essential public services. What does that mean? It’s not defined. If Measure 111 passes, health care will become a right enshrined in the Oregon Constitution, but public safety and education will not. So it’s conceivable that the money to fund health care would take precedence over public safety and education and every other need in the state. In addition, the state’s track record on spending money suggests a lot of waste is to be expected, as well as costs that will run far above projections.

Given the assaults on the practice of medicine we have recently witnessed, we ask that you seriously consider your vote on Measure 111 with an eye to the likely increased governmental and pharmaceutical invasion of the doctor patient relationship among other unintended consequences that would likely result. This is one “gift horse” that deserves careful inspection before you decide whether to buy.

Submitted By: dixiegainer@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Kitzhaber, to be sure, wants all Oregonians to have access to health care. But he says reforms need to curb the waste in the system, not just ensure the costs of that wasteful system are covered by the Oregon budget. He also said Oregonians need to understand the difference between access to the health care system and overall health, including the social determinants like affordable housing, nutritious food and safe neighborhoods.

On Oct. 18, Kitzhaber laid out his case for why the ballot measure doesn’t get Oregon to where it needs to be in an op-ed published in the Portland Business Journal. He went into more detail in an interview with The Lund Report.

Kitzhaber pointed to the soaring health care costs for the nation and Oregon, even as health statistics are “embarrassingly poor” compared to other industrialized nations.

“We somehow have to change the focus and the focus to me really needs to be health, not health care,” Kitzhaber said in the interview.

For example, investments in nutrition can help Oregonians prevent chronic health problems like high blood pressure and obesity, Kitzhaber said.

The state needs to focus on those upstream issues that can impact health, which the ballot measure doesn’t do, Kitzhaber said.

“I actually think you should be able to include adequate food as part of the coverage piece,” Kitzhaber said.

Kitzhaber said that the ballot measure doesn’t address the health care delivery system, which continues to grow in cost and be the problem.

“The system itself is unsustainable,” Kitzhaber said. “We need to rethink the financial incentives within the system.”’

Passed by the Legislature in 2021 as Senate Joint Resolution 12, the ballot measure followed years of debate. The late Rep. Mitch Greenlick, a longtime Democratic lawmaker and former chair of the House Health Care Committee, for more than a decade tried to get a similar measure passed before he died in 2020.

The measure continues to be supported by prominent lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-NW Portland/Beaverton, a physician who sponsored the 2021 legislation, and Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, chair of the Interim House Health Care Committee. The Oregon Nurses Association and a range of health care providers also support the ballot measure.

Kitzhaber said Greenlick was a “dear friend” and they agreed that everyone should receive coverage. At the same time, he said, “we would go around and around on this about coverage,” which isn’t the same as health.

In his op-ed, he wrote: “It seems counterintuitive to create a constitutional right to access a medical system within which the economic incentives are aligned to a maximize revenue, rather than health, and which, by even the most conservative estimates, wastes at least 25% of each dollar is spends on low value care, over treatment, poor care coordination and over-pricing.”

Rather than simply a right to access the system, Kitzhaber wrote: “If we are going to amend the constitution, it would make more sense to create, as a fundamental right, ‘an equitable opportunity to be healthy.’ This would imply that every Oregonian has the right to access some basic, defined level of affordable, effective, quality medical care — but also to affordable housing, nutrition, a clean environment, a safe neighborhood, a good education, and a living wage job. Making access to medical care a fundamental right, without effectively addressing equity and opportunity in accessing the social determinants of health, will undermine, rather than enhance the health of our society.”

You can reach Ben Botkin at ben@thelundreport.org or via Twitter @BenBotkin1.

Oct 20 2022

Submitted By: constance@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

Hello community, I do not live in Wheeler so why would I care about who is elected to the Wheeler City Council? Mainly because I drive through the town regularly and I do not want to see Wheeler lose its charm or uniqueness. The City Council has the power to alter that.
There are several people I know who are running and some I don’t. Walt Porter; forever North County resident, good person, what I respect most about Walt, he keeps throwing himself into local community politics/service. We should all be a Walt! Dave Bell; long term resident, good person and I believe he may bring cohesion to the council. Mary Leverette; newish to the area, mega Portland experience, good person and may bring a ‘bigger picture’ view to the council for sourcing new revenue. Karen Matthew; friend, long term resident, good person and is the most vocal and passionate for keeping the quaintness of Wheeler alive and intact. Because I know Karen more than the others, I know her as an excellent communicator, engaged in the community, organized, fair and has Wheeler Council experience. I would like to see Karen & Mary voted in, they are both strong women, loud, passionate and willing to put their butts on the court. When they put their differences aside, I believe Wheeler will benefit greatly from having them both on the Council, as we all watch from the stands.
Wheeler residents it’s up to you, please vote!

Submitted By: tevisdiii@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Here’s an alternative perspective that would make Hunter Thompson sit up and applaud.

www.sott.net/article/472461-Joe-Bidens-last-stand

Posted by Tevis

Submitted By: nmccarthy1276@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Suppose novelist Ernest Hemingway arrived at Oregon’s North Coast and wanted to write about his experience in a maximum of 600 words. What would he write?
This year’s Writers Read Celebration, sponsored by the Cannon Beach Library, asks that question with the theme, “Hemingway at the beach: What Would He Say?”
Writers of all ages are invited to consider how or what Hemingway would say while at the beach. All written formats will be considered (essay, story, poetry, haiku, script, etc.) Authors are limited to three
entries with a 600-word maximum per entry. The deadline for submissions is Jan. 20.
A panel of volunteer judges will select 10 to 12 works to be read by their authors either in person or online during the celebration March 10 in the library.
Hemingway wrote about his experiences using as few words as possible, and his novels and short stories have become classics. The Writers Read Celebration offers an opportunity to have fun with this writing style in any form; the piece can be serious, whimsical, tongue-in-cheek or thoughtful.
Submissions will be accepted by email (info@cannonbeachlibrary.org) or by mail (P.O. Box 486
Cannon Beach, OR 97110), though email is preferred.
Submissions should be in Word or PDF format and include a cover letter with the writer’s name, email
and phone number. Please do not include the author’s name or contact information on the entry
document so authors remain anonymous during the judging process.
The NW Authors Series Committee sponsors monthly author presentations and other events at the
Cannon Beach Library. This is the fifth year of the Writers Read Celebration. Previous themes were:
“Life on the North Coast,” “The View from the North Coast,” “Pandemic” and “Recovery?.” Writers Read Celebrations on Zoom from 2022 and 2021 are available for viewing on Cannon Beach Library’s website.

Submitted By: clif@home-sellers.com – Click to email about this post

I need your Support!
Hi, it’s Clif Kemp, City Councilor in Wheeler. As the vote deadline approaches, I just wanted to reach out to anyone that has not cast their ballot, to please consider my re-election for the 2 year seat. It’s been a great honor to serve you on the Planning Commission and City Council for these past 25-30 months.
I have several projects underway for new revenue potential to the city with long term parking fees, boat ramp fees and waterfront park seasonal vendors fees. Mary Johnson has copies of my initial proposals, which is a complicated issue with several land owners involved: ODOT, Tillamook RR, ODFW, and city of Wheeler, and considerations for merchants and adjacent businesses. I am the Council rep to Port of Nehalem, where we are looking for some dredging help, most of which is on DSL leases (again complicated). I was honored to be chosen by the Council to be lead Councilor for waterfront development, blight conforming issues in residential and commercial areas, and Council rep to TSP for 10 year strategy for waterfront development, trails, walkways, and safety for Wheeler.
I’ll need help on fresh ideas, from non-conflicted councilors, and chose to support Karen Mathews and Deanne Ragnell, who have worked tirelessly for improving the city over the years that I have here. I don’t think sending individuals with openly expressed relationships of interest with this particular developer will serve the best interest of the city to attain some logical development done with Botts Marsh, LLC, or any other Developer. If you have followed any of the city affairs recently, you are aware I have a strong background of developing and building in retail, real estate, property management, and business startups. I’m not here to pick on anyone, just to be the voice of reason. Thanks for listening, and thanks for voting, together we can get this done.