2A — THE OBSERVER
D aily
P lanner
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
LOCAL
Former governor said new approach needed
By Kathy Aney
TODAY
EO Media Group
Today is Monday, Sept.
23, the 266th day of 2019.
There are 99 days left in the
year.
HERMISTON — Former
Gov. John Kitzhaber started
his keynote speech at Thurs-
day’s health care summit in
Hermiston with a personal
story.
He told of his early years
as a 27-year-old Roseburg
emergency room doctor
fresh out of medical school
and awed by the responsi-
bility of caring for people
who arrived at the hospital
injured, sick, confused or
frightened. Occasionally,
patients died.
“When I was unable to
save a life, I walked across
the hall to a small room
where people waited for
news of their loved ones,” he
said. “It seemed like a long,
lonely journey across 30 feet
of tile floor.”
In those days, he treated
each individual patient
without regard to cost, view-
ing death as the enemy and
treating people as individu-
als. In 1978, he was elected
to the Oregon House of Rep-
resentatives where he was
forced to look at health care
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On Sept. 23, 2005, Hurri-
cane Rita, down to Category
3, steamed toward refinery
towns along the Texas-Lou-
isiana coast, creating havoc
even before it arrived; levee
breaks caused new flooding
in New Orleans, and 23
people were killed when a
bus carrying nursing-home
evacuees caught fire in
Texas.
ON THIS DATE
In 1806, the Lewis and
Clark expedition returned
to St. Louis more than two
years after setting out for
the Pacific Northwest.
In 1949, President Harry
S. Truman announced there
was evidence the So-
viet Union had recently
conducted a nuclear test
explosion.
Kathy Aney/EO Media Group
Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber chats with Chuck
Hoffmann after speaking about health care delivery in
Oregon on Thursday at the EOCCO Clinician & Staff
Summit in Hermiston.
from a different angle.
“I came face-to-face with a
fundamental contradiction,”
he said. “As a legislator, I
couldn’t ignore the cost.”
Kitzhaber’s keynote
speech this week came
midway through the 2019
Eastern Oregon Coordinated
Care Organization Clini-
cian & Staff Summit at the
Eastern Oregon Trade and
Event Center. Clinicians,
health care administrators
and policy makers sitting at
white, linen-covered tables
listened to Kitzhaber’s
thoughts on national and
state health care reform.
Kitzhaber said he be-
lieves we are thinking about
health care all wrong on the
national level.
“For decades, we’ve been
asking the wrong question.
We’ve been asking about the
subsidies and who pays,” he
said. “Instead we should be
asking, ‘Why does health
care cost so much in the first
place?’”
He said price points in the
U.S. are higher than most
anywhere else in the world.
“Why?” he asked the group.
Kitzhaber ticked off sev-
eral reasons. Private equity
investors are buying up the
most profitable parts of the
system, driving up costs.
Insurance companies have
cut eligibility and lowered
reimbursement rates. The
national debt increases to
pay for hikes in Medicare
and Medicaid costs.
“The insured uninsured”
have $5,000 deductibles and
“don’t really have insurance
at all,” he quipped. “Cost
shifting is the way we avoid
confronting reality.”
One way out, he said, is
funding health care from a
specific pot of money indexed
to a sustainable growth rate.
“That’s exactly what we’re
trying to do in Oregon with
the CCOs,” Kitzhaber said.
In 2009, as a state senator,
Kitzhaber helped pioneer
the Oregon Health Plan. He
later helped birth the state’s
system of 15 coordinated
care organizations, locally
governed networks of health
care providers who deliver
care to the state’s most vul-
nerable residents. The idea is
to focus on prevention to get
people healthy, reduce visits
to expensive emergency
rooms and lower costs. The
EOCCO serves Umatilla,
Morrow and 10 other East-
ern Oregon counties.
During the first five years,
some CCOs performed better
than others, but the state
saved more than $1 billion.
There were bumps, too,
including the Cover Oregon
disaster, and the state’s Af-
fordable Care Act insurance
exchange website designed
by Oracle Corp., which failed
spectacularly.
Kitzhaber is unhappy
with recent reforms to Or-
egon health care, which he
called CCO 2.0. Last week,
he sent a letter to Gov. Kate
Brown, House Speaker Tina
Kotek and Senate President
Peter Courtney to weigh
in on two developments he
considers especially worri-
some.
Notice
LOTTERY
Megabucks: $2.2 million
Recently, Avista requested an increase in natural gas rates for our
customers in Oregon. We know you care about your energy costs,
so we think it’s important to share this news with you.
9-13-18-28-35-42
Mega Millions: $227 million
23-24-42-48-53-22-x2
On Sept. 11, 2019, Avista filed an updated Purchased Gas Cost
Adjustment (PGA) request with the Public Utility Commission of Oregon
(PUC) asking for an overall increase of 4.7 percent in natural gas rates.
Powerball: $40 million
1-9-22-36-68-22-x2
Win for Life: Sept. 21
38-57-58-74
Pick 4: Sept. 22
•1p.m.:3-5-5-4
•4p.m.:5-5-1-2
•7p.m.:4-8-1-6
•10p.m.:8-3-6-4
Pick 4: Sept. 21
•1p.m.:2-7-1-2
•4p.m.:2-8-6-7
•7p.m.:0-4-6-8
•10p.m.:2-1-0-7
Pick 4: Sept. 20
•1p.m.:1-4-1-6
•4p.m.:4-1-5-1
•7p.m.:1-2-4-1
•10p.m.:2-6-7-0
NEWSPAPER LATE?
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CORRECTION
In the Page A4 My Voice
“Oregon has opportunity to be
a national leader in health care
reform,” published Wednesday,
Sept. 18, by Dwight Dill mis-
stated his current occupation.
Dill retired in 2018 and is no
longer the mental health direc-
tor at the Center for Human
Development.
On page 1A “New hosuing
to cater to seniors,”published
Wednesday Sept. 16, by
Sabrina Thompson, incorrectly
stated the timeline for comple-
tion. The correct timeline will
have the first home move in
ready by mid-2020.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I cannot endure to waste
anything as precious as
autumn sunshine by staying
in the house.”
— Nathaniel Hawthorne,
EO Media Group file photo
A 2015 overhead shot of Pambrun Vineyard in Milton-
Freewater provides a view of the Willamette Valley
Vineyards-owned property. Willamette is partnering with
the city of Milton-Freewater to house a wine production
facility project.
Milton-Freewater
receives grant for
shared wine facility
■ ■ City wants to promote the region’s top
quality wines with Made in Oregon labels
By Katy Nesbitt
For EO Media Group
MILTON-FREEWATER
— With an eye to bring-
ing more attention to wine
made in Milton-Freewater,
the small Umatilla County
community has hired a
California firm to determine
if a shared production and
tasting facility would benefit
the local wine industry.
City Manager Linda
Hall said the city received
$230,000 from Business
Oregon’s Strategic Reserve
Grant Fund to hire a firm to
complete a market assess-
ment and the design feasibil-
ity. She said the idea is for
the facility to operate as a
co-op by several of the area’s
vintners.
“That is a special niche
that Oregon has over Wash-
ington. We can have multiple
tasting rooms in the same
facility,” Hall said. “We want
to help our agriculture-based
economy and make it pos-
sible for those who produce
wine and grapes in the Rocks
District of Milton-Freewater
to get the recognition they
deserve.”
Hall credited the city’s
partnership with Wallowa
Valley Vineyards, a winery
that owns 36 acres in Milton-
Freewater’s Rocks District, a
designated American Viticul-
tural Area.
“We’ve had this vision for
close to 10 years and have
been trying to turn it into a
reality for a long time,” Hall
said.
Willamette Valley
Vineyard’s farm in Milton-
Freewater has the space to
house the proposed facil-
ity and Business Oregon,
and according to Christine
Clair, the winery’s director,
Business Oregon prefers to
invest in projects that has
private business involve-
ment.
“The facility would be a
huge help building a destina-
tion and cluster of wineries
in Milton-Freewater, a really
special wine growing area,”
she said.
It’s the cobble-strewn soil
that makes it such a special
wine growing area, Clair
said. The only area with a
similar soil type, she said, is
in France.
“The special cobblestones
right at the soil are good for
the vines and Syrah grows
exceptionally well in this,”
Clair said. “For the Walla
Walla Valley, some of the
highest-scored wine comes
from this appellation.”
If this increase is approved, Avista’s natural gas revenues would increase
by approximately $4.0 million. PGAs are filed each year to balance
the actual cost of wholesale natural gas purchased by Avista to serve
customers with the amount included in rates. This includes the natural gas
commodity cost as well as the cost to transport natural gas on interstate
pipelines to Avista’s local distribution system. This rate adjustment is driven
primarily by higher wholesale natural gas prices in the 2018-2019 winter
season, which were caused, in part, by a Canadian pipeline disruption
that restricted natural gas flows into the Pacific Northwest, combined
with colder weather later in the heating season. Avista’s request, if
approved by the PUC, would go into effect on Nov. 1, 2019.
On July 31, 2019, Avista also proposed four other rate adjustments
related to demand side management program funding, intervenor
funding, recovering costs associated with residential bank fees and
decoupling, which would also go into effect on Nov. 1, 2019, if approved.
These filings have no impact on Avista’s earnings.
The bottom line
If all requests, including the PGA, are approved and you are an Avista
natural gas customer using an average of 46 therms per month, you
could expect your bill to increase by $5.16, or 10.7 percent, for a revised
monthly bill of $53.27 beginning Nov. 1, 2019. All other customer groups
receiving firm natural gas service from Avista would also see increases.
For more information
Copies of our filings are available at www.myavista.com/rates,
or you can review the filings by visiting our headquarters at:
1411 E. Mission, Spokane, WA 99252
(800) 227-9187
You can also view copies of the filing at one of our district offices
located at:
580 Business Park Drive, Medford, OR 97504
2825 Dakota Court, Klamath Falls, OR 97603
10201 “F” Street, La Grande, OR 97850
1404 Green Siding Road, Roseburg, OR 97471
This announcement is to provide you with general information about
Avista’s rate request and its effect on customers. The calculations and
statements in this announcement are not binding on the PUC. For more
information about the filing or for information about the time and place
of any hearing, contact the PUC at:
Public Utility Commission of Oregon
201 High Street SE, Ste. 100
Salem, OR 97301
(800) 522-2404, www.puc.state.or.us
This notice contains forward-looking statements regarding the company’s
current expectations. Forward-looking statements are all statements other than
historical facts. Such statements speak only as of the date of the notice and are
subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the
company’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the
expectations. These risks and uncertainties include, in addition to those discussed
herein, all of the factors discussed in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K
for the year ended Dec. 31, 2018 and the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the
quarter ended June 30, 2019.