FROM PAGE ONE

because they did not have enough
employees to cover it.”
Even so, the Union County
Fair will have upward of 60 ven-
dors in attendance throughout the
week, with most opening from
10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday
through Saturday. Likewise, the
Union County Fair has a full
schedule of entertainment during
the week including live music
acts and a hypnotist.
After last year’s cancelation,
the board of directors is looking
to bring the fair back in full force.
“We have more animals than
we’ve ever had and we have more
art and photography than we’ve
ever had,” Haddock said. “I feel
like it’s coming back really strong
this year.”
Building a reputation
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Lou Gerber, left, judges a piece of artwork at the Union County Fairgrounds on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021.
FAIR
Continued from Page A1
the position off and on since 2017.
While it may be her fi rst year as
fair manager, Gover-Shaw has
lived her whole life in La Grande
and attended the Union County
Fair frequently.
“She’s wonderful to work
with,” said Union County Fair
Board President Jamie Jo Had-
dock. “We ran with Margaret for
a while and then she handed the
torch to Kathy. It’s a fairly new
board, so we’re all learning.”
Adjusting to COVID-19
As the board looks to bring
the fair back to La Grande for the
fi rst time since 2019, certain chal-
lenges related to the pandemic
have been unavoidable.
“Fairs are important to con-
nect our agricultural community
HEALTH
Continued from Page A1
she said. “That’s true in
rural areas where there is
only one hospital.”
And without that market
power, hospitals have no
incentive or need to lower
their costs. But if price
transparency doesn’t have
the ability to lower prices,
then what entity or law
could?
“The way that health
insurance has been lowered
has been through negotia-
tion with powerful entities,
such as Medicare or Med-
icaid,” Sharma said.
For the average con-
sumer, Sharma admitted,
the ability to infl uence
prices of health care is low,
and the patients mostly rely
on their physician to make
choices for them regarding
their health care.
“(Health care prices are)
very inelastic because your
life and your health is at
stake,” Sharma said, “and
because consumers rely on
professionals rather than
their own judgement to
make choices.”
Succinctly, a patient who
needs an appendectomy
isn’t likely to spend their
precious time deliberating
over prices when their life
is in danger — they’ll go to
the nearest hospital and face
the consequences of pay-
ment later.
But for other procedures,
such as diagnostic testing,
the outcome isn’t as clear;
even less clear is the notion
that consumers would use
price transparency to their
advantage.
“There is a lot of chatter
about, ‘Oh, if I knew about
the price I would actu-
ally price-shop,’” said Atul
Gupta, an assistant pro-
fessor of health care man-
agement at University of
Pennsylvania during a uni-
versity podcast on health
care transparency. “The evi-
dence suggests that a very
small fraction of people
who have that tool available
to them actually use it.”
“Price transparency is a
great concept in principle,”
to everybody else who doesn’t
get to experience these things,”
Haddock said. “So, it’s very
important that we bring the fair
back.”
The Union County Fair will be
without the fan-favorite carnival
rides this year, but Bubble Fun
will provide infl atable bounce
houses, obstacle courses, bungee
jumping and bumper balls.
Davis Amusement Cascadia
Inc. typically supplied the car-
nival rides, but the company went
out of business in January 2020
after 80 years. While COVID-19
has had similar eff ects on amuse-
ment companies across the
country, Union County Fair board
members hope to bring back the
rides next year.
“We want to bring the carnival
back,” Haddock said. “Bubble
Fun was just very willing to help
this year.”
According to Haddock, the
board hopes to have both carnival
Sharma said, “but is incred-
ibly hard to implement in
practice.”
Following the laws
Most hospitals in Eastern
Oregon follow the laws
regarding price transpar-
ency — all hospitals in the
region have price compar-
ison tools readily available
to patients on their web por-
tals allowing them to com-
pare prices between typical
procedures. Compliance
with the full extent of the
law, however, is less than
ideal.
Out of the seven hos-
pitals that serve most of
Eastern Oregon, only four
follow the second require-
ment of the transparency
laws, and completely forgo
a machine-readable fi le.
And the consequences
for ignoring the law are
minor; the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid
Services, which oversees
the price transparency laws,
is allowed to fi ne hospitals
up to $300 per day for non-
compliance. For a full year,
this works out to just more
than $100,000. CHI St.
Anthony Hospital in Pend-
leton, in comparison, on
its 2020 tax form reported
revenue exceeding $18.7
million.
CMS offi cials are pro-
posing to stiff en those fi nes
to a minimum civil mone-
tary penalty of $300 per day
that would apply to smaller
hospitals with a bed count
of 30 or fewer, according
to the center, and apply a
penalty of $10 per bed per
day for hospitals with a bed
count greater than 30, not to
exceed $5,500 per day.
That would raise the
maximum penalty for non-
compliance to just above
$2 million. But even with
a heavy fi ne, some hospi-
tals are unsure about what
that machine-readable fi le
would entail, and whether
or not that information
would be of particular use-
fulness to analysts and app
developers.
“The challenge with the
machine-readable fi les is
that the defi nitions of those
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rides and Bubble Fun at next
year’s fair. Frank Davis, owner of
Bubble Fun, brought the infl at-
ables to the Union County Fair all
the way from Paso Robles, Cali-
fornia. Scheduling entertainment
has been one of the many chal-
lenges for Gover-Shaw in coor-
dinating her fi rst county fair, but
she said she is rolling with the
punches.
“Unfortunately, I got on really
late, but thank goodness I have
an amazing board,” Gover-Shaw
said.
According to the new fair
manager, four regional carnival
businesses went out of business
during the pandemic. In addition
to entertainment shortages, the
lack of restaurant employees has
impacted vendors as well.
“We have a lot of the same
vendors back, ones that have been
here year after year after year,”
she said. “We do have some that
were not able to be here this year
are diff erent depending
on the hospital,” Bittner
of Trinity Health said.
“Without common defi ni-
tions, then the compara-
bility of that information is
signifi cantly lacking.”
Information overload
Further, Sharma con-
tended that for the average
Gover-Shaw hopes that her
fi rst year as fair manager pre-
cedes more successful fairs and
continued growth of the event in
years to come. According to Had-
dock, the board aims to improve
plumbing at the fairgrounds as
well as implementing a sewer
system.
As a lifelong La Grande resi-
dent, Gover-Shaw has a personal
mission to continue enhancing
the Union County Fair.
“I’m planning on being the fair
manager for a while,” she said.
“With this amazing board we
have a lot of improvements we
want to do out here.”
The Union County Fair offi -
cially started on Aug. 4 and
extends through Aug. 7. After
canceling the event last year, the
board members have high hopes
for this summer’s event.
“As a community we’re trying
to make it bigger and better,”
Gover-Shaw said. “Everybody’s
just got to get out and sup-
port it, so we can make it better
every year.”
Alex Wittwer/The Observer
Linda Schreiner inspects a quilt for judging at the Union County Fairgrounds on
Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021.
health care consumer, price
transparency is rendered
nearly ineff ective due to
the volume of information
required to make informed
choices regarding care.
“The informational
requirements on patients is
enormous,” Sharma said.
“Even if you had perfect
price transparency, and
even if that transparent
price was incredibly well
customized, there is still so
much uncertainty regarding
exactly what would be
required, that it would be
diffi cult to sort through
these possibly hundreds of
price combinations for the
fi ve or six hospitals that are
reasonably available.”
Bittner said hospitals in
the Trinity Health system,
such as St. Alphonsus
Medical Center in Baker
City, are working toward
increasing price transpar-
ency across the board to
help its members become
better informed about the
prices they pay for services.
Whether or not price
transparency will help
lower costs, however,
remains the question.
Thursday, August 5th
8:00 am-
10:00 am-
2:00 pm-
5:00 pm-
6:00 pm-
6:30 pm-
8:00 pm-
10:00 pm-
Fair Opens
Exhibit Booths Open
Denny Langford Small Stage
Tammy the Hypnotist Large Stage
Becki’s Studio of Dance
Mutton Busting & Stick Horse Race at Mavericks Arena
Tammy the Hypnotist Large Stage
Fair Closes
Friday, August 6th
8:00 am-
9:00 am-
10:00 am-
2:00 pm-
3:00 pm-
4:00 pm-
6:00 pm-
8:00 pm-
10:00 pm-
ROGERS ASPHALT
Fair Opens
Open Class Dairy Goats
Exhibit Booths Open
Glitter Funk Large Stage
Pee-Wee Show
Fair Parade Line Up
Fair Parade Downtown
Too Slim & The Taildraggers Large Stage
Fair Closes
Saturday, August 7th
8:00 am-
10:00 am-
4:00 pm-
8:00 pm-
10:00 pm-
Fair Opens
Exhibit Booths Open
Wasteland Kings Large Stage
Wasteland Kings Large Stage
Fair Closes
Thank you Dr. Stephen Bump for giving us 30 years
of your dedication and
kindness while providing
excellent medical care
to our community.
We will miss you.
From your GRH family—
we wish you all the best that
a happy retirement brings!
It is richly deserved.
Reclaim Your Freedom And
Independence NOW!
Call Inogen Today To
Request Your FREE Info Kit
1-855-839-0752
Stephen Bump, MD—Internal Medicine
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