OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Greg
Walden, R-Ore., joined at right by Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., rank-
ing member of the Budget Committee, makes a point as the House
Rules Committee meets to shape the final version of the Republi-
can health care bill before it goes to the floor for debate and a vote.
Ramming new
health plan into
law a mistake
C
ongress’ proposed alternative to Obamacare would not
force anyone off the Oregon Health Plan. Let’s be clear
about that.
But let’s be equally clear: Hundreds of thousands of
Oregonians could lose their health insurance.
That contradiction exists because the so-called American
Health Care Act is not health care reform. It is financial
reform, or at least change. The plan put forth by congressional
Republicans and the Trump administration would slash federal
spending on health care, shifting much of that responsibility to
the states.
Still, it’s disingenuous for Republicans to say no one would
be kicked off Medicaid, or for Democrats to say millions
of Americans would be, as if those outcomes were guaran-
teed. As with the health plan’s predecessor — the Affordable
Care Act, or Obamacare — no one knows precisely what will
happen.
The question for Congress and the American people comes
down to how much our government should spend on health
coverage for low- and moderate-income Americans.
If states have the money — which few, if any, will —
they could continue serving all their Medicaid recipients. In
Oregon, where
most Medicaid cov-
erage is through
The Affordable
the Oregon Health
Care Act and the
Plan, that could
new congressional
cost the state an
additional $2.6 bil-
plan share other
lion over five years.
similarities —
That is why state
officials say as
unfortunate ones,
many as 375,000
starting with lack
people could lose
Oregon Health Plan
of clarity at the
coverage by 2023.
outset.
Democratic Gov.
Kate Brown said
last week that the number of uninsured Oregonians would tri-
ple, from the current 5 percent of the population to 15 per-
cent. That is because of bureaucratic hurdles imposed by the
American Health Care Act, as well as reduced subsidies and
Oregon’s inability to cover the increased costs.
The Republican plan would repeal and replace the
Affordable Care Act, which had little to do with health-care
reform either. The reform was in insurance coverage, although
Oregon was able to improve care while reducing price hikes.
The key was the establishment of coordinated care organi-
zations, whose collaborative model of overall health care
reduced emergency room visits and hospital admissions. On
the other hand, Cover Oregon was an expensive fiasco, and it
is still costing Oregon money.
The Affordable Care Act and the new congressional plan
share other similarities — unfortunate ones, starting with lack
of clarity at the outset.
Changes in the American Health Care Act are likely because
the current proposal appears to please no one. Conservatives
in the Republican congressional majority contend the plan
remains too much like Obamacare. Minority Democrats com-
plain that it undoes Obamacare’s good points.
Unfortunately, congressional Republicans appear ready to
follow the Democrats’ bad example and ram their health-fi-
nance plan down the throats of the opposition. That strategy
resulted in the Affordable Care Act we currently have — a mix
of flaws, successes and uncertainties.
A Republican plan that follows a similar unilateral approach
will yield a similar outcome.
Tweeting toward oblivion
By FRANK BRUNI
New York Times News Service
D
onald Trump faces a stark
choice. He can tweet, or he
can govern.
He can indulge his persecution
complex, firing off
missives that com-
pare Barack Obama
to Joseph McCar-
thy and U.S. intel-
ligence officers to
Nazis, or he can
recognize it as a gateway to disgrace
and irrelevance.
He can make his presidency about
his own viscera, or he can make
it about the country’s welfare. He
can do what feels cathartic in the
moment, or he can do what’s con-
structive in the long run. He can dab-
ble in bright colors and shiny objects,
or he can deal in durable truths.
I’m focusing on Twitter because
it teases out his worst traits. It’s the
theater for vainglorious, vindic-
tive, impulsive Trump, and it was
the realm in which he made the wild
accusations that Obama had wire-
tapped Trump Tower. On Mon-
day, James Comey debunked those
charges, certifying them as the gas-
eous fulminations we more or less
knew they were.
And through much of Tuesday,
Trump’s personal Twitter account
essentially went dark. There was
nothing from the hours around dawn,
which is when he typically visits with
his darkest vapors. There was only
anodyne stuff later on: a shout-out
to the scientists at NASA, a salute to
U.S. farmers.
Either someone in his orbit con-
vinced him, at least briefly, of the
damage he was doing and the miser-
able situation he’s in, or Trump him-
self summoned some wisdom and
restraint. He must be capable of that.
Can he continue it?
It could be argued that every pres-
idency is a tug of war between pri-
vate demons and the public interest,
between the commander in chief’s
indulgence of his own psychologi-
cal needs and his attentiveness to the
hard work of America. With Trump
it’s a furiously pitched battle, and the
demons are way out ahead.
One of them hasn’t received the
attention it warrants. With all our
condemnations of Trump the bully,
we’ve overlooked Trump the bul-
lied, which is the version more
likely to bring him down. I mean the
Trump who’s hellbent on believing
that he’s up against ruthless enemies;
the Trump who must amplify every
stride by casting it as a triumph over
formidable odds; the Trump who’s
throwing a pity party for himself the
likes of which few of his predeces-
sors ever attempted.
His election somehow brought
this Trump to the fore. In a paradox
as strange as everything else about
him, victory played handmaiden to a
feeling of victimization: his own
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko
People walk past a caricature of President Donald Trump on sale in a
shopping mall in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday. President Donald
Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked
for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian Pres-
ident Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious po-
litical strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former
Soviet republics, The Associated Press has learned.
and the country’s.
It’s precisely that feeling — “a
sense of persecution bordering on
faith,” as Glenn Thrush and Mag-
gie Haberman wrote in The Times
on Monday — that brought about the
wiretapping tweets.
It’s the
theater for
vainglorious,
vindictive,
impulsive
Trump, and it
was the realm
in which he
made the wild
accusations
that Obama
had wiretapped
Trump Tower.
But it has also brought about
many other ill-advised tweets and
ill-considered public statements,
enveloping Trump in a foul air of
grievance. If it’s not the Mexicans
taking advantage of him and of us,
it’s the Australians or the Germans or
the Chinese. Take your pick.
The “deep state” is out to get him.
The leaks are a plot against him.
Sometimes his mewling has an
obvious prompt. When your approval
ratings have sunk as low as his — a
recent Gallup tracking poll showed
that only 37 percent of Americans
were pleased with his performance
— you have an obvious investment
in calling such surveys rigged and
wrong, as Trump is still doing.
But other whimpering is absurdly
conceived and needlessly divi-
sive. During Angela Merkel’s visit
to Washington last week, he ranted
about an unjust trade imbalance
between Germany and the United
States, crediting Germany with
smarter negotiators. But there are no
such negotiators. We trade not spe-
cifically with Germany but with the
European Union as a whole.
It’s possible that he doesn’t know
that. It’s also possible that he chose
to disregard a detail that would have
complicated and maybe nullified
his complaint. Why let the facts get
in the way of a tantrum that he then
transferred to Twitter, where he bel-
lowed that Germany owed money for
its defense to the United States and
NATO?
It’s funny: Comey’s testimony
Monday made clear that someone
does have a right to feel put upon.
That someone is Hillary Clinton.
He stressed how “hated” she was by
Vladimir Putin. He also confirmed
that before Election Day, intelligence
officers were looking into whether
Putin and the Russians were med-
dling in the election because of that
hatred. At the time Comey said noth-
ing about that, even as he announced
that the FBI was taking a fresh look
at newly discovered Clinton emails.
Trump is no victim. He’s the luck-
iest man alive — or has been, until
now.
But his allies “have begun to won-
der if his need for self-expression,
often on social media, will exceed his
instinct for self-preservation,” Thrush
and Haberman wrote. He can vent his
emotions or exercise his responsibili-
ties. The decision belongs to him, the
consequences to all of us.
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