OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 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
E
ach week we recognize those people and organizations
in the community deserving of public praise for the good
things they do to make the North Coast a better place to
live, and also those who should be called out for their actions.
SHOUTOUTS
This week’s Shoutouts go to:
• Warrenton Mayor
Mark Kujala, who
stepped down this week
after serving more than
a decade on the City
Commission. Kujala is
leaving public office to
focus more time on his
family and business and he
attended his final meeting
as mayor Tuesday evening.
Kujala served on the com-
mission for 12 years, five
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
as mayor, and helped guide Mark Kujala,
left, was recognized
the city through a num-
during his last Warrenton City Com-
ber of difficult challenges. mission meeting as mayor.
Kujala’s fellow commis-
sioners honored him individually and as a group at Tuesday’s
meeting, which featured a large turnout filled with family and
friends. Kujala reminisced about his time in office, saying he
really “enjoyed it,” and that he “wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
• Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce Director
Skip Hauke and Assistant Director Jim Servino, who were rec-
ognized by the Tongue Point Job Corps earlier this month for
the support they have given the organization. Katrina Morrell
Gasser, of the Job Corps, said Servino has been a member of the
local center’s Workforce Council, which plays a vital role by
helping ensure students are trained for jobs in demand. Servino
has been a council member since 2015. Gasser said Hauke has
been a longtime supporter, and has penned strong letters of sup-
port for the organization in times of need.
• The more than 170 volunteers who took part in the 10th
Biennial Nehalem Estuary Cleanup earlier this month that
resulted in more than 2.6 tons of trash being picked up. In addi-
tion, the participants gathered 1,369 pounds of recyclable and
reusable material and 60 pounds of hazardous or potentially
hazardous material from Nehalem Bay. The cleanup effort
was led by community partners Lower Nehalem Community
Trust, Lower Nehalem Watershed Council, CARTM, Nehalem
Bay State Park, the North Coast Land Conservancy and the
Tillamook Estuaries Partnership.
• Pam Ackley and Barbara Maltman, Windermere Stellar
Real Estate brokers in Gearhart, and Kate Merrell and Jackie
Weber, brokers in the company’s Cannon Beach office, who
were honored by the firm for being in the top 10 percent of 2016
production. The 39 brokers on the company’s overall list handled
a total of 1,890 combined sales, contributing to the growth in the
real estate markets of Portland-metro, Vancouver-metro and the
north Oregon Coast. Joan Allen, Windermere Stellar co-owner,
said the brokers also consistently play a large role within the
company’s charitable giving. In 2016 the company’s 11 offices
combined to donate $360,000 to 41 charities supporting low-in-
come families and children.
• Ilwaco High School girls basketball player Makenzie
Kaech, who was selected this week to the first team Washington
Class B All State Team by the Associated Press. Kaech helped
lead the Lady Fishermen to a fifth place finish in the state tour-
nament in the 58-team 2B classification after a magical 23-win
regular season. The team had six additional wins in the playoffs,
and as Kaech said afterward about the tournament run, “Kids
dream of playing here growing up.”
CALLOUTS
This week’s Callouts go to:
• The federal Wildlife Services agency, which is using an
indiscriminate, controversial trapping method. Earlier this month
the federal agency accidentally killed a wolf in Wallowa County
with an M-44, a cyanide-based trap that shoots poison into the
mouth of a canine. The traps are intended for coyotes. Just a
week later, a family dog was killed by an M-44 in Idaho, and a
young boy who was nearby was injured when the trap went off.
Trapping is difficult work and saves the lives of many animals by
culling those causing a problem. But the M-44s are also a prob-
lem, especially for a state that has an increasing wolf population
and has spent a lot of time and money working on their recov-
ery. Placing something in the woods that indiscriminately kills
canines is not smart, and the trapping methods need to be updated
with newer, more ethical technology than using an M-44.
Suggestions?
Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let
us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look.
The winding road to
single-payer health care
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
ASHINGTON —
Repeal-and-replace
(for Obamacare) is not
quite dead. It has been declared
so, but what that
means is that, for
now, the president
has (apparently)
washed his hands
of it and the House
Republicans
appear unable to reconcile their
differences.
Neither condition needs to be
permanent. There are ideologi-
cal differences between the var-
ious GOP factions, but what’s
overlooked is the role that proce-
dure played in producing the dead-
lock. And procedure can easily be
changed.
The House leadership crafted
a bill that would meet the delicate
requirements of “reconciliation” in
order to create a (more achievable)
threshold of 51 rather than 60 votes
in the Senate. But this meant that
some of the more attractive, mar-
ket-oriented reforms had to be left
out, relegated to a future measure
(a so-called phase-three bill) that
might never actually arrive.
Yet the more stripped-down
proposal died anyway. So why not
go for the gold next time? Pass
a bill that incorporates phase-
three reforms and send it on to the
Senate.
September might be the time
for resurrecting repeal-and-replace.
That’s when insurers recalibrate
premiums for the coming year,
precipitating our annual bout of
Obamacare sticker shock. By then,
even more insurers will be drop-
ping out of the exchanges, further
reducing choice and service. These
should help dissipate the pre-emp-
tive nostalgia for Obamacare that
emerged during the current debate.
At which point, the House lead-
ership should present a repeal-and-
replace that includes such phase-
three provisions as tort reform and
permitting the buying of insurance
across state lines, both of which
would significantly lower costs.
Even more significant would
be stripping out the heavy-handed
Obamacare coverage mandate
that dictates what specific medi-
cal benefits must be included in
every insurance policy in the coun-
try, regardless of the purchaser’s
desires or needs.
Best to mandate nothing. Let
the customer decide. A 60-year-old
couple doesn’t need maternity cov-
erage. Why should they be forced
to pay for it? And I don’t know
about you, but I don’t need lacta-
tion services.
This would satisfy the House
Freedom Caucus’ correct insis-
tence on dismantling Obamacare’s
stifling regulatory straitjacket —
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump listens in the Cabinet Room of the White House
on Wednesday. Sixty-two percent of Americans turned thumbs down on
Trump’s handling of health care during the initial weeks of his presiden-
cy, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public
Affairs Research. It was his worst rating among seven issues the poll
tested, which included the economy, foreign policy and immigration.
without scaring off moderates who
should understand that no one is
being denied “essential health ben-
efits.” Rather, no one is being
required to buy what the Jonathan
Grubers of the world have decided
everyone must have.
As Obamacare
continues to
unravel, it
won’t take
much for
Democrats to
abandon that
Rube Goldberg
wreckage and
go for the
simplicity and
the universality
of Medicare-
for-all.
It is true that even if this revised
repeal-and-replace passes the
House, it might die by filibuster in
the Senate. In which case, let the
Senate Democrats explain them-
selves and suffer the consequences.
Perhaps, however, such a bill might
engender debate and revision —
and come back to the House for an
old-fashioned House-Senate con-
ference and a possible compro-
mise. This in and of itself would
constitute major progress.
That’s procedure. It’s fixable.
But there is an ideological consid-
eration that could ultimately deter-
mine the fate of any Obamacare
replacement. Obamacare may
turn out to be unworkable, indeed
doomed, but it is having a pro-
found effect on the zeitgeist: It is
universalizing the idea of universal
coverage.
Acceptance of its major prem-
ise — that no one be denied health
care — is more widespread than
ever. Even House Speaker Paul
Ryan avers that “our goal is to give
every American access to qual-
ity, affordable health care,” making
universality an essential premise of
his own reform. And look at how
sensitive and defensive Republi-
cans have been about the possibil-
ity of people losing coverage in
any Obamacare repeal.
A broad national consensus
is developing that health care is
indeed a right. This is historically
new. And it carries immense impli-
cations for the future. It suggests
that we may be heading inexorably
to a government-run, single-payer
system. It’s what Barack Obama
once admitted he would have pre-
ferred but didn’t think the coun-
try was ready for. It may be ready
now.
As Obamacare continues to
unravel, it won’t take much for
Democrats to abandon that Rube
Goldberg wreckage and go for the
simplicity and the universality of
Medicare-for-all. Republicans will
have one last chance to try to con-
vince the country to remain with
a market-based system, preferably
one encompassing all the provi-
sions that, for procedural reasons,
had been left out of their latest
proposal.
Don’t be surprised, however, if,
in the end, single-payer wins out.
Indeed, I wouldn’t be terribly sur-
prised if Donald Trump, reading
the zeitgeist, pulls the greatest 180
since Disraeli dished the Whigs
in 1867 (by radically expanding
the franchise) and joins the sin-
gle-payer side.
Talk about disruption? About
kicking over the furniture? That
would be an American Krakatoa.
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