OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Complacency could
kill health care law
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Logging in parts of the Bear Creek watershed near Astoria recently re-
sulted in greater than expected revenue. Harvests typically account for
less than 25 percent of the growth in the area, according to city staff.
Astoria wise
to invest in
watershed
I
t has become commonplace among political elites to
observe that clean, fresh water will increasing become one
of the world’s most precious and fought-over resources as
this century progresses.
Astoria leaders couldn’t have known this decades ago when
a series of wise decisions led to acquisition of the city’s for-
est watershed, but we and future generations will have ample
reasons to be thankful for their understanding of water’s
importance.
In late August, The Daily Astorian provided a thorough
update on the city’s watershed and ongoing management of its
timber. Routinely thinning the forest enhances its health and
biological diversity, while improving fire safety and generating
revenue and forestry jobs.
Last month’s logging yielded $228,651 net revenue for the
city, mostly from harvesting non-native, disease-prone trees.
Much of the native vegetation was preserved, including healthy
spruce, hemlock and Pacific silver fir. Watershed managers are
systematically steering the forest away from Douglas fir, the
species favored in the region’s intensely harvested industrial
tree plantations. Carefully planned harvests within the water-
shed take pains to avoid creating erosion, sedimentation and
other impacts on water quality
and the environment.
It would
Water originating in the city’s
wholly owned 3,700-acre for-
be hard to
est once fed the city’s booming
overstate the
canneries and now supplies its
breweries. It includes 32 miles
long-term
of stream and tributaries, Bear
importance
Creek Reservoir, Middle Lake
and Wickiup Lake.
of Astoria’s
The city’s forest is a thriving
watershed
storehouse for carbon that could
management
otherwise be contributing to
global climate problems. Astoria
choices
was paid $2.2 million two years
ago when it enrolled in a car-
bon-credit program — essentially being paid to not aggressively
harvest for the next 20 years. The city has since sold an addi-
tional $40,000 worth of carbon credits. Funds have been spent
on city firefighting equipment and also placed in the capital
improvement fund.
It would be hard to overstate the long-term importance of
Astoria’s watershed management choices. Although, unlike
much of the world, precipitation is actually forecast to increase
in the Pacific Northwest in coming decades, we will also strug-
gle with increasing population pressure and the need to manage
more-intense rainfall events.
Only time will tell whether forecasts are accurate. But smart
planning — past, present and future — puts Astoria in a far
more advantageous position than countless other places in a
changing world. Even now, it isn’t too late for all surround-
ing communities to slowly make similar investments in healthy
watersheds. It will be more difficult and expensive than when
Astoria did so, but a great bargain compared to what it will cost
50 years from now.
I
haven’t yet read Hillary
Clinton’s “What Happened,”
but it seems pretty clear to me
what did, in fact,
happen in 2016.
These days,
America starts
from a baseline of
extreme tribalism:
47 or 48 percent
of the electorate
will vote for any Republican, no
matter how terrible, and against any
Democrat, no matter how good.
This means, in turn, that small
things — journalists acting like
mean kids in high school, ganging
up on candidates they consider
uncool, events that suggest fresh
scandal even when there’s nothing
there — can tip the balance in
favor of even the worst candidate
imaginable.
And, crucially, last year far too
many people were complacent;
they assumed that Donald Trump
couldn’t possibly become president,
so they felt free to engage in trivial
pursuits. Then they woke up to
find that the inconceivable had
happened.
Is something similar about to go
down with health care?
Republican attempts to destroy
Obamacare have repeatedly failed,
and for very good reason. Their
attacks on the Affordable Care Act
were always based on lies, and they
have never come up with a decent
alternative.
The simple fact is that all the
major elements of the ACA — pro-
hibiting discrimination by insurers
based on medical history, requiring
that people buy insurance even if
they’re currently healthy, premium
subsidies and Medicaid expansion
that make insurance affordable even
for those with lower incomes — are
there because they’re necessary. Yet
every plan Republicans have offered
would do away with or undermine
those key elements, causing tens of
millions of Americans to lose health
insurance, with the heaviest burden
falling on the most vulnerable.
All this should be clear to
everyone by now. So you might
be tempted to assume that no plan
along these lines can possibly pass,
let alone one that, if anything, looks
worse than what we’ve seen so far.
But it’s precisely because so many
people assume that the threat is
behind us, and have turned their
attention elsewhere, that health care
is once again in danger.
The sponsors of the Graham-
Cassidy bill now working its way
toward a U.S. Senate vote claim to
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.,
right, talk while walking to a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington,
D.C., in July. Senate Republicans are planning a final, uphill push to
erase President Barack Obama’s health care law.
be offering a moderate approach
that preserves the good things about
Obamacare. In other words, they
are maintaining the GOP norm
of lying both about the content of
Obamacare and about what would
replace it.
In reality, Graham-Cassidy is the
opposite of moderate. It contains, in
exaggerated and almost caricature
form, all the elements that made
previous Republican proposals
so cruel and destructive. It would
eliminate the individual mandate,
undermine if not effectively elim-
inate protection for people with
pre-existing conditions, and slash
funding for subsidies and Medicaid.
There are a few additional twists,
but they’re all bad — notably, a
funding formula that would penalize
states that are actually successful in
reducing the number of uninsured.
Did this bill’s sponsors —
Lindsey Graham, Bill Cassidy,
Ron Johnson and Dean Heller —
manage to get through months of
health care debate without learning
anything about the issue? Maybe.
But surely the rest of the Senate, not
to mention much of the public, has
wised up about false Republican
promises. A huge majority of voters,
almost 2 to 1, consider it a good
thing that previous attempts at
repealing and replacing Obamacare
failed.
Yet there is a real chance
that Graham-Cassidy, which is
similar to but even worse than
previous Republican proposals, will
nonetheless become law, because
not enough people are taking it
seriously.
As in the presidential election,
we start from a baseline of extreme
tribalism, in which 48 or 49
Republican senators will vote for
anything, no matter how awful, that
bears their party’s seal of approval.
To make a bill the law, its sponsors
only need to win one or two more
votes.
The main reason Republican
leaders couldn’t do that on previous
health bills was public outrage
and activism. Letters and phone
calls, demonstrators and crowds
at town halls, made it clear that
many Americans were aware of
the stakes, and that politicians
who voted to take health care
away from millions would be held
accountable.
Now, however, the news
cycle has moved on, taking
public attention with it. Many
progressives have already begun
taking Obamacare’s achievements
for granted, and are moving on
from protest against right-wing
schemes to dreams of single-payer.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly the
kind of environment in which
swing senators, no longer in the
spotlight, might be bribed or bullied
into voting for a truly terrible bill.
The good news is that for
technical reasons of parliamentary
procedure, Graham-Cassidy has to
pass by the end of this month, or
not at all. The bad news is that such
passage is a real possibility.
So if you care about preserv-
ing the huge gains the ACA has
brought, make your voice heard.
Otherwise we may wake up to
another terrible morning after.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 439 Cannon House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20515.
Phone: 202- 225-0855. Fax 202-225-
9497. District office: 12725 SW Mil-
likan Way, Suite 220, Beaverton, OR
97005. Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax
503-326-5066. Web: bonamici.house.
gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313
Hart Senate Office Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden.
senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D): State
Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E., H-373,
Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-
1431. Web: www.leg.state.or.us/witt/
Email: rep.bradwitt@state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone (D):
900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem,
OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432.
Email: rep.deborah boone@state.
or.us District office: P.O. Box 928,
Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone:
503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/ boone/
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john-
son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy-
johnson.com District Office: P.O.
Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone:
503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296.
Astoria office phone: 503-338-1280.
• Port of Astoria: Executive
Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto-
ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300.
Email: admin@portofastoria.com
• Clatsop County Board of Com-
missioners: c/o County Manager, 800
Exchange St., Suite 410, Astoria, OR
97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.