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OPINION
East Oregonian
Friday, January 27, 2017
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
MARISSA WILLIAMS
Regional Advertising Director
MARCY ROSENBERG
Circulation Manager
JANNA HEIMGARTNER
Business Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
OUR VIEW
Tip of the hat;
kick in the pants
A kick in the pants to the Hermiston School District’s attempted
sleight of hand Thursday morning, as it once again tried to get us all to
look over there while problems exist right here.
The Oregon Department of Education releases hard and fast graduation
statistics each winter, breaking down how many diplomas were handed out
in each district and individual school the previous year.
Hermiston has made it a point to publish
a rosy press release when state reports
become available to boast how well its
schools are doing. And it’s true, looking at
a sliver of the data, that the high school is
performing better than the state average.
Trumpets, confetti.
But take one half step back and you’ll
see Hermiston high schoolers as a whole are
performing worse than both the state and
the region. Of all the students considered
the class of 2016, only 65.7 percent
graduated. On the front page of today’s East Oregonian you’ll see that ranks
it last among area districts.
The discrepancy between reality and spin comes because the school
district doesn’t include — in the data it’s promoting — the now-defunct
Innovative Learning Center, where students who fell off the traditional path
to graduation can seek out an alternative education,
In that program, which had 98 students, only four graduated on time.
Many were on a path to a five- or six-year diploma, or a GED, or had life
circumstances get in their path to graduation. That’s understandable, and
certainly a consideration in every district. The program was closed after last
school year.
The point is, it’s deceptive for the school district to put out a public
message ignoring those students. It’s disingenuous to pretend that just
because they’re counted in a different column in a state spreadsheet, they’re
not indicative of the school district’s mission of getting diplomas to every
student. And the school district should end the now-annual practice of
falsely representing data in only the best of lights. If it wants to put out a
message, we’d suggest it lay out the numbers directly from the state, talk
about where it succeeded and where it hopes to improve.
There is a time and a place for cheerleading, but this isn’t Kennison Field.
A tip of the hat to everyone who has helped care for nearly 200
malnourished and neglected cattle found recently on a ranch outside
Hermiston.
That includes Umatilla County and its sheriff’s office, which is paying
handsomely to help care for and feed the animals. It also includes BMCC
students, local veterinarians and dozens of
community members who are spending their
time and money to chip in where they can.
Our story in Thursday’s paper painted a grim
picture — 17 cattle are dead and others remain
sick, many never to recover. But it also painted
a rosier one too. The community resolve has
saved the lives of many animals, and it showed
how this community responds to tragedy. It
looks for actions that cause improvement, not
pointing fingers and assigning blame.
That’s our local justice system’s job. And the owner of the animals,
Michael Hockensmith, will likely soon face multiple charges of first- and
second-degree animal neglect.
All we can do now is care for these animals as best we can, like
Hockensmith should have. And we tip our hat to the many who are doing so.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher
Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor.
Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not
necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
OTHER VIEWS
Trump could benefit from thicker skin
The Altoona (Penn.) Mirror
W
hen incumbent President Harry
S. Truman held up a Nov. 3,
1948, edition of the Chicago
Daily Tribune, he had grounds for his
bemusement over the large headline
stretching across the top of the front
page: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”
The fact was that Truman actually
had defeated his opponent, New York
Gov. Thomas Dewey, despite polls that
had “made clear” that there was no way
the president would be elected to a term
of his own.
Truman had become the nation’s
chief executive after the death of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945.
An incorrect headline like that one
of November 1948 is every editor’s
and every publisher’s nightmare.
But headlines and news accounts
addressing public attendance at
Friday’s inauguration of President
Donald Trump didn’t warrant the kind
of embarrassment and ridicule that
the Chicago newspaper subsequently
endured.
The reason: Friday’s inauguration
attendance was much lower than what
greeted the inauguration of Trump’s
predecessor, Barack Obama, even
though Trump and some of his aides
branded the news accounts about the
attendance incorrect or, worse, outright
lies.
About the inauguration attendance,
the news media didn’t err.
Rather than wasting time denigrating
facts— verified facts —that are
inconsequential when stacked up
against the monumental tasks and
responsibilities that are ahead for the
administration, Trump and his advisers
should ignore them and simply move on
to the important, critical tasks at hand.
Facts are facts, and journalists
shouldn’t be criticized for reporting
facts, whether they’re complimentary or
otherwise.
The Trump administration makes
a mockery of itself and erodes its
credibility when it offers what it calls
“alternative facts” that aren’t really
factual.
Trump would do himself a favor if
he’d abandon his Twitter account and
devote himself fully to his presidential
duties.
There always will be opposition to
whatever he does; that’s a fact of life in
all levels of government.
It’s overdue for him to accept that.
His responsibility is to do what
he feels is best for the nation and not
become aggrieved and combative every
time others criticize or try to second-
guess his decisions.
That’s good advice for his advisers
and aides as well, one notable one being
Kellyanne Conway, who on Sunday
described the attendance coverage as
“symbolic of the way we’re treated by
the press.”
Truman accepted no small amount
of criticism and ridicule during his
presidency, and Obama consistently was
the object of criticism during his eight
years in the Oval Office.
Trump needs to accept the fact that
news coverage and criticism come with
being president— and that the ability to
“live” with them displays strength and
stability, not weakness.
OTHER VIEWS
Repeal and compete
M
odern conservatism, at least
care in cash and by giving them more
in its pre-Donald Trump
freedom in what plans they’re allowed
incarnation, evolved to
to buy, you would end up with less
believe in a marriage of Edmund
spending, lower prices and less cost
Burke and Milton Friedman, in
inflation. (And you wouldn’t need the
which the wisdom of tradition and
heavy, innovation-squashing price
the wisdom of free markets were
controls that single-payer systems use
complementary ideas. Both, in their
to get there.)
different ways, delivered a kind
The peril is that there would be
Ross
of bottom-up democratic wisdom
too
wide a gap between what the
Douthat
— the first through the cumulative
money in your health savings account
Comment
experiments of the human past, the
covers and what you need before
second through the contemporary
your catastrophic coverage kicks in.
experiments enabled by choice and
In which case many people with consistent
competition.
health care costs for chronic problems would
rack up impossible medical bills in short order.
In health care policy, however,
Conservatives who want this model to
conservatives tend to simply favor Friedman
over Burke. That is, the right’s best health care replace Obamacare nationwide believe that
the promise outweighs the risk — and this
minds believe that markets and competition
is, again, a reasonable belief. But it’s also a
can deliver lower costs and better care, and
belief that hasn’t been tested
they believe it even though
on any kind of sweeping,
there is no clear example of
economywide scale. And this
a modern health care system
is the advantage of Cassidy-
built along the lines that they
Collins: It encourages
desire.
governors and legislators to
The dominant systems in
actually put the conservative
the developed world, whether
theory of health care to the
government-run or single-
test without simply reversing
payer or Obamacare-esque,
the ideological colors of the
are generally statist to degrees
great Obamacare experiment
that conservatives deplore.
and immediately turning
A few of them — notably
the entire U.S. health care
Singapore’s, the beau ideal
system over to the right’s
of right-wing health care
technocratic vision.
wonks — do have distinctive
Of course this would mean
elements that conservatives
that Obamacare’s existing
favor. But mostly they tend
problems would persist in the
to be much more heavily
states where it continues. But
regulated and subsidized than
those problems — the rise
the system that conservative
in premiums, the fleeing insurers, the risk of
health policy wonks and policy-literate
a death spiral downstream — are not equally
Republicans would like to see take over from
problematic in every state, and they are not
Obamacare.
fiscally dangerous, as yet, on the scale that
Which is not to say that the conservative
many conservatives initially feared.
health policy vision lacks empirical
As the conservative policy thinker Yuval
grounding. There is compelling evidence that
Levin wrote late last year, the striking thing
markets in health care can do more to lower
about Obamacare to date is how much
costs and prices than liberals allow, and good
smaller than expected its effect on the overall
reasons to think that free-market competition
health care system has been. Fewer people
produces more medical innovation than more
are being insured on the exchanges than
socialized systems.
liberals hoped, fewer employers are dumping
But still — there is no existing system on
high-cost employees onto the exchanges than
a national scale that looks like the health care
conservatives feared, and as a result, he writes:
system that Paul Ryan or Tom Price would
“The extremely serious problems we are
design, no wisdom of developed-economy
seeing now are within the one system that
experience that proves that such a system
Obamacare created from scratch, the exchange
would actually keep overall costs low and
system. That system may not survive, and
prevent too many people from being shut out
its condition has a lot to teach us about the
of insurance markets. So embracing even the
problems with liberal health economics.
smartest conservative Obamacare alternative
requires a not-precisely-Burkean leap of faith. But it is a much smaller system than anyone
thought it would be at this point, about half
And this, in a nutshell, is why Republicans
the size that CBO projected, so that the effects
should give serious consideration to the
of any failure it suffers are likely to be more
proposal that Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
contained than anyone might have expected.”
and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine have just
This containment means that conservatives
put forward as a possible health care reform
have room and time to be more patient,
alternative.
cautious and experimental than were the
The essence of Cassidy-Collins, and the
Obama Democrats before them. If the
reason that many Republicans don’t like
Obamacare exchanges aren’t ultimately going
it, is that it isn’t actually a full Obamacare
to work out, then allowing them to persist
replacement. Instead, it’s a federalist
in liberal states while an alternative system
compromise. It lets individual state
gets set up in red states is a reasonable way
governments decide whether they want to
to gradually transition from the liberal model
stick with Obamacare or not, which would
toward the conservative one. If the right’s
mean that the law would remain intact in
wonks are right about health policy, the
most blue states for the time being, while
Cassidy-Collins approach should — gradually
redder states would have the opportunity to
— enable conservatives to prove it.
turn roughly the same amount of money (95
And if the right is wrong, if its model
percent) to a different end.
doesn’t match reality, if people are simply
That end would look like one of the
miserable as health care consumers because
more plausible conservative alternatives to
the system has too much of Friedman and not
Obamacare: a subsidy to cover the cost of
enough of Burke — well, in that case both
a catastrophic health insurance plan, plus
the country and conservatism will be better
a directly funded health savings account to
off if we learn that via a voter rebellion in
cover primary care.
10 right-leaning states, rather than through
This system could be layered on top of
a much more widespread backlash against a
the existing Medicaid expansion, replacing
nationwide health-insurance failure. (Which is
only the Obamacare subsidies and exchanges,
something a president with a high self-regard
or it could replace the Medicaid expansion
and poor approval ratings might have a
as well, offering the poor and near poor the
particular reason to avoid.)
same “catastrophic insurance plus a subsidy”
Between this reasonable case and
as everyone else in the individual market.
legislative reality, of course, falls a variety of
Either way the individual mandate would
shadows. But more than for the various repeal-
disappear, but people would be auto-enrolled
and-replace alternatives? I’m not so sure.
in a catastrophic plan (with the option to
Right now the Cassidy-Collins compromise
opt out), meaning that coverage would
has few enthusiastic backers. In a few months,
be nearly universal (thus fulfilling one of
however, it might turn into conservative health
President Donald Trump’s various promises)
care reform’s best hope.
even though its benefits would be less
■
comprehensive than Obamacare’s.
Ross Douthat joined The New York
Taken as a whole, this approach distills
Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009.
both the promise and the peril of conservative
Previously, he was a senior editor at the
health care policy. The promise is that by
Atlantic and a blogger for theatlantic.com.
having people pay for more of their health
There is
compelling
evidence that
markets in
health care
can do more
to lower costs
and prices than
liberals allow.
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and
public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. Unsigned letters
will not be published. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email
editor@eastoregonian.com.