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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 9, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Friday, June 9, 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 tip of the hat to Eli Anderson, profiled in today’s paper. Anderson, as we’re sure you’ve read by the time you’ve thumbed to page 4A, helped stop what could have been a very destructive and even life-threatening fire at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution on March 29. Anderson repeatedly entered the prison’s carpentry shop with fire extinguishers, likely stopping the fire from spreading and getting out of control, causing unimaginable damage to life and property. Anderson was festooned with awards earlier this week, all of them deserved. But a tip of the hat is the cherry on top, and we appreciate his quick and heroic thinking in a time of serious danger. A tip of the hat to Darrin Umbarger, the Pendleton man who helped make the Oregon Capitol more easily accessible for people who use electric wheelchairs. Umbarger and Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena), worked together to help secure an $18,000 state grant that he used to create a unit that could recharge multiple types of electric wheelchairs. It’s Umbarger’s system that was installed in the Capitol earlier this week, the first of its kind in any statehouse nationwide. “It gives (all) citizens an opportunity to participate in state government,” he told an East Oregonian reporter. He also said he hopes the charging stations catch on and pop up in shopping malls, stadiums, theaters, amusement parks, courthouses and other places. Here’s hoping there are more hat tips down the road. A tip of the hat to the volunteer crew of ASPIRE at Pendleton High School, a group tasked with helping students apply, attend and make a financial plan for higher education. Roughly 81 percent of Pendleton High School students used the in-school service at least once during their high school career to talk about college opportunities, work on college applications, search for scholarships or get help with essays, the FAFSA, SAT and ACT test prep, career exploration or tours of college campuses. Those consultations helped Pendleton’s 185 graduates in the Class of 2017 earn 296 scholarships worth $2,060,572. That goes to show that hard work and good grades really do pay off handsomely. But more volunteers are always needed to help Pendleton youth prepare for life after high school. Email ASPIRE coordinator Jill Gregg at jill. gregg@pendleton.k12.or.us or call her at 541-966-3846 to lend a hand. 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 American health care system an entangled Gordian Knot The (Macon, Ga.) Telegraph N o matter your opinion of President Barack Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, it has become increasingly clear, as Congress attempts to untie the Gordian Knot, how difficult it must have been to wrangle all of the health care players, lawmakers and various lobbyists to support the ACA in the first place. After running into a brick wall of competing interests within the Republican Party’s own ranks, House leaders gave up on an earlier attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare in March after the Congressional Budget Office scored the proposal and said it would leave 24 million Americans without insurance within a decade. The House returned for another bite of the apple earlier this month and approved and sent it on to the Senate before the CBO scored it. The results of that scoring were released last Wednesday. It is not pretty. The House bill would leave 14 million more Americans uninsured next year than under the ACA. The House plan would reduce Medicaid spending by $834 billion. In a decade, 23 million more Americans would be added to the list of uninsured. In 2026, the number of uninsured according to the CBO would be about the same as before the ACA was implemented. The CBO also reported that the proposal would reduce the deficit by $119 billion over a decade. Most Americans could care less about what goes on in Washington, D.C. What are the practical impacts of this proposal? Medicaid, in its present form, is insufficient. It doesn’t pay enough now for the services rendered. Right now, people who did qualify for Medicaid are no longer eligible because requirements have changed. The result? More people are sick and they are getting sicker, sooner. And where do the uninsured go when they get sick? Your friendly neighborhood hospital. Hospitals have to care for every person who presents at their doors, and if the past is any indicator, those without insurance present at the facilities’ most expensive entrances: the emergency rooms. And those without insurance arrive there sicker because they haven’t received regular care. There was a time when hospitals could cost shift — charge paying patients and those with good insurance plans more for procedures to help defray the cost of the uninsured and to cover the medigap. Those days are gone. Insurance companies have played hard ball with providers to get the best prices and to improve their bottom lines. Hospitals are already operating on razor-thin margins. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, 21 hospitals closed in 2016. Five have declared bankruptcy this year. The House health care proposal now sits in the Senate and a working group there has basically said they are ignoring it and drafting their own bill. Why? The House bill has clearly identified winners — young, healthy and wealthy — and losers, those on Medicaid, children, the disabled, poor, sick and older Americans. Add to that list something the CBO recognized. The House bill would destabilize the health-care system. An amendment that was added would turn some of the responsibilities for what’s covered over to states. Some states could allow offering insurance plans that cover next to nothing, as was the case before Obamacare, allowing lawmakers to crow that they made insurance available to everyone. Obamacare clearly needs fixing. It is far from perfect, but it has taken a huge step toward fulfilling its promise. If lawmakers are sincere in their efforts to provide health insurance to many Americans who would clearly be left out in the cold if this House proposal were ever to see the light of day, they will fix Obamacare, re-brand it, claim credit and live to fight another day. If they don’t, the Gordian Knot they are attempting to unravel could land around their necks with the electorate pulling the ends ever tighter. OTHER VIEWS Guess what week it is? H appy Infrastructure Week! very iffy presumptions about using tax OK, I know some of you are credits to get private investment in the distracted by competing current roads and bridges. Under the very best events. But the Trump administration of circumstances, it would mean a lot of would prefer that we all concentrate on tolls. It would also require a lot of smart the president’s plans for improving the government oversight, and we are nation’s roads and bridges. talking here about a White House that Trump promised he’d be discussing has yet to figure out how to nominate infrastructure with all the major players an ambassador to Great Britain. Gail “in great depth next week.” This was Plus, the president’s budget actually Collins right before he went into a meeting with cut $206 billion the government had Comment legislative leaders Tuesday. You may be already committed to infrastructure wondering why he didn’t discuss it with projects. So Wednesday, when Trump them in great depth right at that moment. Since was in Cincinnati standing by the mighty Ohio this is, you know, Infrastructure Week. and extolling the glories of river transport, One possible answer is that the president cynics gloomily recalled that he wants to likes promising to discuss important policy slice a billion dollars from the Army Corps of matters in the future much more than he likes Engineers, which fixes the dams and locks. working on them in the present. But to be Did he brag about winning the election? fair, one of the Republican He always does that in his leaders did report later that speeches. Trump had mentioned the Yeah, there was a little wall along the Mexican mention of how Ohio “was border, which would supposed to be close. It definitely be a structure. The wasn’t.” He spent much president revealed he wants more time praising himself to pay for it by putting solar for approving the completion panels along the top. of the Dakota Access Wait a minute, I thought Pipeline, which required him he hated renewable energy! to courageously stand up to Where did you come environmental groups that from? No, he doesn’t hate had not supported him in the renewable energy. Just election. (“Nobody thought wind power, and that’s any politician would have just because the Scottish the guts to approve that final government put some leg. I just closed my eyes and turbines near one of his golf I said: ‘Do it.’”) courses. What’s wrong with But let me tell you a little investing government more about Infrastructure money on roads? President Week. While the whole world was talking Eisenhower did the biggest highway about James Comey, Trump launched it with construction program ever, and he was a a plug for privatization of part of the Federal Republican. Aviation Administration. He sat down in front If you’re going to try to imagine Donald of the cameras and signed what might have Trump and Dwight Eisenhower in the same looked, to the uninitiated, like a law, or a party, we can’t continue talking. program, or at least a calendar of events. But it But Trump did bring up Eisenhower’s grand was really just a letter to Congress encouraging achievement in Cincinnati. “The Interstate everyone to take up the FAA idea. Which they Highway System — we don’t do that anymore. have already made pretty clear they probably We don’t even fix them,” he complained. won’t. There was no explanation of how the fixing Why would we want to privatize the FAA? was going to be accomplished through private It’s not going to make flying safer. If they investors, who want new tolls, not fewer wanted to make it better, they could tell the potholes. airlines to put in more leg room. He didn’t say anything at all about how I could use a little less interruption. But, his infrastructure plan would work, possibly yeah. because it doesn’t appear to exist at this point in During the presidential campaign, Trump time. The Democrats do have one, but Trump called for a $1 trillion program to rebuild the certainly hasn’t read it. nation’s roads and bridges and waterways. It Because he can’t read, right? was a super popular idea, and once he was Don’t be mean. He just doesn’t like to elected, one of the very few bright spots read at great length. But the president made congressional Democrats saw on the horizon. it sound as if, at the first mention of the They figured Republican fiscal conservatives word “infrastructure,” the Democrats had would balk, but they could make a deal to thrown themselves upon the barricades. “I deliver the needed extra votes. just don’t see them coming together. They’re “I told him — you know you’ll need our obstructionist,” he claimed. support,” a prominent Democrat happily told The emperor has no clothes. me last year. “And he said, ‘Yeah.’” Yeah, this one has been buck naked since This is what conversation sounds like in the day he took office. Washington these days. Still, by Trumpian ■ standards, that’s the Gettysburg Address. Gail Collins joined The New York Times But Trump’s people never reached out to the in 1995 as a member of the editorial board. Democrats, who had reasonable reservations In 2001 she became the first woman ever about the original plan, which made some appointed editor of the Times’s editorial page. Trump didn’t say anything about how his infrastructure plan would work, possibly because it doesn’t appear to exist at this point in time. YOUR VIEWS Racism part of daily life for people of color in Eastern Ore. We have a serious problem. I am one of your own, and you could say that I am one of your successes. I grew up in your community, my parents have separately given to and served your community, I was a part of your highly successful dance team and worked in your businesses. I have received funds from your community to help aid my life as I complete my undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon. I am thankful for our community and its uniqueness; this being said I ask you to please trust me and follow along while I tell you how I have been victim to your exploitative ways, and urge you to transform them. Racist and sexist ways are of the past, right? Sure, women are allowed to vote and racist slurs are not generally accepted anymore, but I have some hard news: The societally-based ideals that create these social hierarchies are not abolished. If I am wrong, come submit your arguments to the multiple professors and doctors that discuss these issues in academia at my university. I grew up hearing your racist and sexist thoughts come out in my classmates. I watched as the amazing Native American culture that we are lucky to have a front row seat to in our small community was often criminalized and disrespected. I have experienced the ignorance first hand. I watched someone in my life of color be handcuffed in front of me for a simple traffic stop. What we’d been accused of hadn’t actually happened and we didn’t receive a ticket for it. Now as I have dealt with assault and abuse in our community. I have seen it in my life as a woman, who you believe that you can undermine — from officers who did not allow me to use my rights to obtain a restraining order, which I now finally have since being in a community that takes victim rights seriously. Now that I am attempting to work with Pendleton departments once again I cannot believe what I have experienced. The most recent experience consists of being told that “I just shouldn’t get involved with people like this.” Change is hard but important, and as you continue to raise up young people, you should continue to protect them. Knowledge is power, and the young people that you are sending off to gain it will do you a world more of good, if they do not have to come to realize the oppression they may have grown up in. Celina Taylor Eugene