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OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
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OUR VIEW
Health care takes
all hands on deck
Health care has been top of the
in the way many Americans
access care. But on the other hand,
American mind for decades, as the
Democrats are accusing Republicans
price of medical care in the country
of sending millions of Americans
has skyrocketed and outcomes here
fell well behind other first-world
to an early grave by proposing their
countries.
own changes, which return tax cuts
Little progress has been made.
to the rich and attempt to give poor
Entrenched interests — politics,
and middle-class Americans tax-free
Big Pharma, insurance companies,
alternatives to paying for their
lawyers, the American Medical
coverage and care.
There is broad support for
Association, government
upgrading and improving health care
bureaucracy, etc., etc., etc., — has
in America, despite
helped keep costs
pessimism and
on a constant rise.
Citizens should the
death threats from
And the gap between
our political parties.
us and other rich
demand a
Even many
countries has only
honest health Republicans have
grown wider when
come around to the
it comes to life
care debate
expectancy, infant
idea of “Medicare for
that rises above all,” a more palatable
mortality rates,
access to care and
to describe a
partisanship. way
more.
more socialized
medical system.
We must say,
Many Democrats
of course, that the
are OK with wholesale changes to
American health care system can
the Affordable Care Act, and realize
be the best in the world, if you can
afford the best. But if we want more that may include scrapping Obama’s
signature achievement in order to
Americans to live longer, healthier,
enact something better.
better lives, then how do we make
How to do that is terribly
the health care system work better
complex, and risky. Many politicians
for more Americans?
have tried and failed to do something
If you can answer that question,
about it, and others tiptoe around
please run for president.
and wait for others to take on the
For all of us who don’t have the
answer, let’s first take a brief view of heavy lift.
It’s even more delicate in rural
the lay of the land. The Affordable
America, where many doctors and
Care Act (aka Obamacare) took a
hospitals and clinics are surviving
shot at improving the system when
on razor thin margins, and depend
it was passed in 2008. It consisted
heavily on government programs
of hundreds of pages of rules and
like Medicaid.
programs and acronyms and pilot
American health care is a
projects, but at its heart was a simple
mangled mess of entrenched
concept: the rich and healthy would
interests, and at the heart of it the
pay more to allow the poor and sick
to have health insurance. That’s fine complicated science that is modern
medicine. Keeping people healthy
and good, and some would argue
and alive is something that cannot be
a noble effort that does the most
done in a vacuum, and the country’s
good without unfairly punishing
health care structure must somehow
those who can’t afford it. Others
be both strong and flexible.
would argue it is an unfair system
Voters and politicians must own
— government sticking its messy
up to the fact that this country is
hands into the free market, personal
spending much too much money on
decision-making and the plain old
luck that affects the trajectory of life it — nearly 20 percent of our entire
economy — and we’re not getting
in the land of the free.
acceptable results. Give the ACA
Either way you see it, the ACA
credit where it’s due, but own up
did not tackle the cost of care in
to the fact that there are significant
America. And even though more
problems with it that need fixing,
Americans have health insurance,
right now.
many cannot afford the subsidized
Americans are a wonderful, weird
premiums nor pay their share of the
group of humans. We’re risk takers,
health care they receive, even when
we drink too much and eat way too
using their government-mandated
much, and we drive our cars too far
insurance. In those arenas, the ACA
and too fast and we have too many
has not helped consumers. It has,
guns around and we don’t sleep
however, helped the millions of
enough and we ingest tobacco and
sick Americans with pre-existing
red meat too darn often. All of those
conditions get coverage, which
things make us less healthy, but
increased the cost in the system
more than many projected, including more free.
We’re also varied
the insurance companies.
demographically and culturally and
Republicans have loudly railed
against the law over the last decade, we live dramatically different lives
in urban Chicago or rural Montana,
and their win last November
as a multi-billionaire in Manhattan
gave them the White House and
or homeless on the streets of San
the ability to make their mark
Francisco. This makes a national
on American health care. So far,
health care system even more
they’ve had a troubling health care
bill pass the House, a similar bill hit complicated than a country like
Sweden or Denmark, which have the
a sticking point in the Senate, and
have not found enough votes to even best health care systems and quality
of life.
muster a straight-forward repeal of
It will take all hands on deck
Obamacare, which would put much
to improve health outcomes: A
of the pre-2008 rules back in place.
more efficient, smarter government
We’re not at the precipice of
system. Better choices from
an apocalypse, however, and the
hyperbole from both political parties Americans, from our diets to
moves us farther away, not closer to showing up to our annual checkups.
Doctors who keep cost in mind.
a solution.
From Washington, D.C, we should
Some Republicans called
demand debate that rises above
Obamacare the “worst law in our
partisanship and frames health
history,” which is patently absurd.
care as the critically important,
The ACA was a rather conservative
immensely complex issue it is.
approach to making a big change
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
The phone is smart, but
where’s the big idea?
I
used a smartphone GPS to find my
and most extraordinary act of Divine
way through the cobblestoned maze
Grace.” As a renegade Catholic
of Geneva’s Old Town, in search of
monk, Luther might never have seen
a handmade machine that changed the
his writings find their way out of a
world more than any other invention.
monastery. But through Gutenberg’s
Near a 13th-century cathedral in this
democratizing machine, about 300,000
Swiss city on the shores of a lovely
copies of Luther’s provocations were
lake, I found what I was looking for: a
circulated between 1517 and 1520.
Gutenberg printing press.
Timothy Christianity would never be the same.
“This was the internet of its day —
Similarly, it’s hard to imagine
Egan
at least as influential as the iPhone,”
the French or American revolutions
Comment
said Gabriel de Montmollin, director of
without those enlightened voices in
the Museum of the Reformation, toying
print.
with the replica of Johann Gutenberg’s great
In the beginning of the written word, about
invention. It used to take four monks, laboring
5,000 years ago, people scrawled information
in a scriptorium with quills
on clay. Their messages were
over calfskin, up to a year to
sometimes bawdy, more
produce a single book.
often banal. The Greeks
With the advance
gave us humor, tragedy and
in movable type in
poetry. Scrolls of papyrus
15th-century Europe, one
were portable; Roman
press could crank out 3,000
commanders used them as
pages a day. Before long,
the equivalent of paperbacks,
average people could travel
tucked into pockets.
to places that used to be
“On the Nature of
unknown to them — with
Things,” a poem from
maps! Medical information
the Roman philosopher
passed more freely and
Lucretius in the first century
quickly, diminishing the sway of quacks. And
B.C., was one of the most “dangerously
you could find your own way to God, or a
radical” things ever written, Stephen
way out of believing in God, with access to
Greenblatt argued in his book “The Swerve.”
formerly forbidden thoughts.
Rediscovered and then printed in the early
The printing press offered the prospect that
stages of the Renaissance on Gutenberg’s
tyrants would never be able to kill a book or
press, the poetic celebration of the good life
suppress an idea. Gutenberg’s brainchild broke overturned much of Europe’s dour medieval
the monopoly that clerics had on scripture. And mindset.
later, stirred by pamphlets from a version of
Count Magna Carta, one of the founding
that same press, the American colonies rose up documents in the evolution of free societies,
against a king and gave birth to a nation.
and Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” which
So, a question in the summer of this 10th
popularized English vernacular, among the
anniversary of the iPhone: has the device that
highlights of the thousand years or so when
is perhaps the most revolutionary of all time
books were made by hand-cramped scribes, or
given us a single magnificent idea? Nearly
printed from wooden blocks.
every advancement of the written word
Not long after Steve Jobs introduced his
through new technology has also advanced
iPhone, he said the bound book was probably
humankind.
headed for history’s attic. Not so fast. After a
Sure, you can say the iPhone changed
period of rapid growth in e-books, something
everything. By putting the world’s recorded
closer to the medium for Chaucer’s volumes
knowledge in the palm of a hand, it
has made a great comeback.
revolutionized work, dining, travel and
The hope of the iPhone, and the internet
socializing. It made us more narcissistic —
in general, was that it would free people in
here’s more of me doing cool stuff! — and
closed societies. But the failure of the Arab
it unleashed an army of awful trolls. We
Spring, and the continued suppression of ideas
no longer have the patience to sit through a
in North Korea, China and Iran, has not borne
baseball game without that reach to the pocket. that out. And it’s beyond pathetic that the
And one more casualty of Apple selling more
leader of the free world uses his phone to insult
than a billion phones in a decade’s time:
women, or send out bizarre videos of him
daydreaming has become a lost art.
beating up imaginary reporters.
Still, for all of that, I’m still waiting to see if
The iPhone is still young. It has certainly
the iPhone can do what the printing press did
been “one of the most important, world-
for religion and democracy. This year is also
changing and successful products in history,”
the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther posting as Apple CEO Tim Cook said. But I’m not sure
his 95 theses against the corruption of the
if the world changed for the better with the
Roman Catholic Church; the Geneva museum
iPhone — as it did with the printing press — or
makes a strong case that the printing press
merely changed.
opened more minds than anything else.
■
The museum’s exhibition — “Print! The
Timothy Egan has served as Pacific
First Pages of a Revolution” — quotes Luther
Northwest correspondent and a national
as saying that the press was “the greatest
enterprise reporter for The New York Times.
Can the iPhone
do what the
printing press
did for religion
and democracy?
YOUR VIEWS
Untruthful president cannot
allow any criticism of himself
This letter is my take on our free press,
President Trump and his associates.
President Trump has had six months to
prove himself worthy of the high office he
holds. As Commander in Chief he has handed
off the leadership to the military generals,
given them carte blanche to do as they will.
This is one of many missteps.
These six months have been the most
chaotic in recorded history. The chaos is made
worse by the daily tweets attacking people
unjustly. Many members of our free press —
CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS and many others
— have been viciously attacked. He seems
to have a bias against women, particularly
journalists.
He cannot seem to allow any criticism of
himself or his administration even though it
is factual. This is speaking truth to power, an
essential process that keeps our democracy
alive and well. I have found reporters to be
truthful in their stories and articles.
I followed the fact-checking of almost
450 statements made by President Trump to
be untruthful. Apparently this is his mode
of conduct in business, TV shows and now
the presidency. Trust is so important in this
high office; we the people depend on our
elected officials to be dependable, truthful and
transparent.
He has appointed a commission to request
voter information — names, addresses, birth
dates, last four digits of Social Security
numbers, what party he or she belongs to
and how he or she cast their vote. Oregon’s
Secretary of State, Dennis Richardson, is
complying with some of these requests. Many
states are protecting their citizens by denying,
as they should, any and all possible illegally
given information.
I am incensed at these requests. Under
the guise of checking for voter fraud, these
requests are happening now. We have not had
any voter fraud. This is wrong and I question
the motives behind the requests. We are all at
risk when this kind of personal information is
revealed. I ask, for what purpose really?
Jan Beitel
Umatilla
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that
infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author. Send to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.