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Saturday, September 21, 2019
East Oregonian
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Health care: Kitzhaber addresses concerns at health care summit
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question. We’ve been ask-
ing about the subsidies and
who pays,” he said. “Instead
we should be asking, ‘Why
does health care cost so
much in the first place?’”
He said price points in
the U.S. are higher than
most anywhere else in the
world. “Why?” he asked the
group.
Kitzhaber ticked off sev-
eral reasons. Private equity
investors are buying up the
most profitable parts of the
system, driving up costs.
Insurance companies have
cut eligibility and lowered
reimbursement rates. The
national debt increases to
pay for hikes in Medicare
and Medicaid costs.
“The insured uninsured”
have $5,000 deductibles and
“don’t really have insurance
at all,” he quipped. “Cost
shifting is the way we avoid
confronting reality.”
One way out, he said, is
funding health care from
a specific pot of money
indexed to a sustainable
growth rate.
“That’s exactly what
we’re trying to do in Oregon
with the CCOs,” Kitzhaber
said.
In 2009, as a state sena-
tor, Kitzhaber helped pio-
neer the Oregon Health
Plan. He later helped birth
the state’s system of 15
coordinated care organiza-
tions, locally governed net-
works of health care pro-
viders who deliver care to
the state’s most vulnera-
ble residents. The idea is to
focus on prevention to get
people healthy, reduce vis-
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber chats with Chuck Hoffmann after speaking about health care delivery in Oregon on
Thursday at the EOCCO Clinician & Staff Summit in Hermiston.
its to expensive emergency
rooms and lower costs. The
EOCCO serves Umatilla,
Morrow and 10 other East-
ern Oregon counties.
During the first five
years, some CCOs per-
formed better than others,
but the state saved more
than $1 billion. There were
bumps, too, including the
Cover Oregon disaster, and
the state’s Affordable Care
Act insurance exchange
website designed by Ora-
cle Corp., which failed
spectacularly.
Kitzhaber is unhappy
with recent reforms to Ore-
gon health care, which he
called CCO 2.0. Last week,
he sent a letter to Gov. Kate
Brown, House Speaker Tina
Kotek and Senate President
Peter Courtney to weigh
in on two developments
he considers especially
worrisome.
He opposes new report-
ing requirements that will
force CCOs to hire more
personnel, increase costs
and “appeared to have
been copied and pasted
from the current insurance
code.”
“I am concerned that
this increase in rules, reg-
ulations and reporting will
be particularly burdensome
on smaller rural CCOs
which have become import-
ant community assets,”
he wrote. The reforms,
intended to increase over-
sight, may squelch the abil-
ity of locally based CCOs to
operate.
“These provisions and
others appear to retreat
from the community model
based on local control and
a sense of local ownership
in favor of a more punitive
top-down approach,” he
wrote.
Kitzhaber also objects to
the state granting Trillium
Community Health, owned
by Fortune 500 company
Centene Corp., to contract
to administer the Oregon
Health Plan in Clackamas,
Multnomah and Washing-
ton counties, in addition
to Lane County, which it
already administers.
The governor said Ore-
gon has much to lose if the
CCO model goes south,
including 30 years of col-
laboration and a chance to
pioneer health care policy
for the country as a whole.
“If we lose this model,
we lose the opportunity to
steer the national debate,”
he said. “Right now, the
model is in question.”
Kitzhaber resigned in
2015 under a cloud as the
FBI investigated his fiance
and first lady, Cylvia Hayes,
for influence peddling. He
left office barely a month
into his fourth term as
governor. Still, Kitzhaber
remains a strong voice in
the world of health care
reform policy.
A health policy pub-
lication called “State of
Reform” recently quoted
Kitzhaber comparing him-
self to Don Quixote during
a private dinner in Wash-
ington, D.C., where he goes
frequently to talk about
health care reform.
“I think of these trips
as ‘Don Quixote goes to
Washington,’” he said.
“Health care reform is
probably my windmill.”
Smoke: Planning commission approved application 8 days after arrest
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charging Thurman.
“I don’t anticipate, based
on the initial conversation I
had with the district attor-
ney, that Mr. Thurman, in
any way, shape or form,
will have his ability to open
and operate a dispensary be
compromised,” he said.
Both the city and the Ore-
gon Liquor Control Com-
mission need to approve
the building and the owner
before a marijuana busi-
ness can start operating,
but Thurman said the 2017
arrest wasn’t an impedi-
ment to getting approval
from both agencies.
Thurman pleaded guilty
to possession of mari-
juana and careless driv-
ing and pleaded no con-
test to driving under the
influence of intoxicants in
Wasco County in 2012, but
the case was dismissed in
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Signs outside of Thur’s Smoke Shop at 502 S.E. 16th St. in
Pendleton advertise the newly opened business.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Bryson Thurman poses for a portrait in his business, Thur’s
Smoke Shop, on Thursday afternoon in Pendleton. The new-
ly opened location is located at 502 S.E. 16th Street.
2014 when he completed a
drug and alcohol treatment
program.
The other thing that
delayed the opening of the
new Thur’s was relatively
mundane in comparison to
the BENT arrest. Thurman
decided to have the new
Thur’s facility built from
Wine: Milton-Freewater will use
grant money to hire California firm
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want to help our agricul-
ture-based economy and
make it possible for those
who produce wine and
grapes in the Rocks Dis-
trict of Milton-Freewater
to get the recognition they
deserve.”
Hall credited the city’s
partnership with Wallowa
Valley Vineyards, a winery
that owns 36 acres in Mil-
ton-Freewater’s Rocks Dis-
trict, a designated American
Viticultural Area.
“We’ve had this vision for
close to 10 years and have
been trying to turn it into a
reality for a long time,” Hall
said.
Willamette Valley Vine-
yard’s farm in Milton-Free-
water has the space to
house the proposed facil-
ity and Business Oregon,
and according to Christine
Clair, the winery’s direc-
tor, Business Oregon pre-
fers to invest in projects
that has private business
involvement.
“The facility would be a
huge help building a destina-
tion and cluster of wineries
in Milton-Freewater, a really
special wine growing area,”
she said.
It’s the cobble-strewn soil
that makes it such a special
wine growing area, Clair
said. The only area with a
similar soil type, she said, is
in France.
“The special cobblestones
right at the soil are good for
the vines and Syrah grows
exceptionally well in this,”
Clair said. “For the Walla
Walla Valley, some of the
highest-scored wine comes
from this appellation.”
If the market assessment,
conducted by Tincknell and
Tincknell of California is
favorable, Clair said the cost
savings would go beyond
sharing a building, but could
include sharing equipment,
like a wine press.
“To invest in a press
that costs $150,000 is big
expense for a boutique win-
ery, but if six to 10 wine
makers go in on one it makes
it much more feasible,” Clair
said.
The facility would do
more than make getting
into the wine business more
affordable, but would also
highlight wine made in Ore-
gon that is often marketed
and sold as Washington
wine.
The partnership was a
good match for the city and
Willamette Valley Vine-
yards. The city needed pri-
vate business involvement
and helps the winery reach
what Clair called “economy
of scale” much faster with
the intent to rent out part of
the proposed facility.
Part of the grant fund-
ing pays for design work to
be completed by Steve Mar-
tin and Associates. Clair
said the company is a highly
reputable architecture and
engineering design firm.
She said if all looks favor-
able when the studies are
completed next Septem-
ber, Willamette Valley will
begin a five-year timeline
to raise money and com-
plete construction. Though
it is too soon to discuss cap-
ital financing, Clair said the
way her winery has raised
money in the past has been
selling shares in the com-
pany to local community
members. She said that is
how Willamette Valley
Vineyards raised the capital
to plant two fields of vines
in the Walla Walla Valley
when they first got started.
“We have the ability
to fundraise with people
who love wine and their
community,” Clair said.
“When you are the owner
of something, you want to
support the business and
help them succeed.”
the ground up, and he said
delays from the contractor
pushed back the opening.
Thurman’s
encounter
with BENT wasn’t the only
obstacle he faced toward
opening his pot shop.
Thurman
originally
applied for a conditional
use permit from the city in
February 2017, around the
same time that Pendleton’s
other three cannabis stores
— Pendleton Cannabis,
Kind Leaf Pendleton, and
High Desert Cannabis —
sought to open their doors.
But the initial proposed
location for the Thur’s dis-
pensary, 1292 S.W. Tutu-
illa Road, drew opposition
from residential neighbors,
nearby businesses, and the
Pendleton School District.
Thur’s secured approval
from the Pendleton Plan-
ning Commission, but
after opponents appealed
the decision, he withdrew
his application and set his
sights on a former parking
lot for the old St. Anthony
Hospital building on South-
west Court.
The planning commis-
sion approved Thur’s con-
ditional use application on
May 25, 2017, eight days
after Thurman’s arrest.
With Thur’s now open,
Thurman said he’s now
focused on finding his niche
in Pendleton’s burgeoning
pot market.
Despite not doing any
advertising ahead of the
opening, Thurman said
business has been strong in
its opening week.
Special: Hansell thinks death penalty
rule change should be left to voters
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They may well have had the
votes to change it.”
Either way, he said, he
was in favor of holding a
special session to correct the
part of the bill that made it
retroactive.
Hansell credited Floyd
Prozanski, D-Eugene, a sen-
ator who chairs the Judiciary
Committee behind the bill,
for working to get a special
session organized.
An Aug. 15 letter from
the Oregon District Attor-
ney’s Association urged
Prozanski and Rep. Jenni-
fer Williamson, D-Portland,
to call a special session after
the DOJ declared the bill
retroactive.
“This law is a failure on
multiple levels — a failure
to respect the will of vot-
ers, a failure to draft a clear
law for Oregon’s most dan-
gerous criminals, and a fail-
ure of trust by telling voters
it is not retroactive when the
opposite is true,” the letter
said.
The ODAA also sug-
gested that six of the current
31 death row inmates in Ore-
gon would be considered for
aggravated murder prosecu-
tion under the new law.
Prozanski and Hansell
both expressed concern over
the families of victims who
might be affected by the
retroactivity.
Hansell said there was
widespread bipartisan sup-
port in the Senate to hold the
session, and that he thought
there was support among
both parties in the House as
well.
“It doesn’t take a rocket
scientist to fix this, but
there were people who were
unwilling. I thought there
was support on the House
side. I don’t know if the gov-
ernor was dodging it,” he
said.
Prozanski agreed that
Senate was ready to make
the quick change in a special
session on Sept. 27, two days
before the bill is set to go into
effect. But he didn’t think it
was Brown’s fault that the
session never happened.
“The Senate, as far as I’m
concerned, stepped up to the
issue that needed to be taken
care of,” Prozanski said.
“From my perspective, the
reason it couldn’t go forward
because the House was play-
ing politics.”
Prozanski said he thought
Monday’s republican leader-
ship shakeup, which resulted
in the election of Rep. Chris-
tine Drazan, R-Canby, as
minority leader, was the
reason the House couldn’t
convince Brown there was
enough support to hold quick
and easy special session.
“We tried and we just
weren’t able to convince her
and her caucus to say yes,”
Prozanski said of Drazan.
“I personally encouraged
Brown to bring us in any-
way. I can also understand
that when you call a spe-
cial session, there are some
things that can happen.”
Rep. Greg Smith, R-Hep-
pner, said he didn’t think a
special session was neces-
sarily on the table in the first
place, although he would
have liked to see the bill
amended.
“We heard rumors about
the special session, but I
never heard from leadership
that it was a go,” he said.
Smith said he thinks vot-
ers will petition to over-
haul the legislation. Hansell
said he is hopeful, but hasn’t
heard any evidence that this
will happen.
“There’s always that
option. There’s been no
effort because everyone
assumed that legislature can
fix it. Now that we’re not
moving in that direction, I
would think there’s certainly
a possibility,” Hansell said.