Wednesday, May 25, 2022
A4
OPINION
VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN
Big taxes
may make
single-payer
switch scary
N
othing may scare Oregonians away
faster from the state moving to a sin-
gle-payer health plan than big, fat
new taxes.
And the state’s Task Force on Universal
Health Care is talking about ... big, fat new
taxes.
Just how big and fat? Billions.
A new state income tax. A new payroll
tax on businesses. And maybe even a new
state sales tax.
The Legislature set up the task force to
design a single-payer health care system.
The government would create and run a sys-
tem with promises of providing better care,
coverage for all Oregonians and lower cost.
Single payer means all the variety of bene-
fits, policies and networks would go away
and be replaced by government. Instead
of paying health premiums or having an
employer pay for coverage, taxes would be
paid to the government.
People and employers are frustrated with
rising health care costs. The new taxes may
be less than what Oregonians effectively pay
now. But there are no guarantees that sin-
gle payer will be the cure everyone wanted.
As imperfect as the health care system is, it
is the devil Oregonians know. It is not some
new devil with new taxes and change.
The state task force has a deadline of
September to finalize its proposal. Then
Oregonians will have something firmer they
can covet or reject. The task force is sched-
uled to meet Thursday to get more into
the numbers. Some big decisions might be
made this week.
The task force needs to pick an assump-
tion for how much will the system cost to
run. The difference is in the billions. And
the decision can lower or raise the pro-
posed new taxes. A state consultant backed
spending 6% on state administrative costs,
so about $3.5 billion in 2026 dollars. Some
task force members believe the state can do
it for less, perhaps 4%. But that 4% assump-
tion is called “aspirational” in task force
documents and is not supported by the
state’s actuarial analysis.
How should the new income tax on
households work? Should there be a cap on
the household contribution roughly in line
with what the premium might be? Or should
it be with no cap, so household contributions
increase with income? With a cap, nobody
would pay more than the projected cost of
their coverage. Without a cap, it would work
like a progressive tax and some households
may pay several multiples of their projected
coverage cost.
The task force needs to lay this out
clearly for Oregonians. There is a good draft
FAQ that answers many questions. There
are many it doesn’t, yet. Oregonians will
need to know what they would pay in a new
income tax. Oregonians will need to know
what employers would be paying in a new
payroll tax. And, is a new sales tax coming,
too?
Give us the numbers. Justify them. Pick-
ing aspirational goals not supported by actu-
arial analysis may not help. Only with jus-
tified numbers can Oregonians decide it is
good to essentially destroy private-sector
health insurance jobs and increase govern-
ment control for promises of better, cheaper
care. Only then can Oregonians decide if
they should leap from the devil they know
and toward another who comes making
promises.
You can tell the task force your thoughts
by emailing jtfuhc.exhibits@oregonlegisla-
ture.gov.
Election results provide a lesson in party politics
OTHER
VIEWS
Randy Stapilus
D
iscerning through lines in elections
where each campaign has its own
distinct story can be a problematic
exercise. One argument to be made from
the Oregon primary election just con-
cluded: You’re most likely to win a party’s
nomination if you most closely resemble
and appeal to your party’s core.
The two most noteworthy results from
Tuesday, in the Democratic primary con-
tests in the 5th and 6th Congressional Dis-
tricts, make the point.
These two races got the most national
attention, for good reason.
Sitting members of Congress rarely
lose renomination elections, and it hasn’t
happened in Oregon since Democrat Rob-
ert Duncan in 1980 lost his party’s nod
in the 3rd Congressional District in an
upset by a first-time candidate named Ron
Wyden. A Washington Post article at the
time said Wyden’s “campaign was bol-
stered by some important endorsements
from unions, including the major state
teachers’ organization. Some labor lead-
ers were unhappy with Duncan’s votes
against a federal Department of Education
and deregulation of the trucking indus-
try and the congressman’s support of oil
deregulation.”
Duncan, in other words, had moved
away from the emotional core of his party
(or, he might have argued, it from him).
Democratic base
There’s something rhyming with that
in the current primary between seven-term
U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader and challenger
Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who picked up
support from a number of core Demo-
cratic groups including county Demo-
cratic organizations. Schrader has been a
middle-road blue dog Democrat, breaking
from the majority of the caucus on a num-
ber of key issues, and his Democratic base
back home has noticed (as Duncan’s did).
At this writing significant votes are
still out but Schrader is far behind, losing
39.3% to 60.1%. Because of the slow vote
count in Clackamas County, final num-
bers aren’t expected until maybe June, but
Schrader will have a hard slog making up
his current deficit (albeit that it is likely to
shrink).
The new 6th Congressional District,
where there is no incumbent, got as much
attention but for a different reason.
Conventional wisdom is that, next to
incumbency, the best thing a congres-
sional candidate usually can have going
is money, preferably lots of money. One
Oregon candidate in particular tested that
idea this cycle.
Carrick Flynn, running in the Demo-
cratic primary, had almost no local con-
tacts or organized support, was known
before the campaign hardly at all locally
and showed no distinctive issues or
talking points. But his candidacy was
supported by money – mountains of it,
amounts most House candidates would
never dream of.
A cryptocurrency billionaire contrib-
uted millions to a pro-Flynn political
action committee, and a national Demo-
cratic PAC added in with more – totaling
$12.2 million according to the most recent
campaign finance reports. Flynn did not
control that PAC money, but the funds
spent on his behalf were enough to cast a
deep shadow over the funding of all the
other eight candidates.
Flynn flops
The leading conventional candidate
in that primary, Andrea Salinas, was well
funded by usual standards but brought to
bear only a fraction as much. Pro-Flynn
ads (and toward the end, anti-Salinas ads)
swamped the district. Salinas did however
EDITORIALS: Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Wallowa County Chieftain
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have plenty of endorsements, a strong
campaign organization and some famil-
iarity with the district through work in the
legislature and in advocacy organizations.
Voters heard a message appealing to the
Democratic base.
The result? The count is not finished
at this writing, but the result seems clear
from early numbers: Salinas at 36.7% to
18.6% for Flynn. (Flynn has conceded the
race.)
Running toward the party’s base
seemed to help quite a few other candi-
dates on Tuesday, too.
Former House Speaker Tina Kotek’s
win of the Democratic gubernatorial pri-
mary was no shock, but her margin was
notably large. She had been running with
the support of much of the state Demo-
cratic establishment and support network
while her opponent, Treasurer Tobias
Read, had been running as an outsider.
In the Republican primary for the 6th
Congrssional District, legislator Ron
Noble picked up loads of endorsements
and lots of votes in his home legislative
district but trailed Mike Erickson, who
was an unsuccessful Republican nomi-
nee in 2006 and 2008 but ran hard to the
Trump-flavored base.
That approach also may have helped
former legislator Christine Drazen, though
she sometimes moderated. It almost cer-
tainly gave Q-anon supporter Jo Rae Per-
kins her narrow edge for the U.S. Senate
Republican nomination against Wyden.
Hewing to the party base isn’t always
a prescription for winning primaries. But
our times are notably polarized, and evi-
dence of sticking close to the party core
in this season seems to be more asset than
liability.
———
Randy Stapilus has researched and
written about Northwest politics and
issues since 1976 for a long list of news-
papers and other publications. A former
newspaper reporter and editor, and more
recently an author and book publisher, he
lives in Carlton.
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