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4A | FEBRUARY 27, 2020 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL Cottage Grove Sentinel 116 N. Sixth St. Cottage Grove, Ore. 97424 NED HICKSON , MANAGING EDITOR | Opinion 541-902-3520 | NHICKSON @ CGSENTINEL . COM The First Amendment C ongress shall make no law respect- ing an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Govern- ment for a redress of grievances. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” —Thomas Jefferson (1800) USPS#133880 Copyright 2020 © COTTAGE GROVE SENTINAL Letters to the Editor Policy The Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a community discussion of issues on the local, state and national level. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters should be limited to about 300 words. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the volume of letters received. Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published. Letters containing poetry or from outside The Sentinel readership area will only be published at the discretion of the editor. Political/Election Letters: Washington still asking the wrong heathcare questions in healthcare systems — with The Common- wealth Fund naming us dead last among the top 11 industrialized coun- tries for overall health- care dollar-for-dollar. While watching the Democratic debates this week and the ongoing discussion over health- care, I couldn’t help but be struck by the irony that most of the same people haggling over what health coverage Americans should have access to are the same people who have com- plete coverage paid for by taxpayer dollars. It’s no wonder that the real question that current members of Congress should be asking has yet to be raised: Why is healthcare so expensive to begin with? At $3 trillion a year, the cost of healthcare in the U.S. is nearly twice as much as any other de- veloped country. In fact, if that $3 trillion health- care sector was its own country, it would be the fifth-largest economy in the world according to Consumer Reports. And even though we are outspending other industrialized countries nearly 2-to-1, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently ranked the U.S. a dismal 37th Cutler gave the example of Duke University Hos- pital, which has 1,300 billing clerks and only 900 beds. The reason? Billing specialists are From the Managing Editor’s Desk Ned Hickson In preparing this ed- itorial, I spent time re- searching the reasons behind healthcare’s as- tronomical costs in this country. While there are many factors, from defensive medicine practices for avoiding lawsuits, to the “branding” of healthcare providers similar to de- signer clothing (the big- ger the name, the more money they can demand from insurance compa- nies), the same two cost factors rise to the top of the list: Administrative costs. Drug costs. WHO studies, Con- sumer Reports and even health economists like David Cutler at Harvard University agree that those two factors are the driving forces behind skyrocketing healthcare costs. On average, 25 per- cent of healthcare dollars go to cover administra- tive fees. In an interview on the PBS News Hour, needed to determine how to bill the varying requirements of multiple insurers. Why the need for mul- tiple insurers? Because more and more, single insurers can’t cover the rising costs of medical procedures and drug prescriptions, par- ticularly at a time when the median age in Amer- ica is 40. In most countries, gov- ernment negotiates drug prices with drug makers, which virtually guaran- tees lower prices. However, when Con- gress created Medicare Part D, it specifically de- nied Medicare the right to negotiate drug prices. At the same time, the Vet- erans Administration and Medicaid aren’t under the same restriction and pay the lowest drug prices. According to Con- gress’s own Budget Of- fice, if Medicare Part D recipients received the same discount as Medic- aid recipients, the federal government would save $116 billion over the next 10 years. Imagine the mon- ey American taxpayers would save if those on Medicare could benefit from the same Medic- aid-negotiated drug pric- es? One has to wonder why Congress is so op- posed to weighing in on controlling the cost of prescription drugs and healthcare as a whole, and what — if any — role those who benefit most from that $3 trillion in- dustry play in that deci- sion. As taxpayers, we are America’s sharehold- ers — and Congress is our board of directors. It’s time we ask why the board of America, Inc., isn’t pursuing a more cost-effective healthcare plan that will guarantee a better return on our in- vestment, which in this case literally puts lives at stake physically and fi- nancially. Rather than bickering over ways to pay the as- tronomical costs associ- ated with healthcare and prescription drugs, Con- gress needs to slow down and address the issue of controlling those costs in the first place. Establishing affordable healthcare isn’t as much about how to pay more but about how to pay less. Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely issues of interest to our readers at-large. Letters must: 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support candidates based on personal experience and perspective rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric. Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes; this constitutes paid political advertising. As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper, at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow the above criteria. Send letters to: nhickson@cgsentinel.com HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS Oregon state representatives Oregon federal representatives • Sen. Floyd Prozanski • Rep. Peter DeFazio District 4 State Senator PO Box 11511 Eugene, Ore. 97440 Phone: 541-342-2447 Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@ state.or.us (House of Representatives) 405 East 8th Ave. #2030 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: defazio.house.gov/ contact/email-peter Phone: 541-465-6732 • Rep. Cedric Hayden Republican District 7 State Representative 900 Court St. NE Salem, Ore. 97301 Phone: 503-986-1407 Website: www.leg.state.or. us/hayden Email: rep.cedrichayden@ state.or.us • Sen. Ron Wyden 405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: wyden.senate.gov Phone: (541) 431-0229 • Sen. Jeff Merkley Email: merkley.senate.gov Phone: 541-465-6750 S entinel C ottage G rove 541-942-3325 Administration Jenna Bartlett, Group Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager... Ext. 1207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Gerald Santana, Multi-Media Sales Consultant... Ext. 1216 gsantana@cgsentinel.com Veronica Brinkley, Multi-Media Sales Consultant... 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