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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 25, 2019)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2019 Baker City, Oregon 4A Write a letter news@bakercityherald.com OUR VIEW Fences, wolves & ranchers Wolves reintroduced themselves to Oregon. Ever since, there’s been a lot of debate about what to do about them. They aren’t usually predators of people, though don’t try to make friends. As for ranch cattle, wolves can treat them like a buffet. Nobody knows that better than rancher Ted Bird- seye. His Mill-Mar Ranch of 275 acres near Pros- pect has had more losses to wolves than any other rancher in Oregon, according to OPB. Eight of his cows and two of his dogs have been killed by wolves. It’s the Rogue Pack at work. Is that bad luck? The cost of doing business? Some- thing the government should compensate him for? Oregon has a compensation program. It has paid out money to help ranchers hire riders, buy radios, hang fl ags from fences and compensate for losses of cattle, sheep and working dogs. That seems absolute- ly justifi ed if government and Oregonians want this natural predator to return. What’s good is that people who want wolves to thrive in Oregon are working so hard to help Bird- seye’s ranch from being the place the Rogue Pack goes for meals. A school group came to his ranch and helped him remove some bone piles, according to OPB. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf biologist John Stephenson has spent nights at the ranch to try to keep wolves away. He helped Birdseye put up fl ag- ging on its fences. Birdseye even tried those infl at- able dancing men you see on car lots. Thanks to Oregon’s compensation program, federal grants and contributions from environmentalists Birdseye is getting three miles of electric fencing around his ranch. It cost about $40,000. The same kind of fencing has worked in Montana to keep wolves out. The return of wolves is a welcome sign to some and a bad sign to others. But it is great to see different ends of the spectrum of views cooperate. Prevention of wolves killing livestock is key for people on all sides of the issue. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald. Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the Baker City Herald. OTHER VIEWS Wildfire report can’t gather dust Editorial from The Albany Democrat-Herald: A month after Gov. Kate Brown’s Council on Wildfi re Response raised eyebrows throughout Oregon by esti- mating that it will take $4 billion over 20 years to improve the state’s ability to respond to wildfi res, the council recently released its recommendations on how that money should be spent. At fi rst glance, it appears the council has done solid work. Its report sug- gests that the state focus on four broad goals: • Creating fi re-adapted communi- ties. • Restoring and maintaining resil- ient landscapes. • Responding safely and effectively to wildfi re. • Developing cross-functional sup- port systems to continue to develop these goals. (This is the spot in which members of the council make their case for continued task forces and whatnot, but this does include a reference to an intriguing proposal being kicked around at Oregon State University to develop a wildfi re center to produce, capture and disseminate the best available science regarding wildfi re. OSU would seem to be well suited for such a center.) In all, the fi nal report includes 37 recommendations and assigns priorities to each one: In all, 13 of the recommendations are rated as “high- est.” (The other priority levels are “very high,” “high” and “moderate.” Just one recommendation earned a “moderate” rating — that one calls for the Oregon Insurance Commission to monitor the property insurance market to ensure continued access to affordable insur- ance.) The council said the highest priori- ties are working with power utilities to create risk mitigation plans, changing building codes to require defensible space around homes built near forests, reducing fuels within forests that cause catastrophic fi res and educating the public on wildfi re prevention. That $4 billion price tag does not seem unreasonable, considering that it covers the costs of actively managing forests and rangelands and treat- ing some 5.6 million acres. And even though the report does not identify sources for that funding, it makes a compelling case that the costs of wild- fi re to Oregonians are much greater; in fact, the report says, the average costs of wildfi re (economic losses, lost taxes, damages to ecosystems, destruction of infrastructure and depreciated property values) are 11 times greater than the immediate costs of fi refi ghting. In an interview, Matt Donegan, the chairman of the council, said the state spent $533 million on fi re suppression in 2018 and estimated the associated costs at about $6 billion. This year’s fi re season was milder, but it’s a good bet that it also was atypical; the report says that climate change, population growth and record fuel levels have combined to create a growing wildfi re threat in the West. But although those numbers are per- suasive, they don’t make it any easier for legislators and other state offi cials to locate an additional $4 billion. The problem here is that it would be easy to glance at the price tag, grimace, and set the report on a shelf at the Capitol to gather dust. That would be a mistake: A number of the recommenda- tions in the report likely can be pursued at a relatively low cost. The report also suggests fi guring out a way to treat 300,000 acres of state land each year at a cost of about $200 million. That’s not peanuts, but it’s easier than fi nding $4 billion at once. The report also urges that we not wait for that long-term funding model to fall into place: These treatments should occur each year, it says, “to the full extent possible through state funds.” We’ve seen a tendency on the gover- nor’s part from time to time to hold off on immediate action in favor of pulling together a working group to search for long-term answers. That’s not neces- sarily a bad impulse, but it comes with the risk that nothing happens while we wait for that long-term strategy to fall into place — or, worse, that the strategy never is implemented. The nice thing about the council’s recommendations is that they’re not all or nothing; they include items that we can move on almost immediately. We shouldn’t wait. Wildfi res won’t. OTHER VIEWS Warren’s Medicare for All plan doesn’t pencil out For any problem, Sen. Elizabeth Warren likes to say, “I have a plan for that.” Her plan to fi nance “Medi- care for All” doesn’t add up. Not even close. Perhaps that’s why Warren is changing that plan. Warren may deserve credit for trying. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sponsored one of the Medicare for All bills, hasn’t tried to explain how he would pay for this transformation of the American health care system that would abolish private insur- ance. Voters associate Sanders much more with the idea. Presidential candidates Warren and Sanders, however, are compet- ing for the same ultraliberal Demo- cratic voters. Warren has been rising in the polls. So she didn’t merely embrace Medicare for All. She tried to own it. But Warren’s math shows that the plan relies on unrealistic as- sumptions. Her calculations also undermine Sanders’ claim that even though taxes would rise for all Americans under Medicare for All, the middle class would come out ahead because they would save even more. Based on a reading of Warren’s plan and several credible analyses, here are the numbers: According to the left-leaning Ur- ban Institute, Medicare for All would cost the federal government an additional $34 trillion over 10 years. Warren starts by claiming to reduce that number to $20.5 trillion. To get there, Warren diverts $6.1 trillion that states now spend on health care. Getting that money could require a lawsuit. Then she relies on the fi rst of those shaky as- sumptions. Warren assumes that Medicare for All would reduce the cost of prescription drugs by $1.7 trillion. That’s far more than what outside analysts — including those at the Urban Institute — have concluded. Warren also assumes that health care spending would slow by $1.1 trillion over those 10 years. Even though the rate of growth has slowed under the Affordable Care Act, Warren’s estimate assumes much more in savings. She predicts a savings of $1.8 trillion from lower administrative spending without private insurance expenses. Again, that’s higher than other estimates. She assumes that payments to doctors and hospitals would decline by almost $3 trillion. But setting those lower rates would be a huge political fi ght, and provid- ers who opposed them might stop seeing patients. Problems continue with fi nd- ing that $20.5 trillion in revenue. Warren starts with $9.8 trillion from companies with employees of at least 50 employees. That’s the money they spend now on Medicare Part A payments, with employees paying the other half. From there, Warren has to scram- ble. She relies on $3 trillion from her 6% tax on the wealthiest Americans. But tax avoidance likely would re- duce that amount, and Warren also has proposed spending revenue from that tax on other programs. Warren further assumes that tougher tax enforcement would in- crease revenue by $2.3 trillion. That is 40 times higher than what the IRS estimates. She would seek more revenue from companies by repeal- ing the corporate-friendly 2017 tax bill. Congress would have to act fi rst. For the rest, Warren would impose a tax on Wall Street, cut defense spending and reform immigration. She said immigration reform, which couldn’t even get a House vote in 2013, would save $400 million. Linda Blumberg is a health economist with the Urban In- stitute. She co-wrote the group’s analysis of Warren’s math. “We felt we were making pretty optimistic, aggressive assumptions,” Blumberg told The Washington Post. “They’re making more optimistic, more ag- gressive assumptions.” Indeed, Warren and Sanders both are being dangerously unreal- istic. They contend that Medicare for All could offer more benefi ts than single-payer health care plans in other countries without any of Letters to the editor • The Baker City Herald will not knowingly print false or misleading claims. However, we cannot verify the accuracy of all statements in letters to the editor. • Letters are limited to 350 words; longer letters will be edited for length. Writers are limited to one letter every 15 days. • The writer must sign the letter and include an address and phone number (for verifi cation only). Letters that do not include this information cannot be published. Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald, P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814 Email: news@bakercityherald. com the trade-offs that are aspects of those plans, such as longer waits to see some physicians and higher taxes. You can see why Democrats want to campaign on health care. The issue helped them take the House last year. Americans regularly com- plain that their policies cost more but cover less. Yet few support Medicare for All as Warren and Sanders envision it. Last February, a poll commissioned by The Hill newspaper found that only 13% of respondents wanted a single-payer program if it meant abolishing private insurance. A better idea for those under 65 would be a “public option” — gov- ernment-run coverage that would compete with private plans. Some people might take the public option and buy a private, supplemental policy. Warren now says that she would fi rst seek to create that public option and to lower the Medicare age from 65 to 50. Not until the third year of her presidency would she “transi- tion” to Medicare for All. It’s true that Republicans have only a bad plan on health care — repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. But the Democratic alternative should be a good plan, not Medicare for All.
