SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
A4
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EDITORIAL
Probing
wave of
pharmacy
closures
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat representing
Oregon, has some questions about the causes for a
wave of pharmacy closures, most notably those in 56
Bi-Mart stores, including the Baker City store.
The senator is right to ask those questions.
And although the answers he might get likely won’t
resurrect any pharmacies, perhaps Wyden’s efforts can
stave off future closures, particularly in rural areas
such as Baker County where residents have fewer
options for fi lling prescriptions.
Wyden, who is chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee, wrote a letter to Chiquita Brooks-LaSure,
administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medic-
aid Services, a federal agency. Wyden cited the Bi-Mart
pharmacy closures, noting that pharmacies across
Oregon have reported as a problem the “direct and
indirect remuneration” fees imposed by Medicare Part
D plans and pharmacy benefi t managers — which
Wyden describes as “middlemen.”
“I am deeply concerned that the rise of these fees
has contributed to the permanent closure of 2,200
pharmacies nationwide between December 2017 and
December 2020,” Wyden wrote in his letter to Brooks-
LaSure.
Wyden also wrote that these fees “can be deployed
as anti-competitive tactics” by the pharmacy benefi t
managers (PBMs) — companies that manage pre-
scription drug benefi ts on behalf of health insurers,
Medicare Part D plans and large employers, among
other clients.
Wyden is calling on the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services to review pharmacy closures in
the U.S. over the past fi ve years, including the nature
and effect of PBM payment practices, and to use the
agency’s authority to regulate their fees.
That’s a good start to addressing a problem that,
if recent trends are any indication, might continue to
worsen in the years ahead.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
Your views
Republicans accept money from
Democrat administration
I’m amazed that both Baker County
and City governments have magnani-
mously decided to accept the combined
(over 5 million dollars) federal econom-
ic relief funds considering how much
the city/county leaders and their fellow
Republicans seem to hate the cur-
rent administration and all it stands
for. But it seems that they are doing
so willingly and with glee! It is much
needed funding, for sure. And they’re
right to take it and use it. They need
it. We all need those funds to keep the
city/county departments fully funded
and to get needed personnel, equip-
ment and training they need to keep
us safe and healthy.
Both the city/county will be able to
use those federal government emer-
gency relief funds for the many needy
departments they operate: fi re, police,
roads, etc.
But you have to wonder if the city/
county would have received those same
economic stimulus/relief funds from
the Republican nominee who ran for
president, and lost. He had shown no
inclination to help cities or counties,
during his term, unless it benefi ted
him or his “friends.” So, now, maybe,
Baker City/County Republicans will
be pondering why they voted the way
they did. If the current administration
seems to be more concerned about the
economy of small cities and counties
than the Republican nominee would
have been, and is providing economic
relief for individuals, businesses and
governments then, just maybe, they
voted for the wrong person. City/
County Republican voters must be
shaking their collective heads and,
maybe, fi nally, seeing that what Pogo
said many years ago is as relevant
today (for Republicans in Baker City/
County) as it was then: “We have met
the enemy and he is us.”
Steve DeFord
Prineville
River Democracy Act is another in
a series of land grabs
Sen. Wyden and Sen. Merkley have
co-sponsored the River Democracy Act
of 2021, which has the potential to add
4,700 miles of Oregon waterways to the
Wild and Scenic Rivers list. This would
be the length of the mighty Mississippi
and Missouri combined. Yes, this would
be quite a remarkable achievement; it
needs to be asked, “is this necessary?”
What more protection is needed?
Our public lands, which includes these
waterways, are protected by numerous
government agencies that are aided
by countless NGOs (non government
organizations). No project moves for-
ward without an approval stamp from
the NGOs (to name just a few, Nature
Conservancy, Wild Earth Guardians,
Oregon Natural Desert Association,
or Center for Biological Diversity).
Just recently the Center for Biological
Diversity used its weapon of relentless
lawsuits to halt a project in the Ochoco
National Forest. These extremist
NGOs use litigation as a very effective
tool of intimidation.
Access and utilization of the natural
resources our public lands provide has
decreased with the Wilderness Act and
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. We have
rode a wave of continued land grabs
under the guise of preserving natural
conditions.
The River Democracy Act is one of
the most abusive overrides we have
witnessed, plus it’s an insult to what
“wild and scenic” was intended, “pro-
tection and enhancement of outstand-
ing remarkable values.” Protections
exist presently.
D.M. Ballard
Baker City
The troubling trend from Oregon’s highways
The most dangerous activity
most of us engage in on a daily
basis is one we generally consider
as routine as brushing our teeth.
Driving an automobile.
So routine, in fact, that I’m
sure it wouldn’t tax your inter-
net research skills to fi nd a few
videos showing people brushing
their teeth while driving.
And doing a variety of other
things that don’t involve steering
or braking. Or watching the road.
The notion of the car as a sort
of rolling offi ce has become cliché.
Except, of course, desks don’t
as a rule run over pedestrians or
collide with oncoming traffi c.
The chance of dying during
any particular drive is, of course,
vanishingly small.
Yet fatal crashes are common
enough, and have been for the
better part of a century, that it
seems to me passing strange
that we treat driving with such
nonchalance.
Obviously this has much to
do with the relative simplicity of
operating a car.
Most 10-year-olds, I suspect,
have the dexterity and coordina-
tion needed to drive a few blocks
without crashing, at least at mod-
est speeds.
(Whether they have the height
needed to reach the pedals or see
over the steering wheel is quite
JAYSON
JACOBY
another matter.)
Also, we trust 16-year-olds —
perhaps trust isn’t the most apt
verb — let’s say we allow 16-year-
olds to obtain a government-
issued license to drive a car.
I wonder if we would be as
sanguine as a society, when it
comes to driving, if we were to
describe the task more explicitly,
which is to say, accurately.
Piloting a 4,000-pound vehicle
at speeds of 70 mph is a skill
more associated with trained
professionals than with teenag-
ers, after all.
Yet for all the inherent risk
with such a combination of mass
and velocity, travel by car is con-
siderably safer today than it was
20 years ago, or 50 years.
But not as safe as it was less
than one decade ago.
This troubles me.
The statistics suggest that the
prodigious advances made by au-
tomotive engineers, with antilock
brakes and electronic stability
control and a proliferation of
airbags that cocoon occupants of
new cars, might have reached an
apex, in terms of their capacity to
save lives.
I wonder if we have reached
an intersection, so to speak,
where technology is no longer
capable of thwarting the basic
physics of auto travel.
In 2013 in Oregon, 313 people
died in traffi c crashes, including
pedestrians, bicyclists and motor-
cycle riders.
That was the state’s lowest
annual death tally since the
1940s.
Even more impressive than
that raw number, though, is that
the fatality rate dropped to that
level despite a massive increase
in the number of cars on Oregon’s
roads — about 3½ million more
compared with 1949.
To account for such changes,
traffi c engineers compile the
fatality rate per 100 million miles
traveled. In 1949, Oregon’s rate
was 6.38 deaths per 100 million
miles traveled. In 2013 the rate
was 0.93.
But the trend didn’t continue.
Oregon’s annual fatality to-
tals, and rates, have increased in
several years since 2013.
From 2013 to 2016, for
instance, the death toll rose by
58% while the number of miles
traveled in the state increased by
just 8.9%.
The fatality rate, after dipping
slightly below 1 per 100 million
miles traveled in both 2011 and
2013, has been above 1.18 every
year since 2014.
Baker County’s annual
fatalities during the period have
ranged from two in 2013 to seven
in 2016 and 2017.
Statewide, 2021 is on pace
to be the deadliest year since at
least 2013, when there were 512
fatalities.
As of Oct. 18, there had been
450 deaths in Oregon during
2021. That’s a 14.2% increase
from the same period in 2020.
And then there are those
teenagers.
While I was working on this
column I received an email from
LendingTree LLC that included
an analysis of federal traffi c
crash statistics from 2010 to
2019, the last year for which
detailed records are available.
During that decade, the num-
ber of fatal crashes in Oregon
that involved a driver age 15 to
20 rose by 58% — the highest
rate among states.
As the parent of a 14-year-old
daughter who already is request-
ing a copy of the Oregon driver’s
manual, and a 10-year-old son,
this is the sort of statistic that
causes me to wake from dreadful
dreams in the dead of night.
Assessing these statistics,
and deriving from them possible
contributing factors, is the work
of months (and of experts).
But this is a subject that bears
watching.
It is, of course, impossible to
eliminate danger in driving.
People will crash, and no
complement of air bags, no
installation of cunning computers
that apply the brakes during a
skid, can overcome the obstinate
physical laws I mentioned earlier.
But I’m bothered by the
prospect that what we achieved
in 2013 was ephemeral, that
our roads will inevitably become
more dangerous.
I understand, obviously, that
the more important factor here is
not the machines but the people
who operate them.
I hope the researchers who
study such things in exquisite
detail can pinpoint particular
problems with how we drive —
problems that perhaps can be
mitigated through changes in
how we test prospective drivers
or issue licenses.
In the meantime I’ll continue
to leave my toothbrush where it
belongs — in its little cup next to
the bathroom sink, far from the
driver’s seat.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.