A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Single-payer
health plan’s
daunting
price tag
N
othing may scare Oregonians away
faster from the state moving to a
single-payer health plan than big,
fat new taxes.
And the state’s Task Force on Univer-
sal 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
system with promises of providing better
care, coverage for all Oregonians and lower
cost. Single payer means all the variety of
benefits, policies and networks would go
away and be replaced by government. In-
stead 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 single
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 Sep-
tember to finalize its proposal. Then Orego-
nians will have something firmer they can
covet or reject.
The task force needs to pick an assumption
for how much the system will cost to run.
The difference is in the billions. And the de-
cision can lower or raise the proposed 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% assumption is called
“aspirational” in task force documents and is
not supported by the state’s actuarial analysis.
How should the new income tax on house-
holds 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 em-
ployers would be paying in a new payroll tax.
And, is a new sales tax coming, too?
Give us the numbers. Justify them. Picking
aspirational goals not supported by actuar-
ial analysis may not help. Only with justified
numbers can Oregonians decide it is good to
essentially destroy private-sector health in-
surance jobs and increase government con-
trol 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.
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
Catastrophic cost of China’s zero-COVID
China’s leaders have managed their frac-
tious underlings by giving them clear nu-
meric targets. Central leaders set GDP
growth targets for provincial officials, who
then do the same for city leaders in their
region, and so on with counties down the
line. Promotions followed from strong
performance on these metrics, demotions
from failure.
For decades this limited quantified vi-
sion worked to produce strong GDP per-
formance. But over time problems accumu-
lated. The predictable result, as my research
demonstrates, was that lower officials juked
the stats. Some simply faked the numbers,
and others used policies, such as boosting
construction, that increased short-run GDP
at the cost of mounting debts to fund vacant
airports, little-used highways and empty
buildings on the edge of shrinking cities.
Such efforts to hit their targets happened be-
cause these officials had more reason to care
about their superiors than the people their
policies affected.
Fifteen years ago, China’s then-premier
Wen Jiabao laid out his concerns about what
this system produced, calling China’s econ-
omy “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated,
and unsustainable.” But even with all of the
political changes that Xi Jinping has wrought,
moving away from GDP targeting has
proved elusive.
Now, we are seeing the same dynamic un-
fold with the zero-COVID policy.
The policy’s key strength was its clear nu-
meric target, which China’s leaders used to
measure their subordinates’ performance.
But this success has proved increasingly cata-
strophic. It has led officials to produce ques-
tionable numbers (the official death rate is
… remarkably low), to separate parents from
their children, to withhold medical care from
those with other ailments, and to confine cit-
izens — with a food system near the break-
ing point — to try to achieve an increasingly
impossible goal.
China’s regime is trapped by its previous
success. It has centered much of its propa-
ganda on the superiority of zero-COVID and
the Chinese system of rule. Altering the pol-
icy might be taken as an implicit admission
that the Chinese model is not so successful
after all. Hence the current situation, where
China’s local and national leaders proba-
bly realize that continuing the zero-COVID
policy is a mistake, but no one feels secure
enough to take the risk of fixing it.
One key lesson is that complex authori-
tarian systems such as China are less nimble
than they seem at first sight. Numeric targets
allow the central leadership to influence their
underlings — but at the expense of giving
them tunnel vision and the incentive to fudge
the figures when they can. And sometimes,
when the targets do succeed for a while, they
become traps, tempting the regime to iden-
tify too closely with a measure that then leads
it to adopt increasingly irrational policies
even when reality demands change.
It’s hard for China’s leaders to relax the ze-
ro-COVID policy, even if they can see its de-
structive consequences.
the electric co-op board, even when the 5J
school district has a survey I use my voice.
I congratulate our mayor for running
for governor, and going after what she be-
Bob is not a big talker, ask anyone that
knows me. This has bugged me for a while lieves in. I have to say, 1,395 is a good num-
so here goes: You hear it all the time “Salem ber but more people voting surely would
does not listen to us, they ignore the rural have increased that number. Now she can
get back to helping our City Council run
east side of the state.” “We should become
part of Idaho.” Why does Salem ignore us?” Baker City.
My wife and I moved to Oregon because
Well, because we don’t use our voice,
I have always loved this state and want to
using our voice doesn’t mean writing our
finish my days here in Oregon.
local paper, or having a local meeting
Bob Ward
with 60 friends, or grousing to our friends
Baker City
and neighbors.
Politicians hear votes, but Baker County
is too lazy to bother to vote, in this last
America is foundering without its
election 41.6% voted, that means out of
every 10 people, five did not even return
Christian foundation
a ballot. That is terrible, we have a chance
to tell Salem what we want and we can’t be
It seems some people can’t understand
why this country is under such unrest. Let
bothered, statewide only 31.8% voted.
I came from a state where you had to go me give you a hint. For over 200 years the
downtown to register and to vote, you had historical record is clear — America was
to take time off work and stand in line at
built on Christian principles. What did
a polling place sometimes for hours and
the Founding Fathers believe that’s lost
I voted every chance I got. I have lived in
today? They believed that a widespread
Baker County for ¼ of my life and wish it
faith in God was the true source of Amer-
had been longer. Here in Oregon if you go ica’s greatness. They would see today’s war
to the DMV you get sent a voter registra-
against Christianity by our government,
tion, all you have to choose is a party. We
our educational institutions, the media
get a voter pamphlet mailed to us and have and throughout our popular culture as a
mail-in ballots, how much easier could
grave threat to our America’s survival as a
it be? I vote every time I get a chance; for
free nation!
A few think to about, and there’s much
more. From David Josiah Brewer, associ-
ate justice, U.S. Supreme Court, 1892. “Our
laws and our institutions must necessarily be
based upon and embody the teaching of the
Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that
it should be otherwise, and in this sense and
to this extent our civilization and our institu-
tions are emphastically Christian.”
From George Washington. “It is the duty
of all nations to acknowledge the provi-
dence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to
be grateful for His benefits, and to humbly
implore His protection and favor.”
From Thomas Jefferson. “God who gave
us life gave us liberty. And can the liber-
ties of a nation be thought secure when we
have removed the only firm basis, a convic-
tion in the mind of the people that all these
liberties are a gift of God? That they are not
to be forgot or violated but with His wrath?
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just, that His justice can-
not sleep forever.”
There is much more to say in defense
of the truth, but out of room. In closing
I want to let you who read this know the
Founding Fathers must be turning over in
their graves over what we the people and
the churches have let this great and won-
derful country come to.
Richard Fox
Baker City
BY JEREMY L. WALLACE
F
or two years, it seemed as though Chi-
na’s ruthless COVID-19 policy had
paid off. After stumbling in its initial
efforts to stem the pandemic, China’s rul-
ers fixed a simple numeric target — zero
COVID cases — and made sure every-
one knew they had to reach it. The results
looked severe to Western eyes, but they
stopped the virus’s spread. They also gave
China a propaganda victory, emboldening
their claims that authoritarian governments
could solve social problems better than lib-
eral democracies, which in worrying too
much about people’s civil rights, ended up
killing them instead.
Now, the costs of the China’s rigidity are
becoming apparent. New variants are much
harder to control; more than half of China’s
largest cities have seen lockdowns. Weeks
after its lockdown began, some in Shanghai
remain trapped in their apartments indefi-
nitely, with many growing increasingly an-
gry and hungry. A slew of figures shows a
cratering economy in April. China’s refusal
to change course demonstrates the weak-
nesses, not the strengths, of China’s system.
Once its leaders have settled on a number
like zero, it’s very hard for them to change.
Many Western observers rely on simplis-
tic models of how China works. They imag-
ine the Chinese government as a monolith,
where leaders issue edicts that are flawlessly
carried out by local agents. The reality is
much messier. The Chinese state is a bewil-
dering patchwork of bureaucratic fiefdoms,
each run by petty tyrants trying to retain the
favor of the party leadership, while pursuing
their own self-interest.
█
Jeremy L. Wallace, an associate professor of
government at Cornell University, is the author of
the forthcoming “Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts:
Information, Ideology, and Authoritarianism in
China.”
YOUR VIEWS
If we want to be heard, our votes can
speak loudly
CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Joe Biden: The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. 20500; 202-456-
1111; to send comments, go to www.whitehouse.gov.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. office: 313 Hart Senate
Office Building, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-
224-3753; fax 202-228-3997. Portland office: One World
Trade Center, 121 S.W. Salmon St. Suite 1250, Portland,
OR 97204; 503-326-3386; fax 503-326-2900. Baker City
office, 1705 Main St., Suite 504, 541-278-1129; merkley.
senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. office: 221 Dirksen Senate
Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5244;
fax 202-228-2717. La Grande office: 105 Fir St., No. 210,
La Grande, OR 97850; 541-962-7691; fax, 541-963-0885;
wyden.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (2nd District): D.C. office: 1239
Longworth House Office Building, Washington, D.C.,
20515, 202-225-6730; fax 202-225-5774. Medford office:
14 N. Central Avenue Suite 112, Medford, OR 97850;
Phone: 541-776-4646; fax: 541-779-0204; Ontario office:
2430 S.W. Fourth Ave., No. 2, Ontario, OR 97914; Phone:
541-709-2040. bentz.house.gov.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 State Capitol, Salem, OR
97310; 503-378-3111; www.governor.oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read: oregon.
treasurer@ost.state.or.us; 350 Winter St. NE, Suite 100,
Salem OR 97301-3896; 503-378-4000.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen F. Rosenblum: Justice
Building, Salem, OR 97301-4096; 503-378-4400.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative documents and
information are available online at www.leg.state.or.us.
State Sen. Lynn Findley (R-Ontario): Salem office: 900
Court St. N.E., S-403, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1730.
Email: Sen.LynnFindley@oregonlegislature.gov
State Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane): Salem office: 900
Court St. N.E., H-475, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1460.
Email: Rep.MarkOwens@oregonlegislature.gov
Baker City Hall: 1655 First Street, P.O. Box 650, Baker City,
OR 97814; 541-523-6541; fax 541-524-2049. City Council
meets the second and fourth Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in Council
Chambers. Councilors Jason Spriet, Kerry McQuisten,
Shane Alderson, Joanna Dixon, Kenyon Damschen, Johnny
Waggoner Sr. and Dean Guyer.
Baker City administration: 541-523-6541. Jonathan
Cannon, city manager; Ty Duby, police chief; Sean Lee, fire
chief; Michelle Owen, public works director.