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A2 The BulleTin • Thursday, July 21, 2022 The Bulletin LOCAL, STATE & REGION how to reach us CIRCULATION didn’t receive your paper? start or stop subscription? 541-385-5800 PHONE HOURS 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday 7 a.m.-11 a.m. saturday-sunday and holidays GENERAL INFORMATION 541-382-1811 Report: Health care costs in Oregon rose 49% from 2013-19 Rising prescription drug prices drove much of the increase 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri. ONLINE www.bendbulletin.com EMAIL news@bendbulletin.com AFTER HOURS Newsroom ................................541-383-0348 Circulation ................................541-385-5800 NEWSROOM EMAIL Business ........business@bendbulletin.com City Desk .............news@bendbulletin.com Features.................................................................. communitylife@bendbulletin.com Sports ................. sports@bendbulletin.com NEWSROOM FAX BY HILLARY BORRUD The Oregonian Oregonians’ health care costs rose 49% over a six- year period, with the increase largely driven by a huge jump in drug prices, according to a new state report. Prescription pharmaceuti- cal costs “grew the most of any service category from 2013 to 2019, driven by a 20% annual growth in Medicare” drug costs, according to the report issued by the Oregon Health Authority. Prescription drug costs rose 185% over the six-year period for patients on Medi- care to more than $2,200 per person, annually. Prescrip- tion drug costs rose 92.8% for people with commer- cial insurance and 79.4% for those on Medicaid, according to the state. Inpatient care remained the most expensive category of health care in Oregon, but prescription drug costs sur- passed per-person outpatient care costs in 2018 to become the third-most costly service, according to the state. Last year, lawmakers in the Democratically controlled Or- egon Legislature considered a proposal to set upper limits on how much companies could charge for prescription drugs, but ultimately gutted the plan after the pharmaceutical in- dustry spent nearly $2 million lobbying against it. Lawmak- ers did pass a bipartisan law to limit patients’ copays for insu- lin to $900 a year. After prescription drug costs, the category of profes- sional services, which covers primary care visits and med- ical procedures at doctors’ offices, was the second major driver of increasing health care costs, according to the state. Those costs increased 75.9% for people with com- mercial insurance, 56.7% for patients on Medicare and 41.8% for people with Med- icaid. Oregon is tracking health care costs by sector as part of an effort to rein in the growth of health care expenses to a sustainable level. Although the report did not identify a sustainable rate of health care cost increases, the authors noted that health care costs have outpaced growth of wages and the overall econ- omy in Oregon. In 2019, Ore- gon families with commercial health insurance paid an av- erage of $9,038 for their in- surance premium shares and deductibles. 541-385-5804 OUR ADDRESS CREWS STOP BRUSH FIRE AT CROOKED RIVER RANCH Street .............. 320 sW upper Terrace drive suite 200 Bend, Or 97702 Mailing ........... P.O. Box 6020 Bend, Or 97708 B ADMINISTRATION Publisher heidi Wright ..............................541-383-0341 Editor Gerry O’Brien .............................541-633-2166 DEPARTMENT HEADS Advertising Brian naplachowski .................541-383-0370 Circulation/Operations Maria Johnson ..........................541-617-7830 Finance Wendy dougherty ...541-383-0324 Human Resources ................541-383-0340 TALK TO AN EDITOR City Julie Johnson ...................541-383-0367 Business, Features, GO! 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Bulletin staff report F ire crews stopped a brush fire Tues- day afternoon that threatened nu- merous homes in Crooked River Ranch near the intersection of SW Cinder and SW Peninsula drives. According to Crooked River Ranch Fire and Rescue, the blaze was burning in grass, brush and juniper trees near sev- eral residences, eventually reaching sev- eral stacks of lumber and a horse trailer outside a home in the 12600 block of SW Cinder. The fire, which was first reported about 3:20 p.m. on Tuesday, was declared contained at about one-third of an acre about 30 minutes later. Crews remained on-scene mopping up and building fire lines around hot spots until nearly 6 p.m., according to the fire department. Six engines and 17 firefighters re- sponded, including mutual aid from Red- mond Fire & Rescue, the Bureau of Land Management, Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Of- fice. The cause of the fire is under investi- gation. Portland settles excessive force suit associated Press The city of Portland has paid $55,000 to two inde- pendent journalists who alleged excessive force by Portland police during a 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstration. An investigation after their lawsuit was filed de- termined the city risked be- ing found liable, so the City Council opted for an emer- gency ordinance to avoid a jury trial, The Oregonian reported. The money for the settlement, which com- pensates the reporters for injuries, will come from the city’s Insurance and Claims Fund. Cory Elia and Lesley McLam were contribut- ing to Village Portland and KBOO Community Radio when they were arrested while live-streaming a pro- test. After police deployed tear gas into the crowd, Elia was forced to the ground by at least four officers and McLam, who was trying to take Elia’s phone and press pass for him, was tackled by police, according to the lawsuit. In the suit, Elia said he suffered breathing dif- ficulty from heightened asthma symptoms because of tear gas, a head injury and other maladies. Elia said in a statement that he filed the lawsuit “because the suppressive tactics used by the po- lice to silence journalists is not only a violation of the First Amendment, but an attack on the public’s right to be informed of the injustices happening in their own community at the hands of those who are sworn to ‘protect and serve.’” The lawsuit filed in July 2020 demanded $1 million from the city. It named two “John Doe” officers as de- fendants, as well as officers John Bartlett and Michelle Petty. Portland paid $335,000 in 2021 to settle protest-re- lated lawsuits involving police, according to city records. REDMOND BUREAU Mailing address ..................P.O. Box 6020 Bend, Or 97708 Phone ......................................... 541-617-7829 Tigard man dies after being shot in road-rage incident CORRECTIONS The Bulletin’s primary concern is that all stories are accurate. if you know of an error in a story, call us at 541-383-0367. TO SUBSCRIBE Call us ......................541-385-5800 • Home delivery and E-Edition ..........................$7 per week • By mail .................................$9.50 per week • E-Edition only ...................$4.50 per week To sign up for our e-editions, visit www.bendbulletin.com to register. TO PLACE AN AD Classified ......................................541-385-5809 Other information ....................541-382-1811 OBITUARIES no death notices or obituaries are published Mondays. When submitting, please include your name, address and contact number. 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The Bulletin retains ownership and copyright protection of all staff-prepared news copy, advertising copy and news or ad illustrations. They may not be reproduced without explicit prior approval. Father of 3 was driving home from trip to Oregon Coast BY ZAEEM SHAIKH The Oregonian A Tigard man died Wednesday after being shot and killed on state Highway 18 northeast of Otis in a sus- pected road-rage incident. Dennis Anderson, 45, was with his partner of 18 years, Brandy Goldsbury, on a day trip to Lincoln City after a week of COVID-19 quaran- tine. They were headed back to their Tigard home around 8:30 p.m. on July 13 when they noticed a driver in a car try- ing to pass them, said Golds- bury, 46. Goldsbury, who has worked as a medical assistant at Ore- gon Health & Science Univer- sity, said Anderson sprayed wiper fluid on his windshield while driving and some of the fluid may have gotten on the other driver’s car. “I was just like ‘ignore him, he’s having a bad day,’” she said. The car — which police identified Tuesday as a BMW 3 Series — eventually passed, Goldsbury said, and she be- lieved it was gone. A few miles later, however, they arrived at a rest area northeast of Otis where Goldsbury said they saw the same car parked on the side of the road. “We drove by it, and then it got behind us,” Goldsbury said. “And then when the lanes started to turn to one again, the car started driving really close to the back of us almost like it was going to hit us. And then it would go into oncom- ing traffic and kind of swerve towards us, like trying to push us to the side of the forest.” She told Anderson to pull over and call 911. He did. He also got out of the car while Goldsbury dialed, she said. That’s when the driver of the other car stopped parallel to them and started shooting into the car, she said. “The last thing that he said was, ‘Oh my god, they shot me.’” Goldsbury said. After several shots, Golds- Look for Central Oregon events and add your own bendbulletin.com/events bury unbuckled her seat belt and flagged down passing cars for help. Police, as of Tuesday, have not made any arrests. They said the driver fled. Oregon State Police de- scribed the suspect as a short, less-than-25-year-old man with dark hair. Anderson had two teenage daughters and an adult step- son. “He’s one of those pushover dads,” Goldsbury said. “They would ask for something ab- solutely outrageous, and he would be like ‘no’ and then I would turn around and he’d be doing it, making it happen for them.”
