TWO - Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Official Newspaper
of the City of Heppner and the County of Morrow
Heppner
GAZETTE-TIMES
U.S.P.S. 240-420
Morrow C ounty’s Home-Owned Weekly Newspaper
Published weekly and entered as periodical matter at the Post Office at Heppner.
Oregon under the Act of March 1 ,187V Periodical postage paid at Heppner, Oregon
Office at 188 W Willow Street Telephone (541) 676-9228. Pax (541) 676-9211
E-mail editor u rapidserve net or dav id u rapidserve net. Web site: www heppner
net Postmaster send address changes to the Heppner Gazette-Times, PO. Box
337, Heppner, Oregon 97836 Subscriptions: $27 in Morrow County; $21 senior
rate (in Morrow County only; 62 years or older); $33 elsewhere, $27 student
subscriptions.
David Sykes................................................................................................Publisher
Autumn Morgan.............................................................................................. Editor
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Courthouse project should
be finished by end of month
W orkers have started the concrete paving process for the Court
Street Project. Each paving section m ust cure for seven days.
A ccord in g to Tom S tran d b erg, Public Inform ation O fficer
o f Eastern O regon O D O T, the project should be com pleted
by the end o f the m onth except for the striping w hich w ill be
com pleted the first or second w eek in October. Strandberg said
that people seem pleased w ith the retaining w all next to the
courthouse. Strandberg also said that the finished product will
be very nice and the sidew alks w ill be safer for kids w alking
to school. -Photo by Autumn Morgan
Pedersen, Walker
announce engagement
Stuart W alker and M olly Pedersen
Molly Pedersen and Stuart Walker, both of Port
land, wish to announce their engagement.
Molly Pedersen is the daughter of Gary Peder
sen, Salem, stepmother JoAnn, Carmel, CA, and the late
Carol Pedersen.
Stuart is the son of Ralph and Sally Walker of
Heppner.
They are planning a November 6 wedding in Las
Vegas, NV.
Beth's Buddies to walk again
lone’s super team
of w alkers, Beth's Buddies,
is preparing to participate in
the JDRF (Juvenile Diabe
tes Research Foundation)
Walk to Cure Diabetes.
The walk is set for Sunday,
October 4, at Oaks Park in
Portland.
Participants gather
funds which go to JDRF’s
ongoing efforts to fund
diabetes research. After
the walk and lunch, all par
ticipants get a ride brace
let allowing unlimited fun
at Oaks Park Amusement
Park. All are welcome to
join the group.
Parents are also
needed w ho would be will
ing to drive a group of kids.
Please contact Anne Morter
at 422-7429 for more infor
mation. To register for the
walk or to make a pledge
to one of the walkers, go to
www.jdrf.org.
Beth Morter, a Type
1 diabetic since 2004, is the
captain of the team and like
too many others, lives with
the constant headache of
dealing with diabetes 24
hours of every day. JDRF
has made great strides in
diabetes research but a cure
has yet to be found. Events
like this walk may someday
make it possible.
For more informa
tion, contact Beth Morter at
422-7429.
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The Heppner Gazette Times will print all letters to the Editor with the following criteria met: letters submitted to the newspaper will need to
have the name o f the sender along with a legible signature. We are also requesting that y ou provide your address and a phone number w here
you can be reached. The address and phone number will only be used for verification and will not be printed in the newspaper. Letters may
not be libelous. The GT reserves the right to edit. The GT is not responsible for accuracy o f statements made in letters. Any letters expressing
thanks w ill be placed in the classifieds under “Card o f Thanks” at a cost o f $10.
Reassure them that those unpaid nights on call won’t be at the cost of American life
To the editor and President:
We all know medical costs are astronomical and
growing beyond what is reasonable, we all can agree
about that. There is a solid drumbeat of demand, expec
tation that this be brought under control as it is a major
cost factor in the American business, helping to make
American workers so expensive when compared to the
rest of the world. The hue and cry is that the Government
“do something.”
My hope is that the “something” is intelligent in
the long run and insightful, not something our system has
so far been known to accomplish.
Current and recent past policies have been to
“cut the fat” out of the system. 1 think the fat is gone,
and meat and bone are being sacrificed. Cutting costs has
been applied to the providers, the physicians, and hospi
tals, the nursing/retirement homes. These costs need to
come from deeper in the cost structure. Cutting costs by
cutting payment is analogous to mowing the grass closer
and closer to the soil. This will result in bald spots, and
this has happened.
Hospitals closed. The buffer that would be used
in case of virulent epidemic (more than what the current
H l-N l swine flu had shown to be so far) is just not there.
Even if the hospitals have the building they do not have
the licenses to have more beds. Consider now Medicare
has effectively limited small rural hospitals to 25 beds,
if they want to survive.
Just try to build a new nursing home. Try to staff
one. Try to make a profit.
There are fewer applicants to medical school,
physician population is aging and projections are that
we need more doctors (MD,DO) than we are producing,
more physician extenders. Our population is aging and
will need more at a more rapid rate than simply because
of population increases. We fill that gap by recruiting
(stealing) providers trained in other countries, our foreign-
born, foreign trained colleagues without our present
system would founder. We cause a brain-drain of those
contributing countries.
Costs rising has caused insurance premiums to
rise causing more and more people to drop insurance as
it becomes a luxury in their eyes. More not being able to
makes fewer have to pay the whole bill via cost shifting.
A positive feedback loop that will lead to destruction.
EMTALA and Hill-Burton, its logical forefather require
that everyone be seen, regardless of ability to pay. If you
pay your premium, you are paying for those unable to
pay. You will, righteously, rebel. Why should one pay
for health insurance, the system has to provide, can’t
turn you away.
Governmental decisions tend to have about a
10-year lag time between decision and disaster, give or
take a few years.
Fewer and bright and optimistic medical students
are going into these specialties. My fear, based on my
experience, is that the Government will change its mind
to the will of the wisp, the Zeitgeist, and change its plan
in some fundamental way that is to our detriment, create
a bald spot. It was about 10 years between the decision
to allow building fashionable beach houses on shifting
dunes and when the dunes shifted. It was about 10 years
from when the PERS payment schedule was established
and when the first PERS crunch occurred. It was 10 years
ago President Clinton signed the repeal of the Glass-
Steagall Act of 1933 that set the stage for the current
mortgage crisis.
It takes more than 10 years to become a doctor:
four years of college, four years of medical or Osteopathic
school, and average four years of residency. Some residen
cies are longer, general surgery is five (sometimes six),
Thoracic or Chest Surgery is two to three more than that,
as it requires General Surgery residency, Vascular is also
two years more than general surgery. Neurosurgery is at
least six years. Cardiology is two to three years beyond
an Internal Medicine residency which is three years at
least.
Long range planning needs to encourage more to
embark on this arduous path and discourage those already
in the pipeline or practicing from leaving. Physicians are
retiring early out of frustration with the present system,
payment, documentation, unfair insurance denials, micro-
management. We here in my small town have benefited
from this as some specialists are so micro-hassled and
denied that it is nigh impossible to just hang out ones
shingle after training and make a living. These people
have gone for employment either short term or long
term. I have a friend that is a good doctor, but taught me
this truth... We are already paying for medical care. Any
change wrought by any grand plan will change only the
particular line item which it is paid. Real change must
come from down below the ground level.
Drugs and supplies cannot cost so much as to be
fundamentally unfair. Isn’t it morally reprehensible that
the same medicine made by the same company in the
same shape and color, same packaging (except for the
language) can have such a different price if purchased in
a different country? No $700 hammers, please.
• A friend told me he was sent to purchase nylon
rope for orthopedic traction down at the local hardware
store as the cost was so much greater when purchased
through a medical supplier. Cost containment must extend
to the suppliers to providers.
Some tests cost more than the treatment of the
1
disease they are intended to diagnose. At one time the
cost for genetic testing for breast cancer gene was about
50% more than what the surgeon gets for any surgery to
treat that disease.
Elective plastic surgery pays so much more per
procedure than lifesaving procedures, such as appendec
tomy for acute appendicitis. Cardiac surgery pays the
same or less in Oregon than hip replacement. Elective
means “not medically necessary” which means it is not
covered by insurance, thus not billed to the company, thus
no discount or “usual and customary” fee. These are paid
out of pocket by the consumer. “Usual and customary”
means what the insurance companies have colluded to
pay based on accounting and actuarial calculation, not
on what most physicians have been charging. I’ll bet you
weren’t expecting that.
The people (potential patients) must take great
stock in the fundamental health they bring to the system.
Come cannot be helped, the genetic part, but some can.
Smoking, drinking alcohol to excess, obesity, illicit drugs,
and even use of “herbals” without professional guidance
must be called into question.
We, the people, must not demand the absolute
best and fastest without being ready to give up on cost. We
must be willing to spread the cost so we don’t feel cheated
when we see the process. Everyone must contribute via
premiums or taxes as we all benefit. Remember society
is already putting the money into the system, just making
everyone mad the way it is collected. It looks like a rip-ofT.
If everyone had protection from the fear of the bill, many
preventable medical disasters might not happen, and more
would be healthy, fewer “outliers.” A simple outpatient
surgery might prevent the three week ICU stay.
It would be only fair that part of the reform re
quire that either we buy health insurance or the govern
ment will buy it for us, and we won’t like it.
Some medical care will always be considered
“elective” but the decision has to be fair and equitable.
Logical even. Who in their right mind would hire someone
with a known hernia, yet our present Oregon plan says
that the repair of hernias are medically unnecessary. The
patient remains unemployable and on the roles.
Please Mr. President, as you pilot our course
into a reform package, put some sense into it, encourage
pursuit of healthcare careers. As a general surgeon these
last 25 years, I can attest that the practice of medicine is
fun, exciting and intellectually satisfying, stimulating.
The business of medicine is a deterrent. Any plan must
foster those who would become providers to pursue their
dream, encourage those in the field to remain, and reassure
them that all those unpaid nights on call won’t be at the
cost of American life.
Dr. Thomas Famey
Hermiston
Cats running around loose to fend
for themselves
To the editor:
I had the unpleasant experience for driving
through your town recently while on vacation with my
family and seeing firsthand the “many” and I mean
“many” cats running around loose to fend for them
selves. The location is north of the grocery store on Main
Street behind the old car wash in the alley. Many more
came flooding out from behind the dumpster when the
garbage man came by. Some were injured, sick and one
was maimed, limping around. All were scavenging for
food, starving.
I made a call to the city manager and he acknowl
edged that there was a problem even went as far to say
that the fairgrounds also has or had a similar problem, but
because the people of Heppner were not willing to help
get this problem under control, there was nothing he could
do. I say baloney and as I told him it is his responsibil
ity to take care of any and all problems in the town that
he oversees and that just because the townsfolk don’t or
won’t help he cannot just ignore a continually growing
problem. This will only increase as they are left,to con
tinue breeding and spreading disease. The winter months
are right around the comer and I can bet the smallest of
kittens won’t make it, maybe that is his way of taking
care of the problem.
There are agencies who will help if asked, maybe
the town will need to fork over some money to take care
of the problem but in the long run it seems like a minor
price to pay.
I hope you bring light to this problem and maybe,
just maybe, someone will step up and make the call.
Michelle Bell
Spokane, WA
I always sign my name
To the editor:
To the people who write letters degrading our city
council and workers using filthy and vulgar language, or
write about a deceased person who is like a sister to us,
you are living cowards because they will not put their
names on these letters.
Any letters I send out, no matter who they go to,
I always sign my name because I am not a living coward
like those who send out filthy letters.
Jim Nelson
Lexington
Statewide wheat marketing meetings resume
D arren P ad g et,
OWGL vice president and
the marketing committee
have announced the State
wide Marketing Education
Nazarene/7,h Day Adventist Church members Series meetings will resume
will be serving lunch on Wednesday, September 23. The Thursday, September 17, at
menu will include chicken and dumplings, green beans, 8 a.m.
peaches, biscuits, and flat apple pie.
Talking points
planned are: Winner of the
Harvest Price Contest will
Senior Center Menu
Letters to the Editor ~
be announced. The contest
was introduced at the final
Polycom meeting in May.;
A digest of the USDA re
ports due out on September
11th Potential White Wheat
Supplies due to depressed
prices; and world outlook
for wheat.
The meetings gen-
erally occur the second
Thursday of each month
- this meeting is the excep
tion - via Polycom video
conferencing at various
locations throughout the
state.
A complete list of
participating locations is at
tached, and is also available
on the OWGL website at
www.owgl.org. Please call
the location to RSVP and
confirm their participation
on the call. The location
for Morrow County is at
the OSU extension office
conference room, 54173
Hwy. 74 in Heppner, (676-
9642).
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