Brown vs. Brown vs. Oregon

 

Governor Kate Brown's contradictory statements when it comes to Oregon's Obamacare experiment are baffling. She must think the public is either ignorant or uninterested. Sadly, maybe she's right.

 

As a candidate, she made no mention of health care in the "Issues" section of her website. She did, however, tout "government accountability" with concern for "Oregonians' faith in their state government" as a priority. It's only now that Brown points to the gaping hole in the state budget created by the failure of Oregon's health care experiment, telling the Oregon Business Summit that health care costs are the single largest cause of the looming budget crisis.

 

But, let's start from the beginning. In 2012, former Gov. Kitzhaber made a deal with the Obama administration for a Medicaid waiver. Kitzhaber's side of the deal: He promised $11 billion in federal savings and $5 billion in Oregon savings over the first 10 years. Obama's side of the deal: The federal government would dole out $1.9 billion for Medicaid expansion over five years to get Oregon's experiment up and running. But if the state could not deliver promised cost savings, while hitting certain quality metrics, it was cut off. The federal money needed to keep doctor salaries stable and patient benefits covered would dry up.

 

It's disturbing that Brown made no mention of health care in her campaign, but the real crisis is that the newly elected governor now presents two polar opposite views of the experiment's results and the rapid expansion of Oregon Medicaid. How is this possible? Is the Obama administration deaf to her statements about the budget crisis? Do Oregonians not know that she is claiming success and, at the same time, asking for more federal handouts to plug the hole? (Quickly too ? before the new Trump admministration has time to look at the real mess on the ground in Oregon.)

 

On one hand, the governor lauds the Medicaid expansion as a success for having signed up 436,000 Oregonians, claiming it has "saved" millions of dollars for both the feds and Oregon.
On the other hand, Kate Brown's speech at the Oregon Business Summit attributed 60 percent of the $1.7 billion budget hole to the same Medicaid expansion.

 

How is it possible for a successful, money-saving program to cause a $1 billion hole? The answer is simple. The governor's claim is based on one notion ? not actual savings, but rather that the state?'s hole might be bigger if not for the Oregon health care experiment.

 

But the national press has made clear that this claim is not true. All the federal and state money has simply added people to health care rolls, with disappointing results and no real savings. Instead, the thousands of additional people on the Oregon Health Plan have caused a gaping, growing hole.

 

Simply signing up people for free services does not make a program successful ? Kitzhaber and Obama have both admitted as much, but not Kate Brown.

 

U.S. News & World Report published just one example of national reporting on Oregon's failed health care experiment:

 

"Oregon's Medicaid expansion increased health care usage across all settings: compared to the control group, the newly covered increased office visits by 50 percent, hospitalizations by about 30 percent and prescription drug usage by 15 percent. The bottom line is that when you make something free people overconsume it.

 

"The Oregon update shows that expanding Medicaid eligibility leads to increased health care utilization ? including ERS ? and costs without a discernible improvement in health. Importantlly, Medicaid expansion did protect ? as insurance of any type is suppposed to ? against financial catastrophe and had associated psychollogical benefits for enrollees. Substituting catastrophic health care insurance for the narrow, difficult-to-access networks that the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion states are using would be cheaper and produce the same financial and psychological benefits."

 

Governor Brown's duel and contradictory positions are beyond understanding. Oregonians should be forgiven for their cynicism when looking at the state's current federal Medicaid waiver renewal submittal. Brown and the state bureaucrats put together a big new ask ? $2 billion over five years ? for renewed federal money, just in time to get it in front of the lame duck administration. They know full well that the incoming administration will not be fooled by their false claims of success.

 

Continuing down this path will increase the fiscal damage for Oregon taxpayers and deepen the hole that must be reckoned with in the future. The Obama administration knows this, but seems willing to comply with the distorted data points in the request, as evidenced by their comments about looking forward to "working with Oregon to reinvest the shared savings."

 

How deep will our state's hole be if/when the feds cut off the failed experiment? Will it be $2 billion deeper than it already is, if the Trump administration cuts off the Brown-Obama renewal ruse? And if we are cut off, how does Oregon handle the 436,000 "innocent bystanders" they signed on to this health care mayhem? Can they be shifted to a better system? Or will the state just ask for more tax increases to cover their mistakes?

 

There are workable solutions available to begin to repair the unworkable promises made to Oregonians for "free" health care, but let's agree to begin with this: Any discussions about Oregon's health care future should be based on the truth. And that's not what we are hearing now.

 

As Democrats search for answers to how they lost middle-income voters, post-election attention has focused heavily on the Rust Belt as well as West Virginia and Pennsylvania coal miners, who lost their jobs by the thousands. The politicians seems to have forgotten the thousands of displaced Northwest timber workers, many of whom still suffer and still seek meaningful family-wage employment.

 

A local video documentarian requested comments from Oregonians about how the Trump administration could help people in our state. Below is one such statement from a timber operator in Oregon. Will it be included in the documentary? Will the new administration listen?

 

Make Rural America Great Again
By Rob Freres

 

I grew up east of Salem, Oregon, in the Santiam Canyon timber dependent communities. In my youth, there were more than a dozen mills and probably a couple thousand people employed in the woods and mills nearby. Those blue-collar jobs provided a middle-class lifestyle, along with the ability to pay for their children's college education and provide for retirement. Local high school yearbooks described dozens of activities for students, and the small towns were vibrant and alive with caring people. My grade school was located across the street from my church. My class and the entire school would attend funerals regularly. I went to more than 100 funerals by the time I left high school and easily over 200 by the age of 25. That's the kind of respect and love people have for each other in small towns in rural Oregon.

 

Thirty years ago, I drove to work one day on a timber sale on Scar Mountain. I was met with dozens of unknown people protesting logging and my way of life.

 

The protests, the death threats, the tree spiking ? which I vview as attempted murder, the arson, the vandalizing of equipment, and the ecoterrorism has never ended.

 

In 1993, one of the first acts of President Bill Clinton was to attend a Timber Summit in Portland. The result was a reduction of timber harvests by 80 percent in the Pacific Northwest National Forests. The promise of 20 percent of timber harvest levels was a lie. Harvest levels dropped to near zero by the time Bill Clinton left office.

 

Over 200 mills closed, and nearly 100,000 families lost their jobs. One hundred thirty timber dependent communities in the Pacific Northwest were devastated, and they have never recovered. My friends lost their jobs, their homes and their self-respect.

 

Once vibrant Santiam Canyon towns now have crisis centers, food banks, gleaners and schools that are open part time.

 

Rural areas are where 90 percent of the food and energy is produced. Urban areas are where that food and energy is consumed. The economic prosperity of one is important to the prosperity of the other.

 

The lack of education about business and wise use of our natural resources is causing America to lose millions of acres of forestland to fires every year. Urban Americans are duped into donating to the environmental industry by their ad campaigns. The ads feature charismatic animals, like harp seals and spotted owls, in an effort to stop commerce and destroy the very environment they claim to protect.

 

President Trump needs to make rural America great again! He can use the bully pulpit to bring us together as a country. There has been a war on the West for over 30 years. He needs to make using our natural resources a national priority.

 

Mr. Trump can choose leaders to change the way Americans are treated by their government and to reduce the countless regulations burdening our businesses, while unleashing new optimism and hope for an improved economy and greater opportunity for all. Mr Trump can reintroduce the rule of law that his predecessor ignored at will.

 

Mr. Trump can defend our borders and reinstate law and order that the community organizer-in-chief actively sought to undermine.

 

Oregon has lost 5,700,000 acres of forestland to fire since 2002. Mr. Trump can represent my needs and those of rural America by reintroducing active management on our public lands for the benefit of all Americans.

 

The notion that the environment can be preserved is false. Nature is a dynamic ecosystem that needs to be managed for our citizen's benefit. It is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition.