Uninsured stats hold steady in state [So What?]
Census - Oregon bucks U.S. trend of rising numbers of people without health coverage
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
DON COLBURN and BILL GRAVES
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1156908323308770.xml&coll=7

Hi Don and Bill:
It is irrelevant that the percentage of those without health insurance in Oregon remained constant. So what? The more important fact/statistic is that the 2007 Oregon legislature will fail to bring affordable health care to Oregonians and OREGON'S PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS (which will spend roughly $625,000,000 in INCREASED health care costs during the next governor's term) because better than 99% of the CANDIDATES for our legislature and neither of the candidates for governor have a viable public health care solution to Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis.

There is ONLY ONE health care question on the public table. Is there anyone who will present legislation that can compete with the Oregon Community Health Care Bill?

If you and your colleagues are not seeking the answer to this question then you are not giving your readers the opportunity to evaluate the reality of the health care debate that I give the 17,000 statewide readers of Oregon Health Watchers.

If you and your colleagues are not starting each interview related to a health care reform story by asking, "Do you accept the premise that a solution to Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis CANNOT include the private health insurance industry model?" then you have taken the wrong fork in the road.

If you and your colleagues are not asking elected officials throughout Oregon how long they can continue to pay themselves and public employees health insurance premiums approaching $1,000 a month and sustain skyrocketing total health care cost increases in their jurisdictions before citizens, voters and taxpayers who can't afford a fraction of that monthly premium for their families begin to say "STOP."


Richard Ellmyer
Oregon Community Health Care Bill author and project champion
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses.
Writer/Publisher - Oregon Health Watcher commentary - Published on the Internet and distributed to 17,000 readers interested in public health care policy in Oregon.
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/health.html