If you thought that facing $25,000,000 in INCREASED health care costs for Portland during his term as mayor or sitting in the Oregon governor's chair for the next four years while watching public jurisdictions throughout our state spend $625,000,000 in INCREASED health care costs would prompt a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican to propose action to deal with these crises, you would be wrong.

The mayor of Oregon's largest city, Tom Potter, believes that the federal government i.e., George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist (and they are the federal government) will somehow solve Portland's $25,000,000 problem and bring affordable health care to all of Oregon's public institutions and individual Oregonians. This belief, not to be confused with a well researched, thoughtfully considered, publicly debated and defensible opinion, allows Potter to justify ignoring the problem and passing its solution on to Washington D.C. Unfortunately for Potter, and others that hold this view, he cannot say:
1. What is the text of the federal legislation that will provide affordable health care for Oregonians and Oregon's public institutions?
2. Who will sponsor and champion this federal legislation in the congress?
3. When will this federal legislation be likely to pass into law?
4. How is this legislation better than the Oregon Community Health Care Bill?
Until Tom Potter can show evidence to convincingly answer these self-evident questions based on his beliefs his credibility on this issue remains nil.

Candidate for governor Ron Saxton takes an issue, immigration, that is by law the singular responsibility of the federal government i.e., George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist, and for the purposes of his campaign tries to persuade voters that immigration is a state responsibility despite the unambiguous authority of federal law. Saxton completely ignores the $625,000,000 health insurance industry rats voraciously consuming the stores of food in every public treasury in our state. Instead of offering a positive solution to Oregon's biggest problem, namely, providing affordable health care to Oregonians and Oregon's public institutions, Saxton chooses a negative campaign to solve a problem which belongs to the federal government not state government.

A partner in the Ater Wynne law firm, Ron Saxton is using his lawyer's tongue training to obfuscate the fact that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist - the federal government - are totally responsible, by law, for all problems involving immigration. Saxton has to stop his hate mongering at human beings that are here looking for work because the Republican President and the Republican controlled congress not only allows but encourages them to be here. Saxton is shooting at an invited unarmed easy target with no solid evidence they are a threat. In fact, quite the opposite according to Republican President George W. Bush, "We must remember there are hardworking individuals, doing jobs that Americans will not do, who are contributing to the economic vitality of our country."  Saxton avoids confronting the real power players of immigration policy, Bush, Cheney et al., that will fire back if provoked (similar to attacking Iraq instead of Iran or North Korea). In some circles Saxton's behavior would be called bullying or worse, cowardice. In others it might be considered exceedingly bad judgement, pandering or just stupidity. Saxton needs to talk much more about health care for us and do a lot less demagogic ranting about them.

The federal government has failed to provide affordable health care for Oregonians and Oregon's public institutions and will continue to fail into the foreseeable future. Our state, Oregon, can and must take on this responsibility. A reliance on the federal government, the private health insurance industry or, as candidate Saxton would have it, charitable contributions from non-profit organizations, like the Catholic, Protestant and other religious organizations, are not options. We must look to our state capital and 91 of our fellow Oregonians to solve this moral and economic health care crisis. Our votes next May and November must reflect our concern.

Mayor Tom Potter and candidate for governor Ron Saxton use the same technique to avoid facing the most serious issue facing Oregonians and Oregon's public institutions - affordable health care. Saxton slyly substitutes immigration for health care and then tries to make it a state issue. Potter does the reverse. He takes a state issue and turns it into a federal responsibility. Neither one of these men are being honest with themselves nor the citizens of our state. They are both part of the problem not the solution. 

Tom Potter and Ron Saxton sleep well each night comforted by the fact that they will never be without health care insurance that has better coverage than most of the people they do or would hope to govern.


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 6500 readers interested in public health care policy in Oregon.
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/health.html
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/octoberpoll.html
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/candidates.html