4A
FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 Baker City, Oregon
eA~ERoiv — /
j
-
j
/
Serving Baker County since 1870
Write a letter news@bakercityherald.com
GUEST EDITORIAL
ixin
NNIY,'NS.. g yigI8%
e icare
X 'SNJI.NY
se
IIIIfN l%YiNS %R
Editorial from The (Bend) Bulletin:
Monday, for the 17th time in 11 years, the U.S. Senate voted to approve what's come to be called a "docfix,"a billto setdoctors'M edicare reimbursement fees for the year. The House of Representatives approved an identical measure Thursday. Sen.Ron Wyden, D-Portland, opposed the fix. Wyden, the newly minted chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wants a permanent solution to the Medicare payment problem. It's a problem he's been working to fix for at least the last few years. In late 2011 he teamed up with conservative Republican Rep. Paul Ryan to create a plan. It went nowhere. Last year, in January, he tried again without luck; then early this year he unveiled a third proposal that so far has not been acted on. Whether or not Wyden's proposals are the right answer, the lack of debate about them or this issue is unfortunate."Doc fix" legislation merely delays, yet again, cuts that were written into a 1997 reimbursement formula. Those cuts were aimed at controlling Medicare costs, but the delays themselves meant physicians would have seen a 24 percent drop in their reimbursement rates this year. Meanwhile, the fix has cost taxpayers something more than $150 billion over the years. Moreover, it perpetuates a system that reimburses physicians on a fee-f or-service basis — for ordering more tests and more visits rather than for providing better care, according to the Kaiser Health Foundation. Wyden was unable to persuade senators to take the time to find a permanent solution to the problem, and given the deadline — the old measure expired Monday night — that's no real surprise. But the extension may actually work in favor of real reform of the system. Wyden offers one proposal and has offered others. One reform measure, a bipartisan effort, was approved in mid March by the full House, though in its current form it may not get far in the Senate. And, there may be still other ideas worth considering. Congress now has a year to sort things out and actually fix the Medicare problem rather than simply putting it oA'for next year's members to tackle.
Letters to the editor Mail:To the Editor, Baker City Herald, PO. Box807,BakerCity,OR 97814 Email: news@bakercityherald.com Fax: 541-523-6426
%IIWPilà X FlND
INSCAl .
dQggAILIP:
"NIIY M Wlf hSK>"
a san races oca con ro A Baker County initiative petition to change the county commissioner seats from partisanracestononpartisan races is currently being circulated by Sumpterresident Randy Joseph. Many voters think"nonpartisan" means neutral or not involved in politics. Not so! County commissioners make and setpolicy,justlikeour state representativesand senators.Other elected county officials who are nonpartisan carry out policy — big difference. It is easy to influence voters with a well-written statement, but it is also easy to deceive them when they have no idea what a person's true affiliation
TOM VAN DIEPEN SUZAN ELLIS JONES
will make the decision for the appointment of the third commissioner. Is this really the voters having a say in local government? In the past 30 years, there have been four resignations of county commissioners. In July of 1986 both Ben Dunleavy, a Democrat, and Rod McCullough, a Republican, resigned; in 2003 Paul York, a Republican, resigned, and last spring we had the resignation of Dr. is. Stiff, a Republican. Baker County citizens — voters Baker County currently has the abil— need to keep localcontrolofthe ity to mimic the primary with a nomireplacement process when a commisnating convention to determine the sionerresigns.Ifthese seatsbecome nominees for the county commissioner nonpartisan, then vacancies will be ap- decision. The nominees are fully vetted pointed by two individuals, one possibly and votedon by the dozens ofelected being the governor all the way on the precinct committee people (PCPs) from other side of the state. Where would all over the county. Numerous studies have proven these nominees come from? Who would nonpartisan races actually reduce vet them? The two commissioners left making the appointment? This smacks voter turnout. Voters lose the ability of agood-old-boy system. to screencandidates forcorebeliefs. Nonpartisan elections equal no interest ORS 236.210 and 236.225 in summary: If one Baker County Commisor researchby thevotersforthe candisioner resigns, then the remaining two dates— candidatebeliefs are masked. commissioners will make the decision We end up with less informed voters for the replacement. than we have today. (Google: Teams If two commissioners resign, then without Uniforms: The Nonpartisan ballot in State and Local Elections.) the governor of Oregon will appoint A nonpartisan system is promoted one commissioner to make a quorum and then the remaining commissioner, by liberals and left-wing groups such along with the governor's appointee, as the legislative arm of SEIU, The
T emostim ortantman a r Philo T. Farnsworth should be as famous as Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell. That Farnsworth is, if not unknown then certainly obscure compared with Edison and Bell, seems to me both a pity and the basis for a fascinating story. Itisdebatable,buthardly hyperbolic, to claim that Farnsworth is the most significant inventor of the past 200 years. What's not in question is that Farnsworth invented electronic television. Which is a technology that's about as ubiquitous as the lightbulb and the phone, but vastly more influential. I recently read a fine biography of Farnsworth — Evan I. Schwartz's "The Last Lone Inventor: David Sarnoff vs. Philo T. Farnsworth." Schwartz's book was published in 2002but Isuspect,considering Farnsworth remains in effect anonymous a dozen years on, that it must not have sold an awful lot of copies. I had heard of Farnsworth before I noticed the book at the Baker
• 0
•
JAYSON JACOBY County Library, but I knew almost nothing ofhis unique achievements. In 2006 I saw, but didn't visit, a museum in Rigby, Idaho, near Idaho Falls, that honors Farnsworth. He lived in Rigby for part ofhis childhood. It was there, while he was plowing a potato field on his parents' farm in the summer of 1921, that Farnsworth, then just 14,
had his epiphany. The science involved far exceeds my meagerunderstanding but basically the teenager, who when he looked at the even lines of furrows he was making in the field thought not of cropsbutofelectrons,recognized the essential truth of television. Which is that the mechanical techniques TV experimenters had thus far employed (using spinning discstocapture and reproduce moving images) would never work well. Only electricity — specifically, electrons — moves fast enough to make television feasible, Farn-
League of Conservation Voters, and League of Women Voters among a few. The Oregon counties that have gone nonpartisan have done so with the help of these liberal groups and the Democratic Party — which really doesn't quite smell right, not quite neutral. Nonpartisan races are theroad to a single-party system. (If you like your party, you can keep your party! Yeah,
right.) According to the Association of Oregon Counties, there are currently seven counties that are nonpartisan under a home rule charter, which allows the county to define in its rules a replacement process. Two counties are partisan under Home Rule governance. Baker County is not Home Rule, it is general law governance (statute driven). Seven other counties are nonpartisan and under the county judge format of General Law. There are actually only 13 counties governed like Baker County that are nonpartisan. Hardly the 20 out of 36 that has been stated by the chief petitioners, who are trying to compare apples to oranges. Once Baker County voters understandthe lossoflocalcontrol,we don't believe they will support this nonpartisan initiative. For more information call 541-519-
5035.
• 0
•
Committee.
an o n e ow s
beats Sarnoff in a legal sense — the dispute over various TV invention patents were the subject of yearslong court battles — Sarnoff wins in the court of public opinion. discs.) His "Eureka!" moment arrives on It's not that Sarnoff ended up renowned forever after as the "father page 21 of Schwartz's book. of television" — indeed, I suspect Over the remaining 279 pages his name is no more familiar to the author details Farnsworth's most Americans today than Farncrusade — that word seems to me most appropriatebecause itconveys sworth's is. Rather, because Sarnoff's RCA the obsessionthat drivesinventors — to perfec thisconcept. was so intimately associated with Schwartz soon introduces readers TV during the technology's infancy, to Farnsworth's adversary Sarnoff. that company, not any individual inventor, was widely credited as He was an executive at RCA, the New York company that dominated being responsible. the American radio industry and, Itwasn'tuntildecades laterlater, television. Farnsworth died in 1971, having The ClifFs Notes version would spent much of the final three describe Sarnoff as the ruthless and decades ofhis life experimenting sophisticated urban tycoon who with cold fusion — that Farnsworth began to receive accolades,albeita outwitted and bullied Farnsworth, the brilliant but naive farmboy. fractionofwhat he deserved. And that overview, however By then, of course, it was too late. superficial, is not altogether inacFarnsworth wasn't even inducted into the National Inventors Hall of curate. But Schwartz, fortunately, tells a Fame until 1981, eight years after tale that is far richer in detail, and the institution opened in Akron, as aresultfar m orecompelling. Ohio. Ultimately, although Farnsworth He was its 77th member. sworth concluded. He was, of course, right. (Surely you've noticed that your TV doesn't have any spinning
Van Diepen and Jones are members of the Baker County Republican Centrrrt
I doubt anyone has the audacity to argue that 76 Americans have invented technology more important than television. Yet because unlike Edison, Farnsworth toiled in his workshops without attracting more than cursory media attention, his name never became associated in the public's mind with television the way Edison's was with the incandescent
lightbulb. I don't mean to suggest that Farnsworth's story is a tragedy. He ended up making quite a lot of money from his invention — a pittance compared with what he ought to have earned, to be sure, but enough to live a comfortable life. Still and all, I find it fascinating that an inventor who's in part responsible for everything from the Kennedy-Nixon debate to Neil Armstrong's giant leap to MTV to "Dancing With The Stars," could be so obscure that perhaps the most prominent homage to his life is a museum in a small town in Eastern Idaho. Jayson Jacoby is editor ofthe Baker City Herald.
• 0
•