Health reform tops town hall with Merkley

Published: August 03. 2009 4:00AM PST

MADRAS � Sen. Jeff Merkley fielded a variety of questions from Central Oregon residents Sunday at a town hall meeting held at the Jefferson County Senior Center.

The Portland Democrat defeated sitting Sen. Gordon Smith last fall, the first defeat of an incumbent Oregon senator in 40 years. Merkley, 52, has said he intends to follow the model set by Ron Wyden, his fellow Oregon senator, and visit each Oregon county at least once every year. Deputy Communications Director Marc Siegel said Merkley has already been to 25 of the state�s 36 counties since taking office.

Attendees pressed Merkley on subjects ranging from illegal immigration to global warming to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but health care and proposed government reforms of the health care system dominated. Most in attendance were unconvinced that proposed reforms would do more good than harm. The senator asked for a show of hands to determine who thought current proposals were �crazy� or �reasonable� � crazy won out by a margin of at least 5 to 1.

Merkley said health care has been the top issue at every town hall meeting he�s held, and that there�s been nothing close to a consensus from Oregonians who�ve expressed their concerns to him. At a recent town hall, all but one of the questions asked of him was about health care, he said.

�In many of the forums, I�ve laid out the options for people: status quo, do nothing, or do we go to single-payer, or do we go to the pool that puts all small businesses together to get a better deal, do we do it private only, or do we do it private and public,� Merkley said. �And it�s varied enormously, but in general there�s none of those directions that there aren�t people supporting it. People are all over the map on this issue.�

In response to a woman concerned about the apparent lack of urgency for getting the United States out of Iraq and Afghanistan, Merkley said he�s encouraged by relatively good news from Iraq, but increasingly concerned about �mission creep� after recently hearing a briefing from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

�The initial mission was al-Qaida is organizing, let�s go in and disrupt their organizing,� Merkley said. �But now we have road building, institution building, governance, you name it, health care programs, poppy interception and disruption. The long history of Afghanistan is that every country that�s come over the mountains has eventually backed out over the mountains, with the country still in some level of chaos.

Asked why the health care industry as a whole needs to be reformed when around 85 percent of Americans are insured and largely satisfied with their insurers, Merkley said he�s not sold on any particular solution yet, but that the problems that currently exist will continue to grow if not addressed. Merkley said the cost of health care is doubling every seven years, and currently consumes about 17 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, compared to around 10 percent in Europe and 7 percent in Canada.

�Throughout the last couple of years, I�ve had large businesses come to me and say, �if we�re going to compete internationally and create jobs in America, we need to have a more competitive health care system.� I�ve had small businesses saying, �we get taken to the cleaners because we don�t have the same market clout, we want to have the same market clout that big businesses have,�� he said. �And I�ve had individuals say, �we have pre-existing conditions, and we are absolutely thwarted in getting our pre-existing conditions covered. If it�s a bad back or it�s a disease, you�re pretty much in trouble. The question is, can we build on what we have to address those core pieces of concern? That�s what�s driving the conversation, and what we�re trying to figure out.�