Posts by Hines Brian

Ridiculous. The health care reform bill passed by the House last weekend doesn't allow an abortion to be part of a benefit package bought by anyone who gets a government tax credit to help pay for the insurance.Put another way:Abortion would not be paid for in plans offered by a government-run insurance system. Also, people who took federal subsidies to buy insurance would not be able to use the money to buy such coverage.It's enough to make this progressive scream. Aaaarrrrrggghhh! And I'm not even a woman, nor a man of child-bearing capability.Along that line, I got a vasectomy before…

It's another election day, albeit a rather low-key off-year one. I'm getting flashbacks to 2008, when it seemed like everything was going to be just fine now. With Obama our president for the next four years, wouldn't we get the change that we'd be wanting for the past eight? The way things have turned out so far, mostly not.Nothing Obama has done to date excites me the way his campaign did. Arianna Huffington nailed this theme in today's "Obama One Year Later: The Audacity of Winning Versus the Timidity of Governing." She made me think, right on, sister!Indeed, reading the…

Wrong, wrong, wrong. That mantra kept being repeated in my increasingly irritated mind as I read Bill Monroe's call to kill more cougars in last Sunday's Oregonian.Monroe is an outdoors writer. But it's obvious that he doesn't know much about cougars, including their beneficial effect on ecosystems and how non-dangerous they are to people.Last week my wife and I went to a presentation at the Salem library by Oregon State University professor Bill Ripple called "Linking cougars to butterflies." As a Statesman Journal story said, cougars and other top predators are essential for a balanced natural environment.(Here's a PDF file…

Just when I thought Regence Blue Cross of Oregon couldn't irritate me further -- after many years of double-digit premium increases, after trying to deny my plan-switch application because of two minor preexisting conditions -- they're now part of an effort to scuttle health care reform.Deeply irritating. I emailed Regence yesterday, telling them that this subscriber of theirs wasn't happy that health insurers have emerged as the top foe of reform efforts.I note that you are a member of AHIP, which is actively trying to stop health care reform efforts. Do you support AHIP? If so, you certainly don't represent…

I can't understand all the rabid anti-government sentiment from right-wingers in response to the notion of offering people a publicly-run health insurance option. That's what Medicare is. And Medicare recipients rate this government program much more highly than users of private insurance rate their plans. A survey found that 56% gave Medicare a 9 or 10 on a 1-10 scale, while only 40% of private insurance members gave their plans that high a rating.Government programs work well, by and large. I went to two public colleges, San Jose State University and Portland State University. Got a good education. These institutions co-exist…

Excellent news. And not wholly unexpected. I've always wondered if the right-wing crazies like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage have anywhere near the political influence that their over-heated egos claim.New York Times columnist David Brooks says, "No, they don't" in The Wizard of Beck.So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.They pay…