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A "fake news" supplement called "Economic Times of Oregon" ran in the Salem Statesman Journal either 10/21/2010 or 10/22/2010.  It self-identifed connected with "Third Century Solutions" giving a contact email of info@thirdcenturysolutions.com.  This points it to U.S. Senate candidate Jim Huffman, see http://www.huffmanforsenate.com/index.php?option=com_biosystem&view=default&Itemid=6 where his contact is jim@thirdcenturysolutions.com.

It was rather interesting that the supplement did not seem to contain any direct appeals to vote for Jim Huffman or even any mention of him.  Instead it gave statistics and stories that seemed to follow a unifying narrative that Oregon is very unfriendly toward business.  I heard recently that Forbes ranked Oregon the 10th best state for business, so not only are these "stories" dangerous because they disguise their source as the Statesman Journal with no gurantee that they follow the same journalistic standard, but also they are misleading.

The supplement does say "paid advertisement", but the style (include typeset used and other look-and-feel aspects) is exactly that of the Statesman Journal.  While this is probably legal for the advertisor, I am surprised that the Statesman would allow an add that is disguised to this extent - even with the "paid advertisement" wording.  I read several of the articles before figuring out that it was not from the Statesman.

One of them gives the appearance of being written by former Governor Vic Atiyeh, although I suspect it was not.  This article blames Governor's Roberts, Kitzhaber, and Kulongoski for creating policies that destroyed the economy.

Jeremy Hickerson

Salem, Oregon

posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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I think "rationing" is necessary to containing costs.  But I'm not talking about extreme measures, I'm just saying that limits need to be established for what is covered.  This only makes sense; if there are no limits, then no matter how much we are willing to spend, it would be possible (and likely) to exceed that, by having a small percentage of very expensive procedures, for instance, or by having a large number of routine over-testing, as another example.  With employer provided health care, the actual consumer doesn't think about the costs since they're not directly paying them.  So if the physician says brand-name medication is better, they don't ask how much better, and how much more does it cost than generic.

It think it should be possible for some sort of a review board to establish coverage limits that will still give most people more than what they have now, but will keep overall costs lower than they are now.

I think the problem is that this is politically untouchable, and we refuse to talk about it.

Jeremy Hickerson

Salem, Oregon

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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