Category Archives: Health care

Fanfare for Donald Trump

Should Donald Trump live to see Election Day, he deserves another win. It would be a rebuke to America’s vaunted media who have devoted the last four years to waging war on him. This is the same media who are forever telling us that the president of the United States is the most powerful man […]

Stay Home Forever, Save More Lives

What an exciting time to be a grocery store clerk. You are hailed as a hero just for showing up at work. It’s a long way from storming the beaches of Normandy, but that was another America. In this America, we’re encouraged to behave like frightened hypochondriacs while our political leaders induce an economic meltdown, […]

The Monsters Bide Their Time

We’re all living on Maple Street now. Has there ever been a more sheep-like animal than humans? The panic over COVID-19 is absurd. Even if it should turn out that coronavirus is as dreaded as the politicians and media claim it is, we will have behaved in an embarrassing way. What’s next – a lynch […]

High Hopes and Sad Realities

What would Jack and Jackie make of the street scene outside the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Ore. where there’s currently an exhibit devoted to the 35th president of the United States? President Kennedy and the First Lady might be amused by the casual under-dressing in public, the exposed flesh and the tattoos. They would […]

A Cop Shop Under Siege

If a mentally ill man – armed with a weapon or just his fists, legs and deranged anger – had burst into the meeting hall where the Community Oversight Advisory Board recently gathered, there’s no doubt who would have been expected to deal with him. The police. Five Portland police officers are on the 20-member […]

Blue Hours and Alien Boys

When it comes to the mentally ill, nobody is singing, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.” No, when it comes to crazy people on the street, whether or not they’re our brothers, we don’t want to carry them. We call the cops. In Portland, police have been accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of […]

Tax Bill Comes Due For Obamacare

My one-year experiment with Obamacare ended on tax day with me writing a check to the IRS for $5,424. More than half of that – $3,000 – went to reimburse the government for an Affordable Care Act health insurance policy that provided me little in the way of medical coverage. It didn’t bother me to […]

Intoxicated by Money

From the second floor of 24-Hour Fitness on McLoughlin Boulevard in Portland, you can look across the river and see Oregon Health & Science University on the hill, a reminder of what awaits even the fittest and healthiest of us. Eventually, the human body wears out. No matter how superior your genes, how devoted you […]

Who’s the Freeloader?

When Richard Nixon, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all dreamed of creating a more affordable health care system for Americans, they probably didn’t envision a cheerleader like Greg Schoenberg. He’s an insurance broker, and he smells opportunity. There are health plans to be sold, and Schoenberg is doing his part as a registered agent with […]

A Toast to Health Care

Happy Hour at a bar called the High Dive in Southeast Portland – what better place to apply for health insurance through Cover Oregon. That’s where I signed up for insurance after seeing an invitation on the Internet from a group called Working America. Within minutes of registering for a 5:30 p.m. slot, I received […]