[Oregon] Measure 23 backers concede likely defeat [state-financed universal health care system]

An initiative to create the nation's first state-financed universal health care system in Oregon appeared to be stumbling Tuesday in the face of well-financed corporate opposition.

Before the results on Measure 23 were in, Health Care for All Oregonians campaign chairman Mark Lindgren conceded the likelihood of defeat and said he was planning to try again in 2004.

J.L. Wilson, Oregon state director of the National Federation of Independent Business and a point man for the opposition, conceded there was a deep resentment among Americans toward their health care system. But voters did not appear ready to risk an expensive overhaul.

"When you are talking about $12 billion in additional taxes, $7 billion coming from employers payroll taxes and $5 billion from increased personal income tax rates, that's a heck of an obstacle to have to overcome," said Wilson.

Measure 23 grew out of a coalition of groups and individuals who wanted better health care. Backers raised less than $50,000, which went to last-minute television ads. The volunteer campaign was run out of a car owned by 22-year-old campaign manager Dan Isaacson.

Isaacson's aging vehicle ran into a professional campaign financed by $1.2 million put up largely by health insurance companies. Opponents hammered on people's fears about raising taxes, government ineptitude, and people moving to Oregon to take advantage of free health care.

Oregon's has a history of trailblazing initiatives: the nation's first bottle deposit bill; physician assisted suicide; and land use planning. But the legacy was not enough to exorcise the ghost of Hillary Rodham Clinton's 1994 failed attempt at creating a universal health care plan for the nation.

The measure came to a vote after Oregon's dependence on income taxes was strained by recession and the highest unemployment rate in the nation, forcing deep cuts in schools, prisons, and police.

The grass-roots nature of the campaign showed up as organizational weaknesses. Supporters could not convince the AFL-CIO, senior citizens or doctors that they would be better off trading higher taxes for no insurance premiums, Lindgren said. And including coverage for alternative health care, such as massage therapy, made them an easy target for ridicule.

This is gone. Bye-bye.

 Nov-05-2002      08:58 PM       Pacific Standard Time


	Measure 23
	Universal Health Care
	Oregon

Percent of the Vote Counted:

44%


Winner	Candidate	Incumbent	Votes	Vote %
X	No		514,426	80%
	Yes		130,446	20%

Could you ping your Oregon lists please!

"The morons don't understand that the average person understands that this measure would cause the state to go into bankruptcy..."

A lot of the morons were here hoping it would pass. Of course none of them were probably from Oregon. I told them there was not chance. This is a fairly liberal state but even most of the liberals here are not that stupid.

What a whining, lying, sniveling, desperately spinning media piece of Schumer this so-called "reporter" is.

Listen, dirtball. HALF THE POPULATION OF THE STATE WAS THINKING ABOUT **LEAVING** if your Commie piece of trash legislation passed. Get it?

I didn't hear ONE radio ad (admittedly, I don't watch TV), or see ONE billboard, opposing Measure 23. The ONLY thing I got was ONE rather low-key mailing from a Nurse's Association. Meanwhile, the Communists were out in force in the colleges and other leftist-insect-infested Schumerholes hyping this suicidal measure as though it were the Second Coming (of Karl Marx).

There were billboards *all over* opposing the measure mandating labeling of genetically-engineered foods - now, there, I might lend *some* credence to a claim that there was a "well-financed" opposition campaign. But on Measure 23? Frankly, I saw so little organized opposition to it that I was thinking I'd have to join the mass exodus from Oregon.

This lying sack of Schumer just can't stand the idea that working people don't want to carry the losers of the world on their backs. It just doesn't jibe with his Marxist world view, so he writes tripe like this, blaming it on the evil moneybag capitalists.

He ought to just move to China or Cuba - because from the looks of *this* election, it looks like Communism may finally be on its way out in America as well. I should live to see the day...

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