News Dozens of protesters chanted outside Sen. Ron Wyden's office (1220 SW 3rd Avenue) this afternoon for 30 minutes to demand the Oregon Democrat consider a public health care option. Wyden has worked for a long time on a health care system overhaul, as he explained in this WW interview, in hopes of providing individuals with more and cheaper health care options. But he has taken a good deal of ...   More

News The Huffington Post is reporting that U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and five other senators have sent a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders urging them to slow down Congress's efforts to bring universal health care. Wyden and Co. are already taking a beating on liberal blogs, with the Huffington Post story dubbing them a "gang of six." "The organized effort to slow down the process ...   More

News Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and radio's Lars Larson went national last night with the debate over the congressman's health care proposal that would require Medicare to reimburse physicians for discussing end-of-life choices with patients. The back story for their appearances on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" is that Blumenauer has been angry that some Republicans and their amen chorus ...   More

News After we blogged two days ago wondering where three Democratic congressmen from Oregon stand on health-care reform, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) called with an answer. Wu spokeswoman Julia Krahe says her boss — like the state's fourth Democrat in the House, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) — is fully committed to a public option. "He's really been out there ...   More

News U.S. Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) took the floor at Good Samaritan Hospital Tuesday afternoon to face critics for a second day in a row. And despite an onslaught of criticism about healthcare reform, he called both meetings "civil discussions." Only about 60 people were allowed into the meeting out of a crowd of hundreds who began lining up along Northwest 22nd Avenue at 8 am. The randomly selected ...   More

News U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer may not be attending town hall meetings on health care to defend his reasonable proposal on end-of-life discussions between docs and their patients. But the Oregon Democrat is plenty ticked off at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for calling his proposal "inherently evil" and lying about what it would do as a means of scaring people. Maybe he should challenge her to a ...   More

News This video making the rounds today in which U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) tells some woman waving an Obama-as-Hitler sign that having a conversation with her would be like arguing with a "dining room table" got a huge laugh from a former Frank staffer in Portland. That ex-staffer is city Commissioner Nick Fish, who in the early 1980s both volunteered for Frank's campaign and worked as a paid ...   More

News Dr. Atul Gawande's June 1 piece on health care in the The New Yorker, The Cost Conundrum, has gotten the attention of policy-makers at the highest levels, including President Obama. So it's probably no surprise that the 3,000-seat Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall downtown was nearly filled last night when Gawande spoke about healthcare reform. Gawande, whose New Yorker piece explored the wide ...   More

News The hot topic of health care reform hits everyone differently. From the perspective of Basic Rights Oregon, one ignored group is transgender people, so BRO announced this week that it's building a campaign for transgender people to get better health care coverage. "The vast majority of insurance policies explicitly exclude trans-appropriate healthcare" reads BRO's website. BRO says it's found ...   More

News One of the more curious twists of Byzantine health care reform negotiations in Washington is the recent addition of a "tanning tax" as part of the funding mechanism. Back home in Oregon, where the sun does not shine much in the winter, tanning is a serious business. Here's one outraged response sent to media about the proposed tax from one local tanning outfit, SunBlaze Tanning at SE 148th and ...   More