Bruce Mulligan's blog

Dear Representative Nolan:

I am clear on what happened with SB 27 during this session. I am grateful for your response back to my original email and for giving it the time and thought you did. I would care to clear up one thing though as I resent your assertion that I am misinformed. SB27 had neither 2 or 3 extensive public hearings nor a real work session.

See attached comparison of US to other countries from WHO data.

I attended a town hall meeting hosted by Sens. Alan Bates & Ben Westlund in Springfield on March 8, 2007. The meeting was well attended by about 50 or so with a mixture of Archimedes, local/state politicos, physicians, Lane IPA and SEIU reps as well as average citizens. Both Bates and Westlund made a point of complimenting the Archimedes movement and Dr. Kitzhaber personally, characterizing their proposals as very similar. I thanked them for holding these sessions throughout the state as many can't make it to Salem. We were able to ask all the questions we wanted and they seemed willing to attempt an answer to all. Overall it was a very open process though they were very general or factually incorrect with some of their answers. Westlund, for example, managed to create a few new facts that were a surprise to some like naturopaths and chiropractors being covered under OHP (which they are not).