PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I am starting what I hope will become a new tradition (Note my phrasing: You have to start what “you hope becomes a tradition” because traditions don’t exist – they have to last) – writing about “bits and pieces” of news developments.

Of course, this presumes that folks care about what I think. Well, at least I care about what I think, so here goes.

Canada-Style Single Payer Health: Many Democrats are following Bernie Sanders in embracing single-payer health care for the United States based on the Canadian model. But, when Canadians get sick, our neighbors to the north increasingly find that the only way to get “free” medical care is to wait for weeks or months.

A new report from the Fraser Institute, “Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada,” documents the problem. The Vancouver-based think tank surveyed physicians in 12 specialties across 10 provinces and found “a median waiting time of 21.2 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment.” This is worse than 2016’s wait of 20 weeks, making it the longest in the history of Fraser’s annual survey and 128 per cent longer than the first survey in 1993.

The wait to see a specialist for a consultation is now 177 per cent longer than in 1993, while the wait from consultation to treatment is 95 per cent longer than in 1993. At 10.9 weeks, it is longer than is clinically reasonable.

While the United States has experienced trouble reforming health care after the debacles of ObamaCare, essentially a new federal entitlement, the answer is not a single payer system. First, we cannot afford it. Second, as Canada illustrates, it means long waits, not viable care.

Is Jerusalem the Capitol of Israel? The Trump Administration stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy with its recent decision to place its embassy in Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel.

A letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal the other day put the decision in its simplest form:

“What other nation has foreign countries tell it what its capital is? In recognizing that and moving the American embassy, the administration is recognizing reality. It is impossible to make peace with enemies who refuse to make peace and who vow to destroy you. Congress acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in the last century, and Russia did so this spring. If not now, when?”

Enough said.

The Port of Portland: A letter to the editor in the Oregonian the other day said the Port of Portland would never survive as a deep- water port.

According to the letter writer, “the Port of Portland needs to reconcile itself to the overwhelming fact that it will never be a major port again.  Container ships are now too big for the current Columbia channel.  Portland is a mousetrap for container ships, requiring a bar pilot, a river pilot, and speed limits on the river. And then the surly longshoremen may not offload you anyway. Oregon needs a deep-water port on the ocean.

“It’s time to develop some alternatives. Maybe we should develop Coos Bay and improve the rail infrastructure to support imports and exports. Or improve the rail service from Seattle and Tacoma to get some of the trucks off the I-5 corridor and improve traffic flow.  More of the same old tired thinking will not solve the problem.”

The writer makes some decent points about difficulty of traveling 90 miles inland to the Port of Portland, but the Port has taken steps routinely to compete for shipping despite the challenges. The letter writer also suggests that it’s time to develop a major port in the Coos Bay harbor.

Won’t happen. Much too expensive.

I write this as the lobbyist who, over 10 years, worked with Port officials and other lobbyists, including lobbyists for unions, to convince the Oregon Legislature to fund its share of costs to deepen the Columbia River channel, a key to the economic future of the region. So, yes, I am a biased advocate for the Port of Portland and I believe smart management, which the Port has had for years, can surmount the inherent challenges.

I-5 Traffic Issues: Anyone who, like me, has driven north and south on I-5 in the last few years would say that traffic has only increased – and, by some accounts, increased substantially enough to give second thoughts about tolerating the trek.

A recent letter to the editor in the Oregonian argued for improving – read, expanding – I-5, as unrealistic as that may be from funding or land use standpoints.

According to the letter writer, “I am appalled, disgusted, yet sadly unsurprised by the elitist, ‘moral’ outrage of the groups opposing the I-5 expansion. Two points to address.

“One, the argument that people should live close to their work: Take off your rich-person, rose-colored goggles. Almost everybody who drives I-5 would love to live close to work but Portland’s outrageous housing prices make that an impossible pipe-dream for most.

“Two, traffic is not going away no matter how many bike lanes you create. I-5 is a major freeway, one of the biggest freight corridors in the United States, and it runs right by sporting and events venues. Freight cannot be hauled by bike, nor can fans from other cities rely on public transportation to get them to the events they want to see.”

In my retirement, I no longer have to make the I-5 drive as often – good news for me. I suspect expansion is not in the cards, which leads to a notion that Oregon should have provided more room when it developed I-5 in the first place.

This is not an exaggeration – in California, there often are five lines going one way. Won’t happen here.