Gov. Kate Brown dissed a war hero. Or so the story goes.
And as the tale finds safe harbor, we watch another simple, incendiary narrative drive us through these complex times.
Few issues are as convoluted as health-care, a context the story requires. Boxed in by campaign promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and the House Republicans pitched a plan that leaves 23 million more Americans uninsured.
Six weeks later, reclusive Senate Republicans are rolling out their own health-care package, one that similarly decimates Medicaid expansion.
In Oregon, meanwhile, Universal Health Services has long sought state approval for a 100-bed private psychiatric hospital in Wilsonville.
Universal is the nation's largest for-profit psychiatric hospital chain, and operates Cedar Hills Hospital in Southwest Portland. The company says Cedar Hills turned away dozens of patients each month in 2016 because its 89 beds were full.
In late February, the Oregon Health Authority denied the application for the $35 million hospital in Wilsonville. Local health-care providers didn't want the competition, having just opened the Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Northeast Portland.
SEIU Local 49 opposed construction of a non-union facility and the expansion of a company under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for possible fraudulent billings.
And mental-health advocates, including Chris Bouneff at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, argued the addition of expensive private hospital beds in another Portland suburb might damage the state's existing, and slowly improving, mental-health system.
"You have to build a community system," Bouneff says. "It isn't a shiny hospital. It's a 12-bed crisis respite center. It's having robust community services, so someone can not only reach recovery but maintain recovery."
A private facility in Wilsonville might supplant, not add capacity, Bouneff argues, because it will draw patients with the best insurance plans, not those threatened by the rollback of Medicaid expansion: "Then the economics don't pan out at the other hospital systems, and they leave the business."
Universal Health Services was understandably frustrated by those conclusions, and appealed the state's decision.
That's not all it did. Universal regrouped, refocused and, after hiring Hubbell Communications in March, reinvented the Wilsonville facility as a sanctuary for Oregon's veterans and military families.
It was a smart, strategic move. While the original campaign for certification prioritized in-patient services "for children and adolescents," the new push emphasized Oregon's 317,000 veterans, many of whom routinely struggle with post-traumatic stress, thoughts of suicide and other mental-health issues.
On April 6, the Committee on Veterans and Emergency Preparedness introduced Senate Bill 1054. The bill calls for a two-year exemption from the state's certificate-of-need process for a new hospital that offers inpatient psychiatric services to veterans and their families.
It was passionately championed in committee by Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, who lost a son, a U.S. Navy veteran, to suicide last year.
But while Senate President Peter Courtney voted for the bill in committee out of respect for Boquist, he directed SB 1054 to Senate Rules, where it will languish until the session ends.
That move set the stage for the aborted June 8 meeting between the governor and Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry, who received the Medal of Honor in 2008 for his extraordinary service in Afghanistan.
Petry was at the Capitol for five hours to meet legislators and speak at a rally in support of the bill. With scant notice - less than nine hours - Brown's staff reserved the governor's ceremonial office for her meeting with the decorated Ranger.
Petry arrived early. Brown never arrived at all. One meeting ran late, spokesperson Bryan Hockaday says, and testimony for a House bill called. "Our staff came out and profusely apologized," Hockaday says.
I won't diminish the sloppy ineptitude that prevented Brown from giving Petry the salute he deserved. But it's not the insult that should distract us.
Better we ask: Did the Oregon Health Authority make the right call? Does its decision justify legal action by the for-profit hospital? Have our public servants, near and far, dispensed with public hearings?
And when do Oregon Republicans outraged by this "slight" to veterans confront Capitol Hill Republicans who would end affordable health-care insurance for veterans with pre-existing conditions such as PTSD and substance abuse?
"The way UHS is couching this issue is cartoonish," Bouneff says. "The company wants to build a hospital. This whole issue with veterans is a smokescreen for what this conversation should really be about.
"Everything we're talking about locally and nationally is connected. Do we need another hospital to serve the general population, with some portion dedicated to veterans, while we're destroying access to coverage that will help pay for those services?"
That travesty deserves a rally. But the governor dissed a Medal of Honor winner. Or so the story goes.
-- Steve Duin
stephen.b.duin@gmail.com