Sen. Ron Wyden fielded questions about health care, North Korea and firefighting costs during a town hall Thursday evening at the Baker City Senior Center.

About 45 people attended the Democrat’s 852nd town hall in his 21 years as a senator.

Susan Triplett of Haines told Wyden she supports a single payer health care system in America.

“Why do you think that it’s so hard for our Congress to figure out how to do that for everybody?” Triplett asked. “It’s not like they have to reinvent the wheel. We have Medicare for all of our seniors that would be a model program.”

Wyden said he supports universal health care coverage.

“I think it is a disgrace that for the amount of money we are spending now,” Wyden said. “This year we’re going to spend about $3.3 trillion There are about 320 million of us. You can almost send a check to every family of four for close to $30,000 and say ‘Here, go buy some healthcare.’ ”

Wyden said the U.S. spends enough money on health care — but not in the right places.

He said that’s why he is focusing on controlling the escalating costs of prescription drugs. That includes introducing legislation that brings transparency to how drug prices are set.

Triplett said she understands that the cost of health care needs to go down, but she pays $900 monthly for her health insurance (which she said she can’t even get next year) for two people with a $14,000 deductible. She said that is not affordable.

“I still don’t see what you might do to change the cost of premiums so that we can go get health care?” she asked.

Triplett also asked why regular Americans can’t get the same coverage that congressmen and senators have.

Wyden said that before the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, he introduced a bill, the Healthy Americans Act, that would have done just that.

The bill had bipartisan support and would have been budget neutral, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

“That was my first choice before the Affordable Care Act for pretty much the reasons you’re talking about,” Wyden said. “The bill is right there and (still) ready to go.”

Wanda Raffety of Baker City asked Wyden if Democrats have a plan for restoring the CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) that recently was not renewed by Congress.

Wyden said he and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee — Wyden is the ranking Democrat on the committee — have authored a bill to revive the program.

“It has passed the finance committee on an overwhelming bipartisan vote,” he said. “We’re ready to take it to the floor.”

Wyden said the CHIP program was important to ensure that children from families just over the income requirements to qualify for Medicaid are able to get health insurance.

Bruce Raffety asked if it was true that Wyden’s position on international trade and negotiation puts him in the free trade camp that will move American jobs to other countries.

Wyden said terms such as free trade and fair trade no longer adequately address the modern concept of trade.

“I’m for smart trade,” he said.

Wyden said one out of five jobs in Oregon depends on international trade. And those jobs pay better than average.

“If you want to know my economic theory in a sentence: I want to grow it in Oregon, I want to make it in Oregon, I want to add value to it in Oregon and I want to ship it around the world,” he said. “That’s my philosophy. There’s going to be a billion middle class consumers in the developing world in a few years and they love buying Oregon stuff. We ought to make it possible for them to do it.”

Wyden said a big part of a smart trade policy is going after people who violate trade rules. He said that is something he has in common with the Trump administration.

Wyden also believes that NAFTA — the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Canada and Mexico — has to be upgraded to reflect a modern, digital-dominated world.

“It was all written in the 1990s,” he said.

See more in the Oct. 13, 2017, issue of the Baker City Herald.