Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 07-24-26_FRIDAY_7AM

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Outdoor report with Greg Roberts...less fire, yes!! Emails of the Day, State Rep Yunker, The asante clinic closings, how politics incfluenced this.

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurrilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. And today we can talk about stimulating talk in the outdoors rather than, okay, what is happening with the latest on fire? It's been like for several days now. Fire, fire, fire, fire, east heavens, east fire. Oh, blew up last night.

That of that to that. Nah, getting a lot better now. Door report sponsored by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority on Airway Drive in Medford. Greg Roberts, of course, holding down the, well, the chief cook and bottle washer and voice of the Medford Roads and all the rest of it. And by the way, I've been going over at the Medford Roads this week here. Greg, welcome back. Probably couldn't have been better. We had our final regular season homestown last night. We won all three games.

Put the Rogues in the playoff. The boys are Urique, actually, Arcata, is where the Humboldt crabs play, and it's a big three-game series down there. And after the end of the night last night, it's pretty clear. The boys know exactly what they got to do. They've got to take two out of three games in probably the most – I'm going to say hostile because not, you know, people being super onry. No, no, this is Humboldt County.

You know what it is? It's marijuana psychosis. It's pot psychosis, okay? hostile because the fans down there are passionate about supporting their team. They have their own marching band, which is something I don't think I've ever seen any other baseball team do. No kidding. And that band cranks up, that crowd cranks up, it's loud, it's intimidating.

We have a few guys on the team who've experienced what it's like to play in Humbold. And they're all. Well, the only thing going in our favor this year is that's not the same level of team we've seen in the past motivated because we swept them earlier in the month here in Medford. We're pretty contentious, especially the last games, the head coach, and his chief assistant got ejected, player got ejected. So they're looking for some payback on us and the chance to play spoiler and knock us out of the playoffs. Oh, they'd love that. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm telling everybody this to get to this.

Yes, the team's out of town, but the rogues do have a YouTube channel, so you're going to be able to watch the games from Humble on YouTube and keep up on what's going on. If we get two out of three from Humble, we will definitely host game one of the Pacific Empire League playoffs here in Medford next week, and I think we're still working to determine. if that will be Tuesday or Wednesday. And there is a complicating factor. The state American Legion baseball championships are going to be played at Harry and David Field Saturday through Wednesday.

That's great, Edward. That's great for a lot of reasons. And season ticket holders for the next month, Mustangs are going to host the regional. So a lot of going to be happening at Harry and David Field. And certainly hoping the rogues are going to be part of that. All right. Very good. Now, as far as the fire, just quick update, everything's just been, it's like the East Evans Creek all of a sudden.

I don't know if this is a good way of characterizing it, but it seemed like it just collapsed. Isn't it? Yeah. In the night at the game by somebody, have you ever seen a fop in terms of activity like that out being hit by rain? No. I do not remember a fire ever decreasing that much. Now, if you believe in God, you're going to say it was God's mercy, it was answer to prayers, and if you don't, you're going to have a much harder time explaining that.

Just kind of weirdness, and I mean, all of the evacuation notices, whatever our left are just like level one right now, right? Right. And it's including this year, and I'm going to say it again, when fire season hits and you live in rural areas, you should be at level one, be ready always. Yep, makes a lot of sense there. He declared with the fire blowing up near you, be at level one, be ready all the time. So quite honestly, out there in the fire zone, yeah, we only have level one be ready notifications left. They took all the level two's down.

By the way, all the Oregon State Fire Marshal Resources went home yesterday morning. your protection work has been done. But like I said, I don't care if you live out there in the Sam's Valley area, if you live in these areas still with the level 1B ready all the time. Oh, by the way, the Waldo fire over in Josephine County. Yes. People drive by and think, well, there's nothing going on there. Those level 1B ready evacuation notifications are still up for. the Waldo fire and the Point Ridge fire.

All right. So still, well, just got to watch it. Keep your head in the swivel and, you know, pay attention to those Everbridge notifications and the watch duties and all the rest of it. All right. All right. So let's just let that go then. It's great. I'm glad.

I mean, the air will be clearer this weekend. Life is good. So where would you go? What do you want to do for some fun? Honestly, we're looking at a totally beautiful weekend. So it's kind of, well, because it's going to be so nice. there too. It's going to be great all over. So find whatever it is you want to do, get in the outdoors and enjoy it because we've got no smoke impact. There's not going to be any thunderstorms.

The air loft is so stable. It isn't even funny. In fact, we're not looking for any chance of rain at all in Jackson and Josephine counties, honestly, for the next 70. That with being very assured by what we're seeing the models churn out. And it looks like it's going to be relatively normal temperatures, you know, about 90 or so, right? Exactly. And with the flow, the way it's setting up, it's going to cut off the monsoon moisture from being able to get in here at all. In fact, the monsoon moisture isn't even going to get areas east of the Cascades off to the east, which, you know, like I said, that takes care of any potential for thunderstorms or rain at all. It is truly a vanilla forecast for guys like me and Kevin Wallace. Sunny today, sunny tomorrow.

The only thing of concern is what's going on starting today. We do have red flag warnings in portions of southern Oregon, chiefly the Cascades east through Lake County, and then down in northern California, including Sisku and Modoc County. but that's for gusty winds and low humidity levels. That, by the way, does not include area to see Red Flag Warnings issued. What that means, though, is it's still going to be windy in the afternoons. We're still going to have that very dry air, so people need to be very careful,

prevent the spark that would start the next fire, because now it definitely would be human cost. We're through the windows where the lightning fires will be more likely to pop up. That isn't to say we may not get another sleeper, Union Creek prospect area from where the lightning went through on Wednesday. Looking much less likely, and they have been patrolling that area, I mean big time, from the air, from the ground. They're watching everywhere. They know exactly where the lightning strikes hit. they're going through and checking those spots, making sure there's no sleepers out there. There could be, but it's going to be highly unlikely at this point.

All right, Greg. Let's talk about conditions on the river or the lakes when it comes to fishing and then contrast it with what will be going on out the coast this weekend. Okay, well, honestly, if I was going to be going fishing this weekend, I would probably get to one of my favorite bodies of water at this time of the year. I'd be fishing in Union Creek because you got the nice shade of the tall, thick timber. It's cooler in there. The water temperatures in the creek are much lower than what you're going to find in the lakes.

So the quality of the fish is better, better eating. And that's absolutely where I'd be going. but the coast, pretty favorable conditions for getting out and fishing at the coast, and it has been very good out of Brookings and also Winchester Bay, and the best crabbing is coming out in the ocean itself, not in the bays and the estuaries. So even more reason to enjoy those windows of opportunity, they're going to pop up in the mornings and get out there, do some fishing, soak your crab pots while you're out fishing and pull those when you come back in.

And like I said, success has been wings and Winchester Bay, which I think in this area are probably the top two destination points for everybody in Jackson, Josephine County, that's going to get out and get on the ocean. All right. Very good. Greg Roberts, rogueweather.com. How great to have a non-controversial, no smoke impact kind of report. Let's just go out and play and have fun. All right?

Yeah, exactly. We've kind of, we've returned it to mellowness, our kind of our typical outdoor report, and that part I definitely like. Yep, like it too. Thanks so much, Greg, and keep us in the room if anything does break, okay? Thanks.

Oh, for sure, Bill, and go rogues. All right, Greg Roberts, rogueweather.com. Thank you, Greg. Outdoor report sponsored by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority on Airway Drive in Medford on the Bill Myers show, and I appreciate you being here, 725. People ride bikes for many reasons. exercise, fun, and of course, getting from point A to point B.

At Fightingblindness.org. News Talk 1063, KMED. This is the Bill Myers Show. 728, some emails of the day, sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson in Central Point Family Dentistry. Central Point Family Dentistry.com. It's on Freeman Road right next to the Mazelon Mexican Restaurant. You know, they have a dental program there that can really help you out. It acts like dental insurance, but it's less costly than dental insurance.

insurance. And I think you can check this out, and it has better benefits than a lot of dental insurance. It's quite interesting. Central Point Family Dentistry.com. I'm going to give an email of the day to the 399 divorce and paralegal people. And they write me from time to time. And it is quite interesting. We were talking last hour about this Danny Schofield case and how we have this, well, this battle of wills, I guess, between Judge David Hoppe, who I'm a big fan of. And Judge David Hoppe, of course, has asked, well, he just has ordered Judge Lorenzo Mejia to take over the Danny Schofield case from David Hoppe. David's the presiding judge.

Patrick Green is saying, hey, wait a minute. You know, this is like judge shopping. And it just, well, I'm just kind of wondering what is going on here. Is this going to be about a venue change or whatever? What is really going on here? Because it seems like the defense of Schofield seems to be having, you know, you know, undue influence. That's just my opinion.

Just my opinion. And I'm not an attorney, nor am I a judge. But I'm just reading this. And there's a great article, by the way, in the RV Times. Thank you to Buck v. Pollock for that one. And 399 says, Bill, there will not be a change of venue, but what will or could happen is that the forum venue would remain Jackson County, but a judge from Clameth County or Douglas County judge could end up presiding.

Hmm. I didn't thought about that. But they say the key is the jury selection. That is what has to be conducted properly to avoid an appeal. There are a few other civil cases where outside judges are presiding. There's the local Medford attorney who is facing 15-plus felony charges regarding his ex-partner in camera in her daughter's bedroom. Judge Andrea Janney is presiding in that matter.

Judge Matthew Gelley is presiding in Roseburg over the Vaughn v. Lumas-Umpa Public Transportation District Election Fraud case. further, in the Asante civil cases that remain, Jackson County presiding Judge Bloom should recuse, as he used to work for Hornacker Cowling LLP and represented Asante in some cases. He was a civil tort defense attorney for many businesses in Medford. In closing, they should add, at the very least, theft one charges to Schofield, or to Schofield, I'm thinking Schofield. Sometimes I'll say Schofield, but it's actually Schofield. but theft won charges

because she certainly did steal the fentanyl which is proven and then they could get some substantial jail or prison time very interesting 399 thank you for a let me know about that Hans Albuquerque writes me

says Bill how do I get that job as head of the Smithsonian it's an acid trip of history in her political mind pink Floyd moody blues Jimmy yeah man don't bore that joint I've got to tell you, Hans, the thing is they're making a big deal about the politicization of the Smithsonian Institution. Now they're talking about it.

Oh, man, this has been going on for a long, long time. Eight, nine years ago, Linda and I went to the Smithsonian. And it was just like if you didn't hate the United States when you went to the Smithsonian Institute, you would hate the United States if you actually believed everything that they were pushing out there. The moment I walked in here, it's almost like, Whitey, what are you doing here? Okay. Everything, you know, privilege. Everything's about white privilege and the, you know, the, and how everybody else has just been completely oppressed. It was like a lesson in Marxist Leninism and critical race theory, critical theory in general, just about everywhere you went. It was astounding. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh. Well, it was no different for the parks service, too, going down to Monticello. Monticello at, you know, Jefferson's birthplace. I could swear, and maybe I was just overly sensitive to it, but I could swear more than half of it was slave, slave, slave, Sally Hemming, Sally Hemming, Sally Hemming,

slave, slave, slave, slave, rather than the brilliance, okay, of Jefferson, because we wouldn't want to talk about that because, well, Whitey. So I'm right there with you. Let me see, what else we got going on here? Alan writes me, mail-in voting. Bill, if that's what the Democrats want, we should just use the same tactics, tenfold. Also, just want to say that Jeff Dunham is not funny at all. Well, you won't be competing for those tickets, will you, Alan? I think it can be pretty funny. Brother Louis says,

Scholars for Mid-East Peace. Yeah, that was a doctor I interviewed yesterday morning, 630 hour, and Louis says, Bill, it was painful for me to listen to your first hour interview today, Thursday, with the incomprehensible spokesperson for Israel's final takeover of our defense industry. I wrote this when I had to stop listening and later learned the whole NDAA had passed the house the other day, including the wording that it becomes law, hands over our sovereignty to Israel in one final maneuver. All right? I appreciate it. I certainly, I would be the first to agree with you, is that Dr. Romeroowski, I think it was his name, was definitely pushing the standard line, nothing to see, nothing to worry about. This is a great investment.

I would just be curious why we're not doing great investments like this with all our other allies. Why only this one particular ally? It is an interesting story. And I find it interesting that anybody who is questioning this is put in as a left-wing critic. When I'm seeing this on both sides of the aisle, of course, you know, the left-wing will hate it just because anything connected with the Trump administration is. But, you know, you have the right-wing folks, the John Bircher. and various others thing. You know, it's not all Candace Owen, okay?

And not that there's anything wrong with Candace Owen, just saying. Let me see here. Patrick says, Bill, Saudi and nuclear reactors. Thorium reactors have been used commercially since 1962 without the extreme hazards associated with the uranium reactors. Thorium much more abundant than uranium and harder to make into fissile materials. There are definitely some technological differences between the systems, it's worth it for the safety advantage.

No to uranium actors or reactors, rather, yes to thorium reactors. And thank you so much. By the way, we also had John, who wrote me, and I'm glad he looked this up. John says, Bill, I believe that Paul and Tom the other day, when they were talking about Richard Nixon, that they were mistaken about Nixon not remembering what he was doing the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Everything I remember is that George Bush Sr. was the one who said that. maybe Nixon Darrangement Syndrome could be attributed to this memory lapse. You know, John, I'm going to have to look this up, but I think you're right.

I do recall that George Bush Sr. was in Dallas that day, supposedly, and then later may have said this. But, all right. So we'll agree to disagree on this one, all right? A.J. says, Bill, I don't understand how a large percentage of Americans want the Save Act, and yet some Republicans would not vote for it. not passing the Save Act would not just be a loss for Trump and for Republicans to be a big win for the Democrats. Since they'll be able to keep getting away with voter fraud, Democrats would be dancing in the aisles. Very frustrating.

And is there anything else in one of the... Oh, on criminal kids, Bill, parents and government are responsible for the horrible things kids do today. We can punish the kids and parents, but how do we punish the teachers and government officials for indoctrinating our children? They have an agenda and it involves destroying our society and that includes the kids. The one thing I would just say, Elaine and I've continued to say this. And I don't like, I'm not saying that every government school teacher is bad. That's not the case at all. They're trying their best.

The system itself is corrupt and evil. And the only way to save kids in the future probably is getting on the boards and trying to find some way to remove the cancer, remove this cancer in the curriculums and the agendas and everything else. But in Oregon, that's going to be a high lift. The way to say children right now is to get them out of it. That's unfortunately the only way to go about it. 736. Thank you.

The email bill at Billmyershow.com. Hi, K.M.E., good morning. Who's this? This is Minor Dave. Hey, Dave. What's up? Oh, I got two things. One is short comment. Elon Musk and SpaceX and X-A-I are going to turn

they're orbiting satellite dishes and servers into a data center. I don't know how long it'll take them, but they're building it out. And then on the Schofield trial, so she's out on bail, right? Yes, she is. Yeah, how long has it been since she's been indicted? 2024, so we're a couple of years now. Yeah. All right.

The longer it goes, the more chances of it fall in. apart. I do agree with that, the paralegal group here that is talking about, though, first-degree theft could certainly be something that could be added there. It might be too late to charge her with first-degree theft. There's a statute of limitations on it, and it might be long gone. Okay. You could be right about that. Thanks, Dave. Good morning, KMD. Hi, who's this? Bill, it's Cherry. Cherry, good morning. Your caller was correct about Richard Nixon.

So it was George Bush. Yeah, not Bush, but Nixon. I do recall Richard Nixon, I believe it was on Larry King's show. And I thought that this was amazing, too, that he couldn't remember where he was. Or he didn't know what he was doing something to that effect is what he said. Oh, okay. Now, that doesn't necessarily make Richard Nixon complicit in that, though. And I think that's what was being intimate.

No, no, no. But isn't it interesting, though? I mean, I'm not saying he did anything. I'm just saying if you ask those people, they do remember where they were. Yeah. Or when they heard it or whatever. Yeah. Well, I was two years old.

I was probably walking around in my little rompers. That's all, you know? Yeah, I was born until I didn't hear it. Okay, fair enough. We'll grab one more. Then we're going to get to the news, and then State Representative Dwayne Yonker has a lot to you about something going on with Asante. We'll dig into that in just a moment. Hi, KMED. Good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. It's deplorable Patrick. Here to annoy you.

Well, that's okay. I don't mind annoying. It's all right. I'm sensing that it's whatever's on your mind time, and I'm getting tired of waiting for you to ask, so I'm going to tell you my favorite railroad story. Cool. You always liked that. Well, back when I was about 20, one or two. I had this van that had been postal service delivery. His right-hand drive

and it had a roll-up door in the back and me and Roy Sprague took it across country to Florida, towing a boat. Anyway, we stopped in Greeley, Colorado to get some pizza and when we got out of the pizza place, there was a train operation.

right next door to the pizza place. A track went across there. We're standing there watching this locomotive go back and forth, hook it up, and we're standing like, I don't know, 20, 25 feet away just watching. Out of curiosity, was that, you know, Union Pacific, or was that one of the short lines up there, you know, do you recall? Probably one of the short lines. Okay.

But I don't know that for sure. It's been decades ago. anyway, so the locomotive stopped kind of right by us, and we're looking at the engineer, and he says, hey, you boys want to come up in the cabin, right? Oh, that's so cool. I would have loved that. He didn't have to ask us twice. Yeah.

We were up in there and riding back and forth, hooking up, he was explaining, you know, notch one, two, three, all the way up to eight. Yeah. This is the forward and reverse and the dead man pedal. And so we got the ride back and forth. You could never do that today. Yeah, I imagine the attorneys and liability and all the rest of it have probably squashed that. But that is something I would so love to do.

That would be on my bucket list. I know there's that railroad place out in what, eastern, is it? Or western Nevada, I think. It's what it is by the old Western and Pacific Railroad, I think, is what it is. It's now, let's see. And I know that they can, you can, like, run the engine. You know, you can run the engine around their tracks, but I think it's like $1,000 or something to do it.

It's not exactly cheap to do. That'd be worth it. The other thing that you could do, if you're really desperate like me, take some time and go up to, I think, Portland and enroll in training on. that. They can train you on operating local orders, so you can be ready for the railroad job. Now, do you recall what model diesel? You were obviously on a diesel with the run 8 there. Was it, you know, like an old General Motors, GP-9 or an SD-9 or something, or was it an Alco? Or do you recall? Just curious.

I don't recall in that depth. There's probably an EMD and like the SD-38 or the SD-40. Yeah, that was pretty, when you were a kid there, there was a relatively new model at that time, yeah, sure. We sure loved it, and I thought you'd like to hear about that, hear that story. Yeah, you know me, I'm a foamer. That's what they call me. I'm the guy that, I remember my grandparents, granddad Fisher and Grandma Fisher, they lived next to the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie tracks in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, right? And everybody else was just going, oh, the trains.

Oh, the train, the train noise. You know, say we're going by. It's now CSX. But for me, little Billy was like, the trains, yay, the trains, yay. And, you know, running out and waving to the engineers and all that kind of thing. Thank you for the call. That's a great one. And State Representative Dwayne Yunker will pick his brain on some issues here coming up afternoose. Southern Oregon weather can be tough on your home.

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So if you need precise water testing, Grants Pass Water Lab, Lab has been the standard in southern Oregon since 1978. Visit GPWaterlab.com. Hi, I'm Jeff with Lipia Body and Paint, and I'm on KMED. Great having you here. State Representative Dwayne Yonker rejoins the show from Grants Pass. Dwayne, good to have you on here, and you're a little hot and bothered over an announcement from Asante the other day.

It has nothing to do with the Danny Schofield trial, but more to do with shutting down of the outpatient physical therapy clinics. right, both in Medford and Grants Pass getting shut down. Welcome back. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know if I'm hot and bothered. You know what bothers me the most about what's going on is the Democrats cry that this is coming from the big beautiful bill. And the big beautiful bill did not cause this problem.

And you have the governor with their talking points because it's election year that blames the big beautiful bill for all these problems. but Asante's problems have started many years ago. You know, in 2022, they lost $61 million. And then in 2023, I think it was $33 million. And during this time, what was happening is we expanded Medicaid even more in Oregon. Now, Medicaid is the Oregon Health Plan. The Oregon, yes. Yeah, I would imagine that the part that no one ever wants to talk about

when expanding the Oregon Health Plan is that a lot of the health plan is that a lot of illegal immigrants end up getting through the backdoor health care paid for by the taxpayers within this system? Isn't that kind of where you're going or am I wrong about it? Yeah, I mean, they started that in 2023, which they gave the Oregon Health Plan, it's a version of it. And that started in 2023, which they'll give you health care. They don't care what your immigration status. They won't ask you what your immigration status is. So that's starting in 2023. But people need to understand that Medicaid does not pay the bills for the people to provide the work.

I mean, the people that are making money is the CCOs. That's the insurance providers set up by Oregon. They're making money. Their profits are fine. It's the actual people that perform the work. They're working for a discounted price or for free on patients. It doesn't Medicaid or Oregon Health Plan and Oregon pay, what, 60 cents or less on the dollar for charges? I mean, from what I can be, it's 56, 60 cents on the dollar for every patient they see.

It's not, and again, go back to the Big Beautiful Bill, this tough way before. The Big Beautiful Bill doesn't even take effect until 27, most of it, the requirements and stuff like that. So they're complaining about the Big Beautiful Bill, but it isn't even affecting what's going on. right now is an Oregon issue. It's what Oregon is doing. It's Oregon. You have staffing problems. You've had a, you know, our nurses, and I love nurses.

I got friends that are nurses, but our nurses make more than the national average. They're on the highest paying nurses in the country. That was another bill that was pushed to the legislation about nurses. And you have other highly qualified, and I've posted all this stuff, people that are in there in the medical field like physical therapist. They have to go to school to get a doctor degree. We have nurses making more than people with doctrine degrees in the medical field now. The staffing ratios, the punishment for not having enough staff on there. Well, the legislature, in other words, is what you're telling me here, Representative

Younger, has put a thumb on the labor negotiation scale here, really, with the ONA. Is that fair to say? That is a fair. I mean, ONA, is, I mean, they gave just, and I posted some, I think they, they've given the governor $400,000 just in 2026. Just this year. Just this year. Just the Oregon Nurses Association has given Kotech $400,000 for her re-election campaign. That's the thumb on the scale.

And so, and then you have Kotech. All she says is blaming Trump, the big, beautiful bill. But no, it's the policies that have been enacted under Kotech and the Democrats since, you know, years. So it's really unfair to blame. Now, I'm not saying that the big, beautiful bill might cause problems. What I'm saying is it is not the cause of the problem. It's not the cause of the current problems. In the future, we may be able to look at the funding changes.

But, yeah, I don't think you could ignore sanctuary state laws. You can't do that. I'm not trying to demonize people going for health care, but policies end up having results and sometimes unintended consequences. And when everyone's talking about, hey, there's not enough money in the Oregon Health Plan, you know, to take care of everybody. Well, it's because we have expanded who everybody is. Isn't that a fair assessment, way of looking at this all?

Fair assessment to say the people that are making money is the insurance providers of the Medicaid system, the Oregon health system, but the people performing the work. are not getting paid for the work that they're offering. Well, this was the challenge I was having. Well, they go to the hospital now, but I'm like, yeah, but they still don't pay. Well, this is what I was talking about back when the Oregon Nurses Association was having their strikes, and they ended up getting good pay out of Sante, out of Providence. And it hasn't solved, if anything, it seems to have deepened the financial problem.

at our hospital system, at least is what it looks like to me. And this is not just an asante problem. This is an Oregon hospital problem. This is not. Other hospitals are having to make huge changes, and they're right behind or doing the same things. They're going to have to make cuts. And another thing is people are like, oh, they're going to shut down this PT. They'll go somewhere else.

Do you think another PT office is going to want to take more Medicaid patients? Yeah, physical therapy, Oregon. I don't know. Can another physical therapy? The math problem's there still. They're not going to take on debt because it's a loser. They have to keep their doors open. They have to pay their highly qualified MPTs. Now, is that the reason why Asante closed it? I didn't get too deeply into their reasoning. I figured it had to be. Nobody closes it because they're making too much money on it, I would think. No, it's losing money. It's one of their biggest losers of, um, of money is the physical therapy.

It's not, if it's profitable, they leave the doors open from whatever I'm talking about. They're losing money. When you have, and it's just not Medicaid, you have Medicare, but, you know, Medicare is a whole different system of set up for, you know, elderly that retire. You have veterans that are, you know, disabled veterans. Medicaid is obviously the one that, an Oregon wants a single-payer system. They've come out and set it. Well, didn't voters vote for a single care system in that one ballot measure a number of years ago?

Yeah. I can't remember what the numbers were on that. Well, they didn't talk about how to pay for it. They just said, yeah, this is what we want. And I think the Oregon voters want a free pony, too, I'm sure. That'll be the next one coming. Well, you know, at some point, someone has to pay the bill. You can't have free of everything or partial free and expect to get services.

It doesn't work. And I'm not here to defend Asante. I mean, Asante, we can blame Sante for so many things over the last few years, you know, COVID, all these other things. I look at this as we all need a hospital. When your mom has problems, you need to take him to a hospital, you know? My dad's 81, you're going to turn 82. He needs care or my kids or family or a baby's born. We need a hospital.

So it's not, I'm not here to defend Asante per se. I'm here to defend that we need a good hospital system, and the bill is they be paid if you're performing to work. And you can't be paying $0.60 on the $0.00 forever and expect a good hospital system to be here, can we? We can't. It's a mathematical problem. It doesn't work out. And these people go to school, and we have doctors that don't want to come here, too. I'm hearing that doctors are come and look at, you know, southern Oregon, and they're like, well, why would I want to stay here? The law in Oregon, or, you know, you got high taxes, the cost of living is high here, you got gas prices are high here, housing's not cheap here. These are all problems by a one-party system we have in Oregon here that are caused these problems.

And you're not going to get the specialty work you want. If they continue to shut down programs, you'll have to go somewhere else to get advanced, you know, really just serious care. State Representative Duane Yonker at Grants Pass. Duane, wanted to shift here for a minute or two on this one. There was a audit of the Oregon prison system which came out, which really jumped out of me. I imagine it jumped out of you. And essentially, the prison system is crumbling statewide. and a lot of deferred maintenance and all the rest of it.

There's so much money going into those, into these state budgets here. How do you think this happened? It's interesting because I visited that the state penitentiary they were talking about last fall. It's in Salem and actually visited two prisons, but the penitentiary, it's like a hundred and I don't know, 40, 50 years old, whatever it is. It's cheaper old. Yeah. And they're not lying. I mean, it's not safe.

There's a lot of problems with that prison. My problem was, is they shut the prison down on the coast. Now, it's not the exact same type of prison, but we can shuffle people around. That prison was built in the 90s. And I have a feeling that they left that prison open in Salem because they wanted the money to stay in Salem because it feeds Salem. Why send, if you have a prison over on the coast, that money's going to go to that community. So that's kind of one of my problems there. A lot of our prisons are old.

The other prison I looked at it is something like a highway. It's east of Salem, a little bit lower level than the penitentiary, but still, I think it's like a medium. Still old, flat roof, stuff like that. In fact, the penitentiary right there in Salem, to visit it, it is a very unsafe prison. It's just old set up. They have to buy stuff from old prisons to fix things because they don't even make the things now anymore in that prison. Wow. So it is.

Like this system to open the gates, it's a weird system there. I was looking at it. The camera system, there's so many blind spots. You know, it's three or four stories high. Yeah, but yet we have DEI agents in all the state agencies, you know, paying for stuff like that, which does nothing productive other than check racial bucks. for some reason, but the prisons are crumbling? We spend a lot of money on worthless things that there's good things happening in the prison

system that I would say that are good with our prison system, but the actual infrastructure of the prisons is definitely poor. We spent a lot of money on educating people, giving them training. We have some of the best stuff compared to other states, but the actual prisons themselves, some of them, are so old and ancient and they're falling apart. I'm just being honest about what I saw. So I don't think that there's, but this should have been taken care of over time. We should have been preparing for this, a prison that's over 100 years.

We knew should have at some point needs to be rebuilt. Well, obviously, yeah, we've had a lack of priority on something like this. I mean, the Oregon State Penitentiary from the sounds of it makes the Jackson County jail that there are lots of complaints about. But it makes it look great by comparison. way better. Man. I mean, there's a ramp. Like, there's this ramp at the state penitentiary.

I mean, it's where you have to go shower. So they all have to shower at this one place. And it's a ramp. Like, it's a steep ramp. Like, if you lost your wheelchair, you die at the end of it. It's just, I'm like looking at this going, how is it safe? It really is not a safe place. And I know I'm like, now I'm defending the prison system,

but I'm not only that that is falling apart. and it's old and ancient. And I was really surprised of how bad it is. The heat inside some of it because it has gotten hotter there. So there's just so much going on it. Okay, well, just let me ask you a question realistically here, since you are in the state legislature. Is this something that could be reprioritized in the state legislature?

I mean, could we get to the point where maybe we're paying for less gender-affirming care in mutilating kids over at 0.8? HSU, but maybe we're able to take care of the Oregon Health Plan for people that have genuine health concerns and maybe some more money for the prison system and start rebuilding a few of these dungeons, I guess. Those are legitimate things, Bill. Those are legitimate things because we spend so much money on DEI and transgender stuff and, you know, stuff that really doesn't help Oregonian.

we could be using it for locking up some of these serious criminals, it should be a priority. But we got to remember, we have the most sex offenders in the country in the state. We do. We have a catch and release program. It is not, the prison system is not important to the Democratic part that runs the state. Keeping people locked up that are serious, you know, risk to the community is not a priority to them. So I would say the prison system is getting neglected because it's not a prior to the Democrats. All right.

We'll kind of let it go at that. We'll have you back on this one, State Rep. Younger, but thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. Okay. You'd be well. Take care. All right, Bill. Thank you very much. Bye.