I appreciated Dr. Diane Williams’ letter in the Dec. 29 Ashland.news regarding the closing of inpatient admissions at Asante Ashland Community Hospital. I am looking forward to moving to the Ashland area in 2026, but I do have some concerns about the health care options that will be available to me after I move. I have been a Kaiser Permanente member for almost 20 years in the Seattle area, and I was surprised to find that Kaiser, so important in both Oregon and California, has no presence in Southern Oregon or in California north of Sacramento.

When I read about the hospital’s closing of services, I couldn’t help but wonder if the facility might provide an opportunity for Kaiser to expand to the Medford area. I believe in the model Kaiser developed to lower costs by keeping people well, rather than the reverse incentive of profiting from illness. Especially as we are now facing major escalation in insurance costs, we must consider changing the current way most people receive and pay for health care. I think Kaiser could provide a model to consider.

Who knows if Kaiser would be interested in the Ashland Asante facility or if Asante would sell it, but with the community power I have observed while following Southern Oregon by reading Ashland.news, I feel I must plant this seed, and Diane Williams seems like a perfect person to share it with. If my experience is not convincing enough, perhaps the posts of William H. Bestermann Jr., MD, who writes the Slow Aging column on Substack, may pique interest. His recent post on this subject, “The Payment Revolution: Making Health Profitable,” is compelling reading. Many of his other posts describing the current health care model in crisis are also supportive of the Kaiser model.

In my opinion, having a Kaiser presence in the Ashland area would solve one of the few downsides I see of living in Ashland. I would appreciate it if you would forward this information to Diane and other area health care advocates. I believe a committed group in Southern Oregon could get this proposal to the people who could move it beyond my idle speculation to bring a supportive, high-quality and affordable health care provider to the community.

Nancy Dahl

Puyallup, Washington