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Portland Trail Blazers president and CEO Chris McGowan announced last week that the Rose Garden would be renamed the Moda Center after reaching a partnership with Moda Health.

(Doug Beghtel/The Oregonian)

Print publication: Thursday, Aug. 22

Does anyone wonder? Moda Health, which started as Oregon Dental Service (ODS) in 1955, reportedly has an extra $40 million to spend on renaming the Rose Garden.

Now where would a health insurance company get that kind of money? Health Insurance Rate Watch, a project of the OSPIRG Foundation, published this in September 2011: "ODS Health Plan (ODS) is proposing to raise rates an average of 9.94%, impacting 26,333 Oregon consumers and families with individual plans, effective November 1, 2011. The nearly 10% rate increase comes after two back-to-back years of increases exceeding 17%. If approved, the average rate will have increased 52% for individual policyholders over the last three years."

Reasonable insurance rates vs. a lovely home for billionaire Paul Allen's basketball team? Does anyone wonder?

STEVEN GOLDBERG

Southwest Portland





For someone who refuses to call the Timbers' home anything but Civic Stadium, it might seem inconsistent that I love the Rose Garden's new name. But now we have an in-your-face example of the greed and waste that corrupts our country's health care system.

I can just point to the stadium and say, "That is why we need single-payer health care."

RAY KENNY

Lake Oswego





It seems to me there's a simple step we can all take to counter this travesty:

Never ever write or utter the new name for the Rose Garden arena. Call it the Rose Garden, always and only.

Because that's what it is: the Rose Garden, in the Rose Quarter, in the Rose City.

ALAN WILLIS

Southwest Portland





The "Yoda Center" it is.

Lousy team we are.

Rich owner in charge we have.

Never will we the playoffs make.

Yoda small for a center is, but potently he the force projects!

JAMES B. LEE

Southeast Portland





I vehemently disagree with the name change of the Rose Quarter to the Moda Center ("Moda pays for play of its name," Aug. 14). Portland is the City of Roses. We are known all over the U.S. as the Rose City. Portland has the Royal Rosarians, the Rose Festival's Grand Floral Parade and the Washington Park International Rose Test Garden, to name a few.

The Trail Blazers basketball team has been part of the Rose City since the beginning in the 1970s.

Paul Allen (billionaire) should be ashamed of himself selling the iconic name of the rose so cheaply.

DOLORES HUBERT

Gresham





It is reprehensible that my dental insurance company, Moda, makes so much money from our premiums that its executives think it acceptable to gift a reported $40 million (over 10 years) to the Portland Trail Blazers, owned by one of the richest men on the planet.

That estimated $4 million in annual payments would be better spent on our public schools. If Moda were more responsible, it would choose to use that money to pay for all the basketball coaches (varsity, JV and freshman teams) at all 293 Oregon School Activities Association member schools with basketball teams, and still have money left for each school to buy new uniforms. Each year.

Now that would result in good publicity.

TOM BEAMAN

Gresham





Millions of Americans go without health care because they do not have coverage through work, and they delay going to the doctor because they cannot pay for treatment. And yet we see a health care provider willing to spend a reported $40 million for the right to advertise its name on a sports arena. This situation is obscene.

Medical care for profit is amoral. Many Americans favor universal health care, and we must demand it.

STEVE WHEELER

Northeast Portland





I would like to add to the chorus condemning Moda Health for spending a reported $40 million to name a basketball arena.

I think it is shameful that a health insurance company sees fit to spend its largesse in this manner. Not to mention that it insults every client of Moda who sees premiums rise annually and every health care provider and hospital that is forced to take discounts on services paid by Moda.

How could Moda executives possibly think this was a good idea? The arena will stand as a daily reminder that Moda has misused valuable health care dollars.

ERIC HALPERIN, O.D.

Tillamook





Let me see if I understand. Moda Health can't afford to pay for a simple blood test to determine my allergies and can't afford to pay for the prescription my doctor insists I use for cholesterol control, but it can afford a reported $40 million for the naming rights to the Rose Garden. I'm pretty sure I am not the only Moda policyholder with these same questions or concerns.

Because I am a Trail Blazers fan, in lieu of providing the medical insurance coverage that Moda says it will provide, maybe the good folks at Moda would provide tickets to a couple of games. At least then I'd get something out of this deal. Of course I won't know if what I eat at the game is something I'm allergic to because I couldn't get the required blood test.

It feels like this company's priorities are a little distorted.

RICK CRONE

Salem





I am a terminal cancer patient. My insurance company, formerly ODS, is now Moda.

Last week I received notice that Moda would no longer pay for one of my prescriptions on the same day I read that it reportedly paid $40 million to have its name on the Rose Garden.

I just hope the company doesn't decide it needs more advertising.

RICK HULETT

Hood River