By Becky Clark
Editor

Dave Hunt, a regular participant in “So you think you know the Hill” was the first to answer, followed by two more correct answers.

“Marion Mountain was named after Marion Kelly by Edmund Perkins Jr. who surveyed and mapped the San Jacinto Mountains in the 1890s. Marion was a teacher from Michigan who taught at the Morongo Indian Reservation. They met while she was camping and fell in love :),”  wrote Hunt.

Mark Dean wrote, “Found this on Wikipedia.” These peaks were named in 1897 by USGS topographer Edmund Taylor Perkins, Jr. Perkins named Jean Peak for his sweetheart and future bride, Jean Waters of Plumas County, whom he married in 1903. He named Marion Mountain after Marion Kelly, his girlfriend, a teacher for the Indian Bureau at the Morongo Valley Reservation. According to a local legend, Perkins spent the summer of 1897 deciding which woman to marry while he conducted his topographical survey of San Jacinto Peak and its environs.[6]

The reference refers to “The San Jacintos,” a masterful history book of our area by John W. Robinson and Bruce D. Risher.

And finally, our local renowned historian Bob Smith gave us even more information: “According to John Robinson, topographer Edmund Perkins, who directed the first careful survey of the San Jacintos in 1897-98, named Marion Mountain ‘for Marion Kelly of White Cloud, Michigan,a young school teacher employed at the Morongo Indian Reservation.  Perkins met her when she was camped with friends in Strawberry Valley.  The story goes that Miss Kelly fell deeply in love with Perkins, who was described as tall and good-looking, but he kept putting her off by saying he was married to his work. But he did think enough of the young woman to place her name on the mountain.’  He goes on to say that Marion Mountain’s neighboring summit, Jean Peak, Perkins named for Jean Waters, whom he married in 1903.

“P.S. Perhaps somebody could convince the county (?) to correct the spelling of  ‘Marian View Drive’?”

Since the beginning of February, Dwight McKinney, 53, of Mountain Center has been arrested four times. Each arrest was based on drug-related charges, both misdemeanors and felonies.

On Tuesday, April 4, he pleaded guilty to three separate charges. Two were misdemeanors and the sentence was equal to the time he has already served in jail.

The guilty plea for the felony charge — transporting or selling a narcotic or controlled substance — resulted in a 365-day sentence in county jail. This total was reduced to 320 days because of the time already served. Of the balance, Judge Mark Mandio ruled McKinney will have to serve 140 days in jail, and 180 more can be served in work release.

Daniel Ellis, 24, of Mountain Center, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of receiving a stolen Kawasaki motorcycle. He was sentenced to two years and eight months in state prison.

Ellis was arrested in October and had several subsequent arrests, including one Jan. 9, also for possession of a stolen Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle, before pleading guilty on Monday, April 3.

Besides the August charge, Ellis also pleaded guilty to two other separate felony arrests and charges, including the January arrest, and a December misdemeanor for vandalism.

For the original arrest, Judge Mark Mandio sentenced Ellis to state prison for 32 months. For the other convictions, he was sentenced to two separate 16-month terms, which are to be served concurrently with the longer term. For the vandalism conviction, Mandio imposed a 32-day sentence; but Ellis was credited for the time he spent in jail awaiting trial and no additional incarceration was necessary.

Dr. Thomas Kluzak, a retired physician from Wichita and former head of the University of Kansas Medical School’s Pathology Department, spoke Saturday at the Idyllwild Library about a single-payer health insurance system. Kluzak is passionately in favor of a single-payer system.

A single-payer system is often referred to a “Medicare for All.” A single public or quasi-public agency organizes healthcare financing but the delivery of the care remains largely in private hands, according to the Physicians for a National Health Program.

“Practicing medicine and seeing what happens to people, the current system makes no sense,” he stated. “We need ‘Medicare for All’.”

He questions why the public accepts a “single-payer” system for police and fire protection, but opposes the concept for healthcare.

Hospitals with emergency rooms must accept, as a patient, someone with complaints regardless of whether they have insurance. In this limited instance, we are already paying for everyone’s care, Kluzak noted.

A single-payer system will benefit not only individuals, with or without insurance, but doctors, too, in Kluzak’s opinion. His strong feelings about this topic evolved over 30 years of looking through a microscope at the healthcare system.

“Essentially, we remove the intermediary — insurance companies — and create a savings,” he said. Administrative costs for Medicare are about 2 percent. For most insurance companies, administrative expenses approach or exceed 30 percent. These include advertising and sales staff. In addition, doctors and hospitals maintain administrative staff to submit bills and respond to insurance inquiries.

“Drug companies pay more on marketing and administration than research,” Kluzak said.

Besides the substantial financial savings, which Kluzak foresees, the quality of medical care will improve, too. No longer will insurance administrative staff have approval over your physician’s recommendations and actions caring for your health.

Not only will it eliminate the time insurance staff need to review and advise on the doctor’s orders, but will likely lead to elimination of excessive tests needed to justify a doctor’s decision.

Kluzak’s opinion is not an aberrant view among the medical professions. He is a PNHP member. A nonprofit research and education organization, PNHP is composed of more than 20,000 physicians who advocate a single-payer health system.

He and PNHP stress that a single-payer system is not “socialized medicine.” The doctors and hospitals remain private. They receive their compensation from the single-payer. Currently, payments come from a multitude of sources, including Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has authored House of Representatives 676, a bill to establish a single-payer system for the U.S. It authorizes a privately delivered, but publicly funded, universal healthcare system. He argues that the U.S. healthcare costs are double the costs in other countries with single-payer systems such as France, Germany and Canada.

Kluzak and his wife, Kathy, have been Idyllwild residents since January 2016. The uprooted Kansans followed their son and grandchildren to California. They found Idyllwild and are only a few hours from their family.