Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 1997)
Governor to detail health plan expansion Thursday ■ HEALTH: Kitzhaber seeks to extend health plan coverage using revenue from the cigarette tax increase By Brad Cain The Associated Press Sen. Lenn Hannon says the waters have calmed since he took to the floor of the Sen ate to chastise fellow Republicans for proposing to cut back general fund spend ing on the Oregon health plan. “Shame on you. It is an insult,” the Ash land lawmaker said during last week’s speech as Senate President Brady Adams and others in the chamber looked on. Hannon and Adams say no hard feelings linger over the remark. “We’re still speaking cordially,” Hannon said Wednesday. “It wasn’t a personal at tack.” But Adams made it clear he was stung by the comment as well as one by Gov. Kitzhaber’s chief spokesman that Adams has been using a “bait and switch” maneu ver to try to cut financing for the health plan. “We’re both talking about protecting the existing plan and expanding it,” the Senate president said. “What I also want to talk about is the amount of money we are going to spend on it.” On Thursday, Kitzhaber is to announce more details on how he proposes to expand the Oregon health plan using money from a 30-cent-a-pack cigarette tax increase ap proved by Oregon voters last fall. Kitzhaber wants to spend $70 million of the cigarette tax money to help maintain ba sic services for low-income people already covered by the plan. Another $70 million would be used to extend health coverage to an additional 45,000 people by relaxing eli gibility requirements and by providing sub sidies for low-income people whose em ployers don’t provide health coverage. Adams said Wednesday that the cigarette tax money will go to the Oregon health plan and that he and other Republicans are will ing to commit to an expansion of the health plan, though not by as much as Kitzhaber wants. The Grants Pass Republican said he can’t say at this point how many people he thinks should be added to the health plan, but he indicated it could be far less than the 45,000 additional people envisioned by Kitznaber. “We intend to bring Oregonians into the plan based on the available revenue we have,” he said. Kitzhaber’s communications director, Bob Applegate, said Wednesday that his boss is open to discussion about the num ber of additional people who should be covered. “The entire cigarette tax campaign was about expanding the health plan,” Apple gate said. “As long as the debate is how to expand the program — not if — we think that’s a step in the right direction.” Seven new categories of endings to be added to Internet addresses By Elizabeth Weise The Associated Press Just as Internet users got used to the difference between disney.com and redcross.org, seven new sets of address end ings could appear as early as May to identify groups and in dividuals who want their own online tags. Demand for Internet ad dresses is going through the roof, with about 80,000 new names being registered a month. The need for online identity is so strong that name disputes have ended up in court as trademark infringement bat tles. A plan announced last week would restructure the system for assigning Internet address es, or “domain names.” Right now, all Internet ad dresses in the United States end in one of six ways: .com for commercial businesses, .org for non-profit organiza tions, .net for networks, .edu for educational institutions, .gov for governmental bodies or .mil for the military. Under the proposal by the International Ad Hoc Commit tee, seven endings would be added: .store for businesses of fering goods, .info for informa tion services, .nom for individ uals who want personal sites, .firm for businesses or firms, .web for entities emphasizing the World Wide Web, .arts for cultural groups and ,rec for recreational or entertainment activities. The committee is made up of 11 representatives of Inter net, legal and other interna tional standards groups. It offi cially began work two months ago. vernonia drug testing done haphazardly ■ SPORTS: Officials admit the program does not test student athletes consistently The Associated Press A year and a half after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Ver nonia school district's policy of mandatory drug testing for stu dent athletes, the program is ad ministered only haphazardly. The wrestling and boys’ basket ball teams were not tested until the last week of January, about two months after their seasons began, athletic director Scott Finley said. “The bottom line is, there is no excuse,” said Finley, who is re sponsible for making sure all ath letes are tested. “It should have been done.” Finley, who also is the boys’ basketball coach, said he had been busy this winter with administra tive and other duties. “No one purposely messed up the program,” said Randall Ault man, the author of the policy and principal at Washington Grade School in Vemonia. Vernonia gained national atten tion in 1991 when James Acton, then a seventh-grader going out for football, refused to submit to the tests. The school’s policy reads in part: “At the option of the district, all student athletes may be drug tested at the beginning of any ath letic season. In addition, random testing will be conducted weekly during the athletic season.” Acton and his parents sued the school board. The case wound up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the school’s drug policy in June 1995. This year, Acton would have been a senior at Vernonia High, but he left after his junior year. In stead, he is home-schooled and at tends classes at Portland Commu nity College. The school district has contin ued its drug testing policy since the Supreme Court decision. Test ing stopped for a time last spring, after severe flooding in the town in February, and resumed last fall. But until the last week in Janu ary, only the girls’ basketball and the cheerleading squad had been tested. No random testing had been done. “It is a lot of work,” Finley said of the testing. But, he added, “It’s something that is worth doing. ” Linda Butler, athletic director at the grade school, said it took her and an assistant 45 minutes to test 10 girls. There are 205 students at the high school, approximately 70 of whom go out for sports each sea son. About 80 seventh- and eighth-graders play sports at Washington Grade School. The to tal cost for testing seventh through 12th-grade athletics is about $2,600 a year. At least 10 schools in Oregon and around the country have called Aultman to ask about Ver nonia’s drug testing policy. Corning Union High School in Corning, Calif., an 800-student school about 80 miles north of Sacramento, adopted a policy sim ilar to Vemonia’s last fall. CHEVY CHASE Beverly D'Angelo randy quaid last S3 BE; 0 If 'Vacation This time the Griswolds are on a roll. Mil ME. mm m rwpw iiiwiyihuo mmm > • fllSABRl ns. limii . WINIKKIIIN. IItjffl [«!iY HU® jjgill (|]SABflU08BO«CSAV ‘ f»MI® - # AT THEATERS EVERYWHERE FEBRUARY 14th C ti)ai/u om&rr/t/ only *5! • Heart Basts will run in the Emerald on VAlEiTSKE’S BAY • Call 348-4343 to place your Heart Beat today, or fill out this form and stop by the Emerald Classified Office: Suite 300, EMU • Deadline: TODAY, 1pm ’(fW/c f/c most creative ac/anc/ tom c/awer/or ftao.' for ODE use only. name:_ phone:_ address:__ payment method: cash/check/credit card #_ write text here art choices: circle one (not actual sizes) jrfl 'J-‘oo6ie: M Be Mine y>, £)—Cookie
