9A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2017
Feds OK continuing changes Justices to hear free speech
clash over offensive trademarks
to the Oregon Health Plan
No extra money
for reforms
By SHERRI BURI
McDONALD
and SAUL HUBBARD
The Register-Guard
EUGENE — The fed-
eral government has approved
Oregon’s request to continue
innovating the Oregon Health
Plan for the next five years,
but it’s not giving any extra
money to further advance the
reforms, the Centers for Medi-
care & Medicaid Services has
announced.
The federal approval pro-
vides some degree of certainty
for the state health plan in the
face of a new administration
that has promised to repeal and
replace the Affordable Care
Act. The approval comes a
week before President-elect
Donald Trump takes office.
The Affordable Care Act,
often referred to as Obamacare,
made sweeping changes to
health care in the United
States, including expanding
Medicaid programs to more
people in Oregon and other
states that chose to do so. The
Oregon Health Plan, Oregon’s
version of Medicaid, pays for
health care for low-income
and disabled Oregonians.
Trump and the Republi-
can-led Congress still would
be able to change the Ore-
gon Health Plan at a later date
through a change in federal
law. But the waiver request
approved Friday would make
it more complicated for them
to do that.
Still unanswered, however,
is whether the federal govern-
105 Business-Sales
Op
ment will provide, or whether
the state will be able to scrape
together, enough money to
continue the same level of ser-
vice to the more than 1.1 mil-
lion patients now covered by
the Oregon Health Plan. That’s
roughly one quarter of all
Oregonians.
Bigger share
Starting this summer, Ore-
gon must start paying a big-
ger share of the Oregon Health
Plan’s budget as the federal
government reduces its fund-
ing. Democratic Gov. Kate
Brown and leading state law-
makers say the state won’t be
able to do that without raising
taxes.
Still, state leaders and some
health care providers presented
Friday’s waiver renewal,
even without any extra fed-
eral funds, as a big victory for
Oregon.
“In these times of uncer-
tainty, the waiver provides
continuity, security and cover-
age for Oregonians on the Ore-
gon Health Plan,” Gov. Brown
said in a conference call with
reporters Friday. “For these
Oregonians, who are strug-
gling to make ends meet, it
will enable them to continue
to receive the necessary and
comprehensive health care
through the program.”
But state officials acknowl-
edged that the waiver does not
protect the Oregon Health Plan
from major changes during the
next five years.
“If
Congress
makes
changes to the Medicaid pro-
gram, we still have to comply
with those changes,” said Jer-
emy Vandehey, Brown’s top
health care adviser.
150 Homes for Sale
For decades, the federal
government has sent massive
funding to the states for their
Medicaid programs.
Oregon spent $6.5 billion
on the Oregon Health Plan in
the last fiscal year. About 80
percent of that was federal
money and 20 percent was
state money, Oregon Health
Authority figures show.
Spending is up
Spending is up from about
$3 billion in fiscal year 2012,
when the federal government
footed 63 percent of the bill,
and the state paid 37 percent.
Oregon wanted more flexi-
bility to try new ways of deliv-
ering health care to Oregon
Health Plan patients, so it has
obtained “waivers” from the
federal government, exempt-
ing the state from the regular
federal rules, and setting up
alternative rules for Oregon.
In 2012, a five-year waiver
from the federal government
provided Oregon an extra $2
billion — above the regular
Medicaid funding — to launch
reforms to the Oregon Health
Plan, including the creation of
Coordinated Care Organiza-
tions to manage services for
Oregon Health Plan patients.
Oregon’s 16 CCOs are try-
ing to improve patients’ health
while curbing the rise of costs,
by making sure patients have a
regular medical doctor, a den-
tist, and help for mental health
or substance abuse.
The waiver gives Oregon
and its CCOs permission to
use some money on nonmed-
ical services, such as commu-
nity health workers to work
in the homes of patients with
complex medical issues.
200 Mobile Homes
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By SAM HANANEL
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
Slants aren’t exactly a house-
hold name when it comes to
music, but the Asian-Amer-
ican rock band has certainly
made its mark in the legal
world.
The Portland-based group
has spent years locked in a
First Amendment battle with
the government, which refuses
to register a trademark for the
band’s name because it’s con-
sidered offensive to Asians.
That fight will play out
Wednesday in the nation’s
highest court as the justices
consider whether a law bar-
ring disparaging trademarks
violates the band’s free-speech
rights.
The case has drawn atten-
tion because it could affect
the Washington Redskins in a
similar fight to keep the foot-
ball team’s lucrative trade-
mark protection. The gov-
ernment canceled the team’s
trademarks last year after find-
ing they are disparaging to
Native Americans.
For Slants founder Simon
Tam, the name was chosen not
to offend, but to take on ste-
reotypes about Asian culture.
He says the band is reclaim-
ing a term once used as an
insult and transforming it into
a statement of cultural pride.
“Words aren’t equipped
with venomous impact on
their own,” he said in an inter-
view.” They have to be tied to
motive and rooted in context.”
But the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office didn’t see
it that way. It refused to regis-
ter the name in 2011, saying a
trademark can be disparaging
even if it’s meant to be used in
a positive light.
A divided federal appeals
court handed the band a vic-
tory four years later, ruling that
the law prohibiting offensive
trademarks is unconstitutional.
“Whatever our personal
feelings about the mark at
issue here, or other disparag-
ing marks, the First Amend-
ment forbids government reg-
ulators to deny registration
because they find the speech
likely to offend others,” Judge
Kimberly Moore said for the
majority.
The Obama administration
has urged the Supreme Court
to overturn that ruling. In legal
briefs, the Justice Department
argues that the law does not
restrict speech, but declines
to associate the federal gov-
ernment with “racial epi-
thets, religious insults and
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Legal Notices
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AB6117
"As required by Section 9 of the Rolf
and Alice Klep Educational and
Charitable Trust dated August,
1981, the following report is made
by the Advisory Committee Trus-
tees of the Trust as to the status
and earnings of the Trust assets.
For the fiscal year ending Decem-
ber 31, 2016 investment perform-
ance and distributions resulted in
an increase in assets in the
amount of $24,391.26, to leave a
balance of total assets of
$2,028,004.01. The terms of the
Rolf and Alice Klep Educational
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an annual distribution of 5% of the
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years, subject to certain restric-
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Johnson, Executive Director of the
Museum at 503-325-2323."
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Redskins are
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NOTICE TO CONSUMERS
Oregon Firewood Law requires ad-
vertisements quote a price and
also express quantity in units of a
cord or fractional part of a cord.
Ads must also identify the species
of wood and whether the wood is
unseasoned (green) or dry.
Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns
Portrait of Asian-American band The Slants (Left to right:
Joe X Jiang, Ken Shima, Tyler Chen, Simon “Young” Tam,
Joe X Jiang) in Old Town Chinatown in Portland on 2015.
Published: January
, 2017.
Need to publish a
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profanity as trademarks.”
Trademarks
If the decision is upheld,
the government warns it will
be forced “to register, publish
and transmit to foreign coun-
tries marks containing crude
references to women based
on parts of their anatomy; the
most repellent racial slurs and
white supremacist slogans;
and demeaning illustrations of
the prophet Mohammed and
other religious figures.”
Yet the trademark office
has approved plenty of crude
and offensive trademarks in
the past. Those include: Afro
Saxons and Dago Swagg
clothing, Baked By A Negro
bakery products, Retardipe-
dia and Celebretards entertain-
ment services, and the hip-hop
band N.W.A., an acronym that
includes a racial slur against
African-Americans.
“If their intent is to curtail
hate speech, it’s not working,”
Tam says. “Trademark regis-
tration is not the mechanism to
address those types of things.”
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