NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
Page 2A
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Lawmaker wants all CCOs to be nonproits Walla Walla
EUGENE — State and federal
regulators aren’t concerned that
the owners of a private Eugene
company that managed health
services for needy Lane County
residents reaped millions in
proits last year when they sold
the company to a large, out-of-
state corporation.
But some Oregon legislators
are.
“I don’t believe we should
have investor-owned corpora-
tions doing (coordinated care
organizations),” said Rep. Mitch
Greenlick, D-Portland, chairman
of the House Health Committee.
“They should all be nonproit
organizations, and they shouldn’t
be able to be sold that way.”
CCOs — either for-proit
or nonproit — manage health
services for patients covered by
the Oregon Health Plan. The
Oregon Health Plan is Oregon’s
version of Medicaid, the taxpay-
er-funded health plan for low-in-
come and disabled U.S. citizens.
The CCO in Lane County
is Trillium Community Health
Plan, and last year its parent
company, Agate Resources, sold
itself to Missouri-based Centene
Corp., creating a windfall for
Agate shareholders.
Greenlick wants to protect
taxpayer money and prevent
such a sale from happening
again. So he plans to reintroduce
police investigate
three OD deaths
“We shouldn’t have those millions of dollars going to
stockholders that are basically state money.”
By SHERRI BURI MCDONALD
The Register-Guard
— Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, chairman of the House Health Committee
a bill that he withdrew earlier
this year that would require all
Oregon CCOs to be nonproit
corporations by 2024.
The bill also would require
CCOs’ hefty reserves to be
kept in a special escrow fund at
the Oregon Treasury. The state
requires CCOs to keep large
reserves to guard against risks,
including higher-than-projected
claims.
“We shouldn’t have those
millions of dollars going to
stockholders that are basically
state money,” Greenlick said.
It remains to be seen whether
Greenlick and his allies can
muster enough political support
to radically change course for
Oregon’s CCOs. But Greenlick
insists it must be done.
“The problem is we structured
(CCOs) the wrong way,” he said.
The Legislature in 2011 was
under pressure to pass the bill
that created the CCOs to receive
a $1.9 billion advance from the
federal government to establish
a new way of managing care
for Oregon Health Plan patients,
Greenlick said. Because of the
need for compromise, “we left a
lot of ambiguity in the statute,” he
said. Greenlick said he has asked
the nine-member Oregon Health
Policy Board, which oversees
the Oregon Health Authority, to
make recommendations about
CCOs.
“They’ve agreed to do that,”
Greenlick said, adding that he
has asked for a report by Jan. 1,
with preliminary information in
October.
To gather information to help
formulate those recommenda-
tions, the Oregon Health Policy
Board will hold community
meetings this month and next
in Bend, Tillamook, Medford,
Eugene, Hermiston and Portland.
Launched in 2012, CCOs
set out to improve the health of
Oregon Health Plan patients at
lower cost through more preven-
tive care, better coordination of
services and inancial rewards to
providers who help their patients
stay well.
A CCO enrolls patients
and the state gives the CCO an
amount per patient per month to
cover physical, mental, dental
and behavioral health services,
plus run the CCO and make a
proit.
The state monitors CCOs’
inances, capacity to enroll
additional patients and service
quality, Oregon Health Authority
oficials said.
By SHEILA HAGAR
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
Overall, Oregon’s CCOs
appear to be functioning as
intended, said Neal Wallace, a
Portland State University public
administration professor.
“They’re providing reason-
ably good services,” he said.
“They’re managing to do that
within the budget they have.”
But Greenlick has put his
inger on the tension in Oregon
about how CCOs should be
structured and monitored,
Wallace said.
“He’s responding to a real
issue,” Wallace said. “It’s some-
thing that has to be paid attention
to.
“The state has to look at this
and ask, ‘What are we doing
here?’?” he said. “How do we
want CCOs to run, and how do
we protect our interest?”
That could mean restricting
the corporate forms of CCOs,
Wallace said. “There’s an array
of creative solutions as long
as you’ve got your eyeball on
what you’re trying to prevent,”
Wallace said.
Allowing investors to put
private money into CCOs “could
be a good thing,” he said. “But it
needs to be controlled in a way
that they can’t just suck proits
out of the CCO.”
Oficials are awaiting lab tests to determine
causes of three deaths attributed to drug over-
doses last week, according to the Walla Walla
Police Department.
“While lab results are pending, it is highly
likely the deaths were caused from injecting
heroin that was either laced with another
powerful depressant, or was in a very pure
form,” police spokesman Tim Bennett said in
a news release.
Without toxicology reports, oficials cannot
be completely certain what caused the over-
doses, but heroin laced with fentanyl has been
seen in past Walla Walla area deaths, Detective
Matt Wood said Tuesday.
The irst of the three overdoses was the
death of Whitman College junior Josh Fishman
on Wednesday. Walla Walla County Coroner
Richard Greenwood said this morning Fishman,
20, had a history of prescription drug abuse
before attending Whitman last year.
The campus newspaper reported Fishman
was from New Jersey and over the summer had
worked as a surgical intern at Baylor College
of Medicine. At Whitman, he had been taking
pre-med and sociology courses.
The other two deaths were reported Friday.
Oficials as of this morning had not released
their identities pending notiication of family.
One was a 20-year-old male who was found
dead at Koncrete Industries, 502 N. 13th Ave.,
at about 1:30 p.m. near the warehouse. He
was found with a drug kit containing a syringe
nearby, Greenwood said.
Employees at Koncrete Industries had seen
the man walking around and eventually lying
down on the ground. The spot attracts people
living in homelessness and it is not unusual
for people to sit on the nearby railroad tracks
or take naps in the immediate area, noted one
employee, who declined to give his name.
The employee estimated the victim had been
on the ground about 20 minutes before he was
discovered to be dead.
The second death Friday was a 68-year-old
Milton-Freewater woman who was found
unconscious from drug use and resuscitated,
then taken to Providence St. Mary Medical
Center where she later died, Greenwood said
Tuesday.
Autopsies for the Walla Walla man and
Milton-Freewater woman were planned for
Tuesday.
State agency that accredits pot labs on verge of ‘collapse’
SALEM (AP) — As Oregon
oficials struggle to license all
sectors of the recreational mari-
juana industry before the end
of the year, a top oficial of the
agency that accredits labs that
test pot says it is overwhelmed
— a situation that could derail
the rollout.
Gary K. Ward, administrator
of the Oregon Environmental
Laboratory
Accreditation
Program, emailed dozens of
labs awaiting licenses, saying
his agency’s abilities to accredit
them is “on the precipice of
collapse ... because of the lack
of resources and the last minute
rush of cannabis labs with appli-
cations.”
He said in his Aug. 26 email
that he had asked for three
full-time employees to handle
cannabis testing lab accredita-
tion, and received none.
Only three labs have been
The Oregon Department
of Revenue reported that as
of July 31, it has processed
$25.5 million in marijuana tax
payments this year. New rules
require testing by an accredited
lab.
“The tax revenue will go
from that to zero if we have no
product to sell,” Morse said.
Medical marijuana dispensa-
ries are selling to both patients
and so-called recreational users,
but after the end of this year
they won’t be allowed to sell
to recreational users. Retail
shops will sell to them, but only
products that have been tested
by accredited labs for pesticides
and other impurities, and for
potency. Medical marijuana is
required to be tested but the labs
previously did not need to be
accredited.
Jeremy Sackett, co-founder
of Cascadia Labs, said he is
accredited to test cannabis
by Ward’s agency, known as
ORELAP.
If labs aren’t accredited,
then marijuana growers and
extractors won’t be able to have
products tested to be put on
the market — which Oregon
voters legalized in a November
2014 ballot measure — and
retailers will have bare shelves.
Many retailers are also awaiting
licenses from the Oregon Liquor
Control Commission.
“This has been extremely
worrisome for the industry,”
Donald Morse, director of the
Oregon Cannabis Business
Council, said in a phone inter-
view with The Associated Press.
“I have spoken with people in all
agencies ... and we’ve warned
them for months this bottleneck
was coming because of their
inability get these accreditations
done.”
awaiting accreditation and that
an inspection by ORELAP is
scheduled for next week. The
company has one lab in the Port-
land area and another in Bend.
“It would be unfortunate if
the State were not able to support
and effectively implement the
well-developed regulations that
have been enacted,” Sackett told
AP in an email.
The
Oregon
Health
Authority, which oversees
ORELAP, said Tuesday in
response to Ward’s warning
that it is committed to taking
steps to ensure environmental
laboratory accreditation “even
with growing demand.”
“Labs play a critical role
in ensuring public health and
OHA will ind a solution to the
challenges that the short-term
increase in cannabis testing lab
requests has caused,” the health
authority said.
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REGIONAL CITIES
Forecast
THURSDAY
TODAY
Pleasant and
warmer
Mostly sunny
75° 53°
76° 44°
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
Mostly sunny and
pleasant
Plenty of sunshine
Sunny and
beautiful
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
78° 51°
88° 55°
74° 44°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
80° 56°
80° 42°
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yesterday
TEMPERATURE
HIGH
LOW
60°
82°
102° (1955)
53°
53°
34° (1898)
PRECIPITATION
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
0.33"
0.35"
0.09"
7.74"
5.66"
8.51"
HERMISTON
through 3 p.m. yesterday
TEMPERATURE
HIGH
Yesterday
Normals
Records
LOW
67°
82°
99° (2003)
56°
52°
39° (1961)
PRECIPITATION
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
0.36"
0.41"
0.07"
5.40"
3.43"
6.22"
SUN AND MOON
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
First
Full
Sep 9
Sep 16
6:24 a.m.
7:21 p.m.
12:32 p.m.
10:42 p.m.
Last
New
Sep 23
89° 58°
78° 42°
Seattle
69/56
ALMANAC
Yesterday
Normals
Records
80° 44°
Sep 30
Today
SUNDAY
Spokane
Wenatchee
69/48
76/52
Tacoma
Moses
69/52
Lake
Pullman
Aberdeen Olympia
Yakima 77/49
69/47
64/55
70/50
79/46
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
69/54
76/55 Lewiston
80/52
Astoria
76/54
68/56
Portland
Enterprise
Hermiston
73/57
Pendleton 70/42
The Dalles 80/56
75/53
78/55
La Grande
Salem
73/44
76/51
Albany
Corvallis 77/49
76/50
John Day
76/48
Ontario
Eugene
Bend
77/50
77/47
74/39
Caldwell
Burns
76/46
74/35
Astoria
Baker City
Bend
Brookings
Burns
Enterprise
Eugene
Heppner
Hermiston
John Day
Klamath Falls
La Grande
Meacham
Medford
Newport
North Bend
Ontario
Pasco
Pendleton
Portland
Redmond
Salem
Spokane
Ukiah
Vancouver
Walla Walla
Yakima
Hi
68
72
74
69
74
70
77
75
80
76
78
73
70
85
63
67
77
79
75
73
77
76
69
71
71
76
79
Lo
56
36
39
52
35
42
47
48
56
48
38
44
42
52
50
52
50
51
53
57
38
51
48
40
55
55
46
W
pc
s
s
s
s
s
pc
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
pc
pc
s
pc
s
pc
s
pc
pc
s
pc
s
pc
Hi
69
74
76
72
77
70
79
74
80
77
80
74
69
88
63
67
80
80
76
73
77
77
70
70
73
76
79
Today
Beijing
Hong Kong
Jerusalem
London
Mexico City
Moscow
Paris
Rome
Seoul
Sydney
Tokyo
Lo
63
79
64
59
52
57
56
63
66
57
79
W
s
t
s
pc
t
c
s
t
pc
pc
r
Lo
52
30
40
53
30
37
44
39
42
43
39
34
33
50
47
49
46
42
44
50
34
47
44
36
47
49
42
W
pc
pc
s
pc
s
pc
pc
s
s
s
s
pc
pc
s
pc
pc
s
s
s
pc
s
pc
pc
s
pc
pc
s
Lo
62
81
67
59
47
48
52
64
65
57
75
W
s
t
s
s
pc
c
s
t
pc
s
r
WINDS
Medford
85/52
(in mph)
Klamath Falls
78/38
Boardman
Pendleton
REGIONAL FORECAST
Coastal Oregon: Clouds and sun today. A
passing shower across the north tonight.
Eastern and Central Oregon: Mostly sunny
and nice today; warmer. Clear tonight.
Mostly sunny and nice tomorrow.
Western Washington: Clouds breaking
today with a stray shower in the afternoon.
Eastern Washington: Times of sun and
clouds today. Partly cloudy tonight. Partly
sunny tomorrow.
Cascades: Partly sunny and warmer today.
Clear to partly cloudy tonight. Mostly sunny
tomorrow.
Northern California: Patchy low clouds
early today, then mostly sunny; pleasant at
the coast.
Today
Thursday
WSW 6-12
WSW 7-14
WSW 6-12
WSW 7-14
UV INDEX TODAY
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
1
3
5
5
3
COMMERCIAL PRINTING
Production Manager: Mike Jensen
541-215-0824 • mjensen@eastoregonian.com
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
Thu.
Hi
90
87
82
73
74
64
80
81
83
72
85
NEWS
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fax 541-276-8314 • email news@eastoregonian.com
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com/community/announcements
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NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
Thu.
WORLD CITIES
Hi
89
86
81
83
74
63
82
82
85
71
84
Classiied & Legal Advertising
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classiieds@eastoregonian.com or legals@eastoregonian.com
Advertising Director:
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541-966-0806 • ljensen@eastoregonian.com
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Subscriber services:
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— Founded Oct. 16, 1875 —
Corrections
The East Oregonian misreported the inal
score of Friday’s Hermiston High School foot-
ball game in three photo captions in Saturday’s
paper. Hermiston lost 36-27 to Union (WA).
The East Oregonian works hard to be accurate
and sincerely regrets any errors. If you notice a
mistake in the paper, please call 541-966-0818.
1
8 a.m. 10 a.m. Noon 2 p.m. 4 p.m. 6 p.m.
0-2, Low
3-5, Moderate 6-7, High;
8-10, Very High;
11+, Extreme
The higher the AccuWeather.com UV Index™ num-
ber, the greater the need for eye and skin protection.
Forecasts and graphics provided by
AccuWeather, Inc. ©2016
-10s
-0s
showers t-storms
0s
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
40s
snow
ice
50s
60s
cold front
70s
80s
90s
100s
warm front stationary front
110s
high
low
National Summary: Strong thunderstorms will stretch from Kansas to Iowa and Wisconsin
today. Flooding rain will hit eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Mainly dry condi-
tions will prevail elsewhere across the country.
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 101° in McAllen, Texas
Low 20° in Bodie State Park, Calif.
NATIONAL CITIES
Today
Albuquerque
Atlanta
Atlantic City
Baltimore
Billings
Birmingham
Boise
Boston
Charleston, SC
Charleston, WV
Chicago
Cleveland
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
El Paso
Fairbanks
Fargo
Honolulu
Houston
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Little Rock
Los Angeles
Hi
76
93
83
89
73
94
75
76
93
91
89
92
94
85
92
82
52
74
88
94
91
91
90
99
93
81
Lo
58
71
72
71
48
70
51
67
70
69
74
76
77
54
76
66
32
54
77
76
75
65
71
76
78
64
W
t
s
sh
s
pc
s
s
sh
s
s
pc
pc
pc
s
pc
t
c
t
pc
t
s
s
t
s
s
pc
Thur.
Hi
84
93
87
95
74
94
76
80
94
92
85
90
96
87
86
84
57
75
88
94
85
92
86
98
95
78
Lo
58
72
75
74
47
71
46
71
70
70
66
68
75
52
65
66
33
55
75
76
73
66
70
75
77
64
W
t
s
s
s
pc
s
s
pc
s
pc
pc
t
pc
pc
t
pc
s
pc
pc
t
pc
s
t
s
pc
pc
Today
Louisville
Memphis
Miami
Milwaukee
Minneapolis
Nashville
New Orleans
New York City
Oklahoma City
Omaha
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Portland, ME
Providence
Raleigh
Rapid City
Reno
Sacramento
St. Louis
Salt Lake City
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle
Tucson
Washington, DC
Wichita
Hi
94
95
89
87
74
95
91
84
92
83
89
95
77
81
93
74
87
96
95
84
73
77
69
79
91
89
Lo
75
77
78
72
62
70
76
73
76
65
72
75
63
68
72
46
54
61
79
58
67
59
56
67
77
73
W
s
s
pc
t
t
s
pc
pc
pc
t
s
t
c
sh
s
pc
s
s
pc
s
pc
s
pc
r
s
t
Thur.
Hi
90
94
88
84
75
94
91
89
92
82
94
96
79
83
95
81
89
90
88
83
74
74
69
89
97
88
Lo
76
76
77
63
60
72
77
78
74
66
79
78
63
70
73
50
54
57
75
55
66
57
51
70
78
72
Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain,
sf-snow flurries, sn-snow, i-ice.
W
pc
pc
pc
pc
s
pc
t
s
pc
pc
s
pc
c
pc
s
s
s
s
t
s
pc
pc
pc
pc
s
t