Page 8A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
FOREST: The two new
alternatives could double
the pace of restoration
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year at Virgil’s At Cimmiyotti’s in Pendleton.
CIMMIYOTTI’S: Ranked third on a list
of the most romantic restaurants in Oregon
Continued from 1A
Marilyn with a laugh.
Virgil’s at Cimmiyotti’s
has hosted its own fair share
of proposals and anniver-
saries, too, Keeton said.
She particularly remembers
Bruce Boylen and his late
wife, Karen, who shared their
first date at the restaurant
and came back for their 50th
anniversary. Bruce keeps a
framed picture of himself
and Karen at the booth where
the two would always eat.
“That was really special,”
Keeton said.
Last year, Virgil’s at
Cimmiyotti’s was ranked
third on a list of the most
romantic restaurants in
Oregon on the website Only
in Oregon. Keeton said
Valentine’s Day is always
busy with reservations —
one year they served dinner
to 300 people.
Founded by Paul and Ann
Cimmiyotti in 1959, Keeton
took over Cimmiyotti’s in
2009. The restaurant had
been closed and was on the
verge of being gutted when
she decided to make the
move up from California.
“I just knew it needed to
FIREFIGHTERS: Fires
burned 30,630 acres across
northeast Oregon in 2016
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Katie Warhol and Jessica Hitzman fold napkins while preparing for Valentine’s Day
on Monday at Virgil’s at Cimmiyotti’s in Pendleton.
be saved,” Keeton said. “It
was like an empire that had
crumbled. It needed to come
back to life.”
Keeton, a longtime wait-
ress, had always dreamed of
opening her own restaurant
and naming it after her father,
Virgil. Today, both names
adorn the sign over the
entrance.
Keeton said she is grateful
to have so many people
who come and share their
experiences with her. As for
Tuesday, she said she wanted
her guests “to want for
nothing.”
“I just want them to be
taken care of, and to thor-
oughly enjoy their food and
time with either their friends
or loved ones,” she said.
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
Two big insurance breakups on Valentine’s Day
By TOM MURPHY
AP Health Writer
It was a rough day for the
already-roiled U.S. health
insurance market: One giant
merger was abandoned,
another is threatened by
infighting, and a major
insurer announced it will
stop selling coverage on
public exchanges in 11
states.
Both merger deals had
already been rejected by
federal
regulators
and
judges, but the companies
were considering appeals to
those decisions. Now they
both appear to be off.
Aetna said it was aban-
doning its planned $34
billion purchase of Medi-
care Advantage provider
Humana early Tuesday.
Then, later in the day, Cigna
said it is suing Anthem to
kill a $48 billion acquisition
bid.
The deals were conceived
as a way to help the insurers
increase their enrollment
and cut down on expenses in
part so they could improve
their performances on the
Affordable Care Act’s
public insurance exchanges.
Big insurers have been hit
with substantial losses from
the exchanges, even though
they represent a relatively
small part of their overall
business. Many have already
cut back their offerings, and
that has slashed customer
choices in markets around
the country.
The collapse of one deal
and the uncertain future of
the other could hurt shoppers
on the exchanges next year
by leaving them with even
fewer options and poten-
tially higher prices. Humana
told investors late Tuesday
that it was abandoning it
exchanges in all 11 of its
states as of the beginning of
next year.
Humana, based in Louis-
ville, Kentucky, was the
be a 90-day objection period
after the final EIS is issued,
and it could take six months
or more to work through
objections.
Certainly, the plan has
proven a lightning rod for
controversy since a draft
environmental analysis was
released in 2014. While
not a decision-making
document in and of itself, it
does set desired conditions
for everything in the woods
from fire protection and
logging to wilderness and
road access.
The proposal drew so
much fire that the Forest
Service decided to take
a step back in 2015 and
re-engage through a series
of public meetings. Through
that process, Montoya said
officials heard from locals
who wanted to see them
pick up the pace and scale
of restoration to make the
forests more healthy, while
also protecting old growth
trees.
That’s what the two new
alternatives will seek to
address in different ways,
Montoya said.
“We continue to have
that dialogue,” he said.
The Forest Service was
on track to have the final EIS
out last fall, but the timeline
has since been stretched out
to later this year. Part of the
delay, Montoya said, was
the departure of former team
leader Sabrina Stadler, who
left in August.
Stadler died on Sept. 7,
2016, due to complications
with pancreatitis. Michael
Hampton, a retired Forest
Service employee, filled
the role of team leader
on an interim basis until
Anne arrived on the job in
mid-December.
The team also recently
brought on a new fisheries
biologist to lead consultation
with the National Marine
Fisheries Service and U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service on
complying with the federal
Endangered Species Act —
primarily for Snake River
salmon, steelhead and bull
trout.
“We’ve been trying our
best to temporarily fill some
of those gaps,” Montoya
said.
Though the Blue Moun-
tains Forest Plan is being
studied under one umbrella,
each of the three forests
will have its own individual
plan. The final decision will
come down to Regional
Forester Jim Peña in the
Forest Service’s Portland
headquarters.
Montoya said the two
new alternatives could more
than double the pace of
restoration being done on the
forests. The question is how
and where that restoration
will be addressed.
“We’re trying to make
sure we’re being responsive
as much as possible, meeting
with folks who want to help
us with this,” Montoya said.
AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File
Aetna and Humana are calling off a $34 billion deal to
combine the two major health insurers after a federal
judge, citing antitrust concerns, shot down the deal.
only insurer on exchanges
in 16 Tennessee counties,
according to data compiled
at the start of the 2017 open
enrollment period by the
Associated Press and health
care consulting firm Avalere.
That means customers in
those counties may have
no way to buy coverage
with help from government
tax credits next year unless
another insurer decides to
enter those markets.
Every exchange in the
U.S. had at least one insurer
selling coverage on it for
2017, according to Larry
Levitt of the nonprofit
Kaiser Family Foundation,
which studies health care
issues.
Morningstar insurance
analyst Vishnu Lekraj said
it’s possible all the four
insurers involved in the deals
could leave the exchanges.
Aetna Chairman and
CEO Mark Bertolini raised
that possibility months ago.
He said that if his company’s
planned, was blocked, “we
believe it is very likely that
we would need to leave
the public exchange busi-
ness entirely,” according to
court documents filed in that
case.
Aetna, based in Hartford,
Connecticut, says it lost
$450 million last year on
ACA-compliant coverage,
while
the
company
booked an overall profit
of $2.27 billion. Its loss on
ACA-compliant
business
was $100 million more than
it expected.
Bertolini said recently
that his company would
announce by April 1 whether
it will remain in any of its
exchanges. “We’re looking
at everything,” he said.
Government and industry
officials have said President
Donald Trump’s adminis-
tration and congressional
Republicans are weighing
measures to stabilize the
wobbly exchanges. Insurers
have been pushing them to
act soon.
“The clock is definitely
ticking for the Trump
administration to provide
some clarity around what the
rules will be,” Levitt said.
In suing to end its
tie-up, Cigna, based in
Bloomfield,
Connecticut,
said it wants more than $13
billion in damages from
its
onetime-companion
Anthem, the Blue Cross-
Blue Shield insurer, which is
based in Indianapolis.
Cigna says it is seeking a
$1.85 billion termination fee
from Anthem and billions
more in damages for what
it says were Anthem’s
breaches of the merger
agreement.
The insurer says the
damages include the amount
Cigna shareholders would
have received if the merger
had not failed. It noted
that Anthem assumed full
responsibility for litiga-
tion strategy and getting
the necessary regulatory
approvals, suggesting that it
was Anthem’s responsibility
to push the deal through.
“Cigna fulfilled all of
its contractual obligations
and fully cooperated with
Anthem throughout the
approval process,” the
insurer said in a statement.
An Anthem spokes-
woman says Cigna has no
right to end the deal, and
it remains committed to
closing the transaction.
The insurer had just filed
on Monday paperwork to
appeal the federal court
ruling.
Anthem
and Aetna
put their acquisition bids
together in 2015 and touted
them as a way to grow
enrollment and reap savings
that they would then pass on
to consumers.
The deal would have
given Aetna the opportunity
to significantly expand
its presence in Medicare
Advantage coverage, which
involves
privately
run
versions of the federal Medi-
care program for people who
are over 65 or disabled.
But the Department
of Justice had sued last
summer to stop the deals,
due to concerns about how
they may affect prices and
consumer choices. Federal
judges then rejected the
acquisitions in separate
rulings filed earlier this year.
The deals would have
combined four of the
nations’ five largest insurers.
UnitedHealth Group is the
largest.
Traci Weaver, a spokes-
woman for the U.S. Forest
Service regional office in
Portland, said their agency
is exempt from the hiring
freeze on both seasonal
and permanent firefighting
staff. The Forest Service is
moving forward with hiring,
Weaver said, and they expect
to have their usual number
of firefighters on hand.
However, Wyden said he
has not received the same
assurance from the BLM.
Both agencies have fire-
fighting responsibilities, but
are housed under different
federal departments — the
Forest Service in the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and the
BLM in the Department of
the Interior.
“When looking for
clarification, my staff has
had multiple and somewhat
conflicting responses to
verbal inquiries with your
agency,” Wyden wrote in
his letter to acting Interior
Secretary Haugrud. “I would
appreciate a swift response
that includes the plans for
hiring these much-needed
positions.”
A spokesman for Wyden
said the office had not heard
back from Haugrud as of
Tuesday.
Randy
Eardley,
a
spokesman for the BLM
positioned at the National
Interagency Fire Center in
Boise, said they are still
awaiting guidance from up
the chain of command, and
while there are conversations
happening consistently, he
couldn’t provide any other
details.
A total of 136 fires burned
30,630 acres across northeast
Oregon in 2016, according
to the Blue Mountain Inter-
agency Dispatch Center.
That includes local Forest
Service and BLM land, in
addition to state and tribal
land. About 90 seasonal
firefighters participated in
last year’s Northeast Oregon
Fire School, which included
first-year firefighters from
the Forest Service, Bureau
of Indian Affairs and state
Department of Forestry.
President Trump has
tabbed Montana state
congressman Ryan Zinke to
lead the Department of the
Interior, and former Georgia
governor Sonny Perdue
for agriculture secretary.
Neither of those cabinet
picks has been confirmed
yet by Congress.
SMOKE: Biomass expected to
burn for at least a few more days
Continued from 1A
and bruises to more serious
trauma, Zellars said, though
he did not give further
details.
An air ambulance was
called, but couldn’t respond
because of the foggy condi-
tions.
Oregon State Police
reported four of the injured
were in a Chrysler Town
& Country that slammed
into the rear of a semitrailer.
The driver could not see
through the dense fog and
smoke, according to state
police. The 32 year-old man
from Pocatello, Idaho, and
his wife, 33, and their two
children, a boy, 12, and a
girl, 10, all suffered serious
injuries.
They all went to the
Hermiston hospital, where
ambulances took the chil-
dren to Legacy Emanuel
Medical Center, Portland.
The family’s dog, a
Chihuahua and bulldog
mix, ran from the crash and
remains missing.
The smoke, pushed
down by a weather inver-
sion, mixed with fog and left
visibility at nearly zero. Two
semi-trailers also collided in
the westbound lane at about
the same time, but there
were no injuries and the
drivers were able to clear the
wreck themselves.
Zellars said smoke and
fog continue to obscure the
road Tuesday morning. Rice
said the biomass is expected
to burn for at least a few
more days.
“We’re dealing with it as
fast as we can,” he said.
Marty
Broadbent,
Boardman fire marshal, said
wood chips were removed
from the main fire and
spread out into two smaller
piles so the material could
burn more quickly. The fire
department has ordered
GreenWood Resources to
douse those two smaller
piles, Broadbent said, to
reduce the amount of smoke
over the highway.
Spontaneous combustion
can happen in large hay and
wood piles, as the tightly
packed material generates
heat that mixes with oxygen
and bursts into flames.