ELECTIONS LOST
BULLDOG BATTLE
Spitzer, Weiner lose races in New York, A6
North Bend tops Sutherlin, B1
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2013
Serving Oregon’s South Coast Since 1878
Friday classes return in CB
theworldlink.com
■
75¢
We will never forget
BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COOS BAY — After two years of four-day weeks, Coos Bay students have returned to Friday classes. The Coos Bay School Board voted in spring 2011 to cut the school week to four days. For the last two years, teachers would meet every other Friday for professional development, dubbed Professional Learning Communities. “We were looking for ways to get our teachers more common time when they could work together collaboratively to improve what they were doing in the classroom and ultimately improve student performance,” said board chairman James Martin. The perception in the community was that the board was shortening the school week to save money, he said. While it was a “big budget crunch year,” he said the school week change was not due to budget concerns. During a January school board meeting, Marshfield High School teacher and Coos Bay Educators Association president Lynda Sanders said the idea started brewing after Millicoma Intermediate School and Madison Elementary performed poorly on the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test. “The move did save us a little bit of money because we did save some on utilities and substitutes cost, but that wasn’t really the motivation behind the decision itself,” Martin said. “We saw maybe a 1 to 2 percent savings. By far, the biggest driver of the district’s budget is employment costs, but teachers were still working the same amount.” The district did a bad job of explaining its decision to the pubSEE FRIDAY | A10
The Associated Press
The Tribute in Light, rises above buildings in lower Manhattan, during a test on Tuesday in New York.The light display commemorates the twin towers of the World Trade Center that were destroyed in terrorist attacks 12 years ago on Sept. 11, 2001.The anniversary will be marked in many places around the country. See Page A6 for more coverage.
Letter claims responsibility for explosions BY THOMAS MORIARTY The World
COOS BAY — A letter from a group claiming responsibility for planting explosives in Coos Bay was received by city officials Tuesday, but its authenticity is in question. The group, calling itself Veterans United for Non-religious Memorials, demands that the city remove the cross atop the Mingus Park Vietnam War Memorial and threatens more mayhem if the
Critical access hospital list PENDLETON (AP) — A list of “critical access hospitals” in Oregon that are located 15-35 miles from another hospital whose Medicare funding could be reduced under a proposal from federal officials: ■ Columbia Memorial Hospital, Astoria — 17 miles from hospital in Seaside ■ Coquille Valley Hospital, Coquille — 18 miles from hospital in Bandon ■ Cottage Grove Community Hospital, Cottage Grove — 21 miles from hospital in Eugene ■ Good Shepherd Medical Center, Hermiston — 31 miles from hospital in Pendleton ■ Lower Umpqua Hospital, Reedsport — 24 miles from hospital in Florence ■ Peace Harbor Hospital, Florence — 24 miles from hospital in Reedsport ■ Pioneer Memorial Hospital (P), Prineville — 20 miles from hospital in Redmond ■ Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital, Hood River — 24 miles from the hospital in The Dalles ■ Providence Seaside Hospital, Seaside — 17 miles from the hospital in Astoria ■ Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital, Lebanon — 16 miles from the hospital in Albany ■ Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital, Lincoln City — 24 miles from the hospital in Newport ■ Southern Coos Hospital & Health Center, Bandon — 17 miles from the hospital in Coquille ■ St. Anthony Hospital, Pendleton — 31 miles from the hospital in Hermiston ■ St. Charles Medical Center-Madras — 26 miles from the hospital in Redmond ■ West Valley Hospital, Dallas — 16 miles from the hospital in Salem Source: Oregon Office of Rural Health.
demand is ignored. “Apparently you are not receiving our message about the Mingus Park Veterans Memorial,” the letter reads. “We gave you warnings with the minor explosive devices at the memorial and at the Bay Area House of Prayer. “From now forward, we hold each of you personally responsible for causing deeper grief and insult to the families and friends of nonChristian Veterans. “If the City does not now comply with prompt removal of the
cross, we will take increased action against you, your staff, religious leaders and faith based structures.” The unsigned letter was dated Sept. 6, and postmarked Sept. 9. Its envelope bore the return address of P.O. Box 137, Coos Bay — the mailing address for The Prayer Chapel in downtown Coos Bay where an explosive device was discovered last week. Coos Bay Police Chief Gary McCullough said FBI and Oregon State Police crime labs are still processing evidence collected
from the chapel and from the Aug. 22 bombing at the Mingus Park memorial. The letter listed its recipients as all seven members of the city council including Mayor Crystal Shoji and city manager Roger Craddock. The letter was also copied to The World’s newsroom. Reporter Thomas Moriarty can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 240, or by email at thomas.moriarty@theworldlink.com. Follow him on Twitter: @ThomasDMoriarty.
Budget plan called a threat to the state’s rural hospitals PENDLETON (AP) — A federal budget-cutting proposal threatens to reduce Medicare payments to 15 rural Oregon hospitals, and hospital and state officials said the impact could be devastating. The East Oregonian reports that the proposal involves “critical access hospitals” that get higher Medicaid payments under a program started in 1997 amid a wave of hospital closures in rural America. Oregon has 25 of the critical access or rural hospitals.
But 15 are within 15 to 35 miles of another hospital, which is why their payments are threatened. Until 2006, the 15 were exempted from a limit on hospitals not considered sufficiently remote for the higher payments. Now, a recommendation from the inspector general’s office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could end that exception. It would affect about 850 hospitals nationally. In Oregon, “some of these hos-
pitals would be put at severe financial risk,” Scott Ekblad, director of the state Office of Rural Health, said. At St. Anthony Hospital in Pendleton, CEO Harrold Geller estimated the potential loss at $3.5 million to $4.5 million a year. He said the hospital gets about 40 percent of its income from Medicare. “It has profound implications,” Geller said. “A lot of unintended SEE HOSPITALS | A10
Oregon looks at beefing up insurance premium reviews
INSIDE
PORTLAND — Oregon health officials are considering whether to use the state’s authority to approve or reject health insurance premiums as a tool to drive down health care costs. The idea is one of several suggestions for improving the health care system that Gov. John Kitzhaber has asked the Oregon Health Policy Board to consider before state lawmakers return to Salem in February.
Kitzhaber wants the board to find ways to expand Oregon’s health care reform efforts, which so far have focused primarily on Medicaid patients, so that they cover everyone else. Oregon already has some of the nation’s most aggressive oversight of health insurance premiums for plans sold to individuals and small businesses. Insurance companies seeking to raise their premiums must publicly justify the increase, and the Oregon Insurance Division gets the final say. The stateapproved premiums are often lower
Police reports . . . . A2 Comics . . . . . . . . . . A8 What’s Up. . . . . . . . A2 Puzzles . . . . . . . . . . A8 South Coast. . . . . . A3 Opinion. . . . . . . . . . A4 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . B1
than the insurer’s opening proposal. A report by the OSPIRG Foundation, which contracts with the state to represent the interests of consumers in the rate-review process, said consumers and small businesses have collectively saved more than $80 million on premiums since 2010. But the state could do a lot more, Jesse O’Brien, OSPIRG’s health care advocate, told the Health Policy Board at a meeting in Portland on Tuesday. Regulators considering insurance premiums should require that insurers meet certain
James Jamison, Coos Bay Andra Enscoe, Coos Bay Harold Bock, Myrtle Creek Charlotta Shindler, Bandon Lloyd Williams, Myrtle Point
benchmarks associated with lowering health care costs, he said. “We need to set an expectation across the board that insurance companies are going to be doing what they can to keep costs down,” O’Brien said after the meeting. “And that’s just not happening right now.” Health insurers say premiums are only one tiny piece of a complex puzzle of variables that influence health care affordability, said Leanne Gassaway, vice president for state affairs America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry
Harvey Allen, North Bend Vernon Reagan, North Bend Jewel Brady, Roseburg
Obituaries | A5
FORECAST
The Associated Press
DEATHS
BY JONATHAN J. COOPER
group, told board members. Insurance rate review is based on data about past experience and future expectations for revenue and health care claims. But the federal health care overhaul is upending the health insurance market, making it much more difficult for actuaries to project risk, she said. Health care costs now account for nearly a fifth of the total U.S. economy. They’ve historically grown much faster than inflation, wages and the economy as a whole.
Cloudy 63/56 Weather | A10
SEE PREMIUMS | A10