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WASHINGTON — Surgery patients covered by Medicaid arrive at the hospital in worse health, experience more complications, stay longer and cost more than patients with private insurance, a new study has found. The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, may offer a preview of what to expect as millions of uninsured people qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

by Gina Cassini | Top Right NewsDo you remember playing “hangman” as a child? Me too. But apparently no one among the staff of Beaverton Junior High School in Oreon ever has. Or they are so hysterical as a result of politically correct indoctrination that they have lost their collective minds: The school suspended a 13-year-old student and turned him over to police because of a “doodle” he drew showing a person being hanged, as part of the game 'Hangman', his father claims in court.

A large number of people who've signed up for private health insurers through the Cover Oregon health insurance exchange have not paid their first month's premiums, meaning they are at risk of going without coverage through November. "I've already had clients not pay and lose their coverage," says Lisa Lettenmaier, who owns the health insurance brokerage Health Source NW in Tigard. "It's imperative for people to pay their premiums on time." More than 81,000 people went through through Cover Oregon – either through paper or electronic applications—to select a private health plan. Of those, 5,000 have already cancelled policies or...

<p>BEAVERTON, Ore. (AP) — Three women were arrested after twerking at an impromptu dance party in the Beaverton City Hall parking lot.</p>

Dispatcher tells him she doesn't have a clueA man in Washington County called 911 to see where he could get some marijuana. The Washington County dispatch center released the May 1 call as part of its "You called 911 for that?!" campaign. The dispatch agency also posted the call on its Facebook page. "This is just one of many examples of what you shouldn't be calling 9-1-1 for," the agency wrote on Facebook. During the call, the man asks the dispatcher where he could buy some marijuana. The dispatcher tells him she doesn't have a clue. The call ends. The...

The woman killed by a Salem police officer Friday night died from gunshot wounds to the head and chest. State Medical Examiner Dr. Karen Gunson conducted the autopsy on Jacklynn Rashaun Ford, officials said in a release. Ford, 25, was pulled over by Officer Trevor Morrison shortly after 10 p.m. Friday near the intersection of Watson Ave and NE Alameda Street. Officials said she ran and was hit by a bullet in Eastgate Basin Park. Salem police shot Jacklynn Rashaun Ford to death after she ran from a traffic stop, May 9, 2014. She was 25. (KOIN 6 News) Salem...

I am in Oregon and received two mail-in ballot forms. This concerns me on multiple levels: 1)fraud 2)voter fraud and 3)constitutional fraud. How do I address this in the proper legal forum? I want to record this in the right way to dispel any attack that I am making any false statement. Help???

Two uniformed Portland police officers showed up at the home of a 9-year-old girl last May, questioned her on the front porch about a fight at a youth club six days earlier, then handcuffed her as she stood in a blue-and-white bathing suit. They drove her to police headquarters in downtown Portland, where she had her fingerprints and mugshot taken. Latoya Harris couldn't believe what was happening as she watched the officers head off with her daughter in the back seat. The girl was still wet after running through a neighborhood sprinkler, wearing flip flops and a pink Velco wrap-around...

The California Legislature is looking at a voluntary program that would tax motorists for every mile they drive.KCAL9’s Bobby Kaple reports that Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, introduced a bill to test out the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax because the state’s gas tax was no longer bringing in the revenue it used to due to people driving more fuel efficient vehicles.The program is modeled after ones in Oregon and Washington.“We want to do as Washington and Oregon have done in a much bigger state with much longer commutes…to make sure that we find out whether it would work, whether the...

As the GOP seeks to seize control of the U.S. Senate in the midterms, and hopefully takes back the White House in 2016, the party faithful is increasingly turning to female and minority candidates. We conservatives tend to oppose affirmative action in favor of merit, and resent the use of identity politics when employed by the Left. So perhaps encouraging GOP candidates to politicize — either subtly or explicitly — their gender or race seems like a philosophical conundrum. At the same time, it is an entirely rational act of self-preservation. We're seeing hints of it in places like Michigan,...

Massachusetts is preparing to abandon its troubled ObamaCare website, a system so problematic that the state was forced to enroll tens of thousands of people in temporary insurance plans through Medicaid.  The plan underscores the depth of technical problems with the Massachusetts Health Connector and echoes a recent decision by Cover Oregon, another glitch-ridden marketplace, to hand federal health officials the reins to its system this month.  Massachusetts officials are pursuing what they described as a "dual-track strategy" for their insurance marketplace, combining new, off-the-shelf enrollment software with a back-up plan to shift the system into HealthCare.gov if the transition takes...

Full title: BlahBlahBlahGate: Watch What Really Happened when We Kicked a U.S. Senate Candidate Out of Our Offices (snip) Maybe it was the part where Callahan rebuked our reporter Nigel Jaquiss for writing "blah blah blah" in his notepad while another candidate, Joe Rae Perkins, who was supposed to be talking about health care, was instead talking about eliminating the U.S. Forest Service. Maybe it was the bit where Callahan called climate change "a myth," and Jaquiss asked him, "Where are you on the Easter bunny?" Maybe it was the way our "thin-skinned liberal" editors helpfully pointed the direction in...

A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Oregon was thrown out of a meeting with the alternative weekly newspaper Williamette Week after he confronted a reporter for writing “blah blah blah” on his notepad while another GOP candidate was talking.

A mini-bombshell from the Daily Caller. The only poll of the race taken before this came at the start of April and had Monica Wehby trailing Jeff Merkley by 12 points. A month later, the Caller finds her up 40/39 among “active voters,” i.e. newly registered voters plus longtime registered voters who voted in one of the last two elections. What’s changed? Maybe nothing; with so few polls to go by, it could be that one of these is an outlier. Or, it could be that Wehby’s much-praised “Trust” ad that made the rounds a few weeks ago raised her...

This has to be the best thing I’ve seen since Newt Gingrich was calling out the liberal media in 2012. Republican Mark Callahan, who is running for US Senate in Oregon, was in a candidate review meeting with other colleagues in order for Willamette Week, a publication in Portland, to decide who they would endorse in the upcoming primary. An opponent of his, Republican Joe Rae Perkins, was on speaker phone. There were others in the room but I’m not sure who they were specifically. The clip starts with Perkins answering a question on speaker phone. While she was answering...

After the Cover Oregon board of directors decided to scrap the troubled health exchange and transfer to the federal government’s site, a colleague asked me if the whole sorry saga was over. Far from it, I said. A host of questions remain that could take months to resolve. Here are a few that come to mind:

Albacore tuna caught off the Oregon shore after the Fukushima Daiichi power station in Japan was destroyed in a 2011 earthquake had slightly elevated levels of radioactivity but the increase has been minute, according to a newly published study. In fact, you would have to consume more than 700,000 pounds of the fish with the highest radioactive level – just to match the amount of radiation the average person is annually exposed to in everyday life through cosmic rays, the air, the ground, X-rays and other sources, the authors say. Results of the study are being published in the journal...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Tuesday joined a growing list of out-of-state political figures who have endorsed Portland pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby in her race for the Republican Senate nomination. . . Wehby's chief rival in the Republican primary, state Rep. Jason Conger of Bend, has been promoting himself as the real conservative in the race and has been emphasizing his opposition to abortion rights. Wehby has said that she supports a woman's right to choose.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes called the now defunct Cover Oregon website the “biggest Obamacare train wreck in the entire country” Friday on MSNBC. “Today the state gave up and called for help on what has to be the biggest Obamacare train wreck in the entire country,” he said. “Oregon became the first state to dump its own troubled online health exchange and use the federal marketplace instead. Oregon spent $248 million of $305 million in federal grant, including $3 million on this cool ad campaign.”

Earlier today, Oregon became the first state-run health exchange to adopt the federal HealthCare.gov exchange portal. After receiving more than $300 million dollars in federal grants, the state struggled to sign up private insurance enrollees through their own online portal, Cover Oregon. Due to these difficulties and the projected costs of fixing the exchange, a technological advisory committee recommended to Oregon’s exchange board on Thursday that the state transition to using the federal exchange, rather than attempt to fix its existing exchange. Today, state officials approved the advisory board’s recommendation. Examining the cost projections between the two options, state officials...