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Wednesday, April 28, 1976
University Dally Kansan
KANSAN Comment
Oninions on this page reflect only the view of the writer.
Housing ruling fair
The Supreme Court opened the door to open housing a crack last week. It decided to allow federal courts to order action of public housing in suburbs.
THE COURT AFFIRMED a lower court ruling that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Chicago Housing Authority violated the rights of minorities by selecting public housing sites and assigning tenants on the basis of race.
It is interesting to note that HUD, which is supposed to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act, argued against the decision. Thus one would not be too idealistic in assuming that HUD will quickly exploit this new found lever to solve some of the acute housing problems facing large cities.
THERE ARE FACTORS other than a lack of zeal from HUD that will prevent any immediate achievement of a comprehensive open housing program. The housing industry has been and is continuing to be the area now available for the construction of public housing. And the decision itself is narrow.
Only when there is a civil rights violation can the courts intervene. Local
governments will still have the power to enforce building and zoning regulations. Local communities will still make the decisions about public housing, but if those decisions are proved to have unintended discrimination, the courts can intervene.
THIS DECISION comes at a time when the issues of fair housing and judicial restraint are being vigorously debated. Former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter's comment about "ethnic purity" was addressed to this issue. Mr. Carter also said that Democratic candidates have said they don't favor extensive federal government intervention to provide open housing.
The federal courts have recently been under attack for excessive use of judicial power. Resentment over court-ordered busing has caused antagonism toward any intervention into the affairs of local communities.
In light of these developments, the Supreme Court decision should be commended. The court didn't back down from its civil rights responsibilities but it used discretion and tact in moving into the area of open housing.
By John Hickey
by John Henry
Contributing Writer
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 400 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the
editor's judgment, and must be signed. KU students must provide their name, year in school and hometown; faculty must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.
By DON SMITH Kansas Correspondent
Congress stalls campaign
Letters Policy
WASHINGTON - Ten Secret Service men huddled outside the Longworth House Office before here one day last week.
"What are they doing around here?" one congressional staff worker asked another staff worker.
"I GUESS Udall's back in town," the second worker said. "You know, he's already out of campaign money and I suppose he's up in his office calling people and asking for money."
Indeed, Rep. Morris Udall, D-Arkansas, we probably solicited money by phone. Most of the presidential candidates have been in or around Washington and couple of weeks seeking funds.
THE MATCHING funds provision that was written into the Federal Elections Commission application since March 22, the deadline set by the Supreme Court for the Congress to reconstitute the commission and instead of congressional appointees. The court ruled unconstitutional the congressional appointments, saying that the funding until Congress acted.
No presidential candidate has received federal matching funds for a month and the toll is beginning to tell. Just as in too many campaigns, campaigning has again taken a back, seat to raising money.
And though Congress has been fully aware for a month of the court's decision, it has acted with patience and insisted the finger directly at Congress for the financial consequences of the presidential candidates.
THE TWO MOST important provisions that Congress wrote into the FEC law are the limiting of campaign contributions to $1,000 a person and the mandating that candidates who met certain qualifications receive federal matching funds.
The candidates have conscientiously kept contributions and donations to Congress has fooled around for more than a month with a new PEC bill while the candidates treasures run driv.
committee reached agreement on a bill to revamp the FEC as the court had directed, but not allowed the gov't to act before it be recalled.
JUST BEFORE Congress recessed for Easter on April 14 a House-Senate conference
Now, the earliest date that federal matching funds could get back into campaign spending was last May. And that doesn't provide much help to the candidates who are critically short of money and includes every candidate except President Gerald Ford.
IN THE MEANTIME.
everyday saturates. The youth don't get to hear a frank discussion of the issues, the FEC bill just adds another timber to the congressional log jam that is developing on the Hill. And the candidates are spending most of their time seeking money while their campaigns linguish.
Many here thought that when Congress passed and the President signed into law the $700 billion imposed forced to forego money raising
efforts and concentrate instead on campaigning. The idea was that the candidates couldn't afford to court the fat cat donors because $1,000 was the amount buildup they one person yet they would still be able to count on the federal matching funds.
And that's what discourages people here. By its lack of action, Congress has forced the state to do what it doesn't do when what it does that makes it less necessary, raising campaign funds.
Who's calling the kettle black?
By JAMES J. KILPATRICK
THIS WAS THE substance of the report—that the military services maintain several
WASHINGTON- The General Accounting Office (GAO), suffering from acid indigestion, burped up a sour little report the other day on military "resorts." The report was prepared at the behest of Sen. John D. Rockefeller who released it to the press with a billious little statement of his own.
"elaborate resort-style centers," including a large center in Germany, one in the Philippines, and two in Hawaii; that these resorts benefit from an annual $12.6 million subsidy from the taxpayers; that charges should be increased to reduce the bureaucracy personnel now assigned to the centers should be reassigned to military duties.
The GAO reminded Sen. Proxmire that it "has questioned the funding of
Malpractice suits scare doctors
military recreation programs several times." The authors of the report ventured the suggestion that a review of the delay of the Department of Defense in updating its policies, the Congress may wish to impose specific guidelines on the use of these programs. "How do these programs" Holty-tolty, holty-toly;
Doctors have enough on their minds the way it is without having to worry about being sued, but malpractice is a hard problem and remains prominent in the minds of most physicians in recent years.
THE REASON IS that the number of lawsuits for malpractice in the United States has doubled in the past five years. At present, the average number of doctors sued by malpractice during their careers is about one out of every 10.
By BILL CALVERT
IN A NATIONAL survey three years ago, the Federal Commission on Malpractice found that a fear of being sued afflicts the entire health-care system. As a result of commission, many doctors were refusing to perform high-risk operations for fear of being sued if something went wrong. Some doctors were even afraid to publish reports of adverse effects of various experimental drugs and because lawyers could use such reports against them,
Along with the rise in the number of malpractice suits, there has been a corresponding increase in the amounts awarded by the courts to patients claiming medical negligence. The size of these cases is increasing and in that period of time there have been 30 to 35 awards of $1 million or more.
Because of the increase in lawsuits, insurance companies are raising the premiums on malpractice policies. In New York, for example, doctors and nurses are charged areas are charged as much as $14,500 annually for malpractice insurance coverage.
BECAUSE OF THE jump in insurance premiums,
Various explanations have been offered to account for the increased tendency of patients to take their doctors to court. David S. Rubsamen, a physician-attorney who gives legal advice to the court as a major factor is the greater availability of doctors to serve as expert witnesses at malpractice trials.
AND THE COMMISSION'S survey said that medical education had suffered because of the malpractice problem as a result of the 2003 law and resigning. At the Wayne State University medical school in Michigan, for example, 77 faculty members were unable to get adequate malpractice coverage, 22 members were dismissed and six members had resigned as a consequence of lawsuits.
physicians are continuing their practices, moving to states where insurance rates are cheaper or merely raising their fees and passing the cost increases on to patients.
The commission also found that, aside from the rise in doctor's fees, the cost of health care was being increased by 20 percent. The doctors are ordering extra diagnostic tests and X-rays for their patients, not because they are necessary, but because they will make good evidence in the event of a lawsuit. Doctors are being hired to hospitals for minor surgery that could be done more easily and cheaply in the doctor's office. The commission estimated that "defensive medicine was becoming less important billion a year in hospital bills."
THE FINGER OF blame has also been pointed at contingency fee arrangements, which have made malpractice such a lucrative area for lawyers to pursue. Under these
arrangements, lawyers receive large percentages of whatever their clients are awarded by the court. Cases sometimes last five to six years and cost both parties up to $100,000.
Many solutions have been proposed to help alleviate the crisis posed by malpractice. The only major solution that has been made into state law is the strong control of the contingency fee arrangements in the states of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts courts in these states strictly control how much money a lawyer may receive from a case.
THE INCREASING complication of medical techniques also has caused a change in măраpease laws, holding a doctor as the judge and judgment as well as for the obvious mistakes, such as amputating the wrong leg. Now a doctor can be found guilty of mărapease for errors such as causing cancer in its earliest stages.
As one bitter Michigan urologist put it, "Lawyers have quit chasing ambulances and are chasing surgeons."
RUBSAMEN HAS recommended that malpractice cases be taken into consideration specializing in malpractice law instead of a jury. He believes that the judge would be more willing to take action if he would be fairer and more
consistent, Gerald J. Lustig, a thoracic surgeon and president of the New York State College of Dentists, advocates taking malpractice out of the courts altogether. He believes that a patient should be compensated by a doctor, a physician by a set-up similar to workmen's compensation insurance. The American Medical Association recently endorsed a law that one Lustig has proposed.
ARBITRATION IS one method of settling malpractice cases out of court and is being used by various hospitals and the criminal justice system. The method, the plaintiff and the defendant hire their own arbitrators plus a third neutral arbitrator. The arbitrators question both parties at bearings lasting about three months to resolve within a few months. Arbitration has met with relative success since it was first tried as an alternative to court trials in 1929, but it still has met with opposition. One reason for that claim is that arbitration would not meet the needs of the public. BUSH SAID that physicians were probably safer in a court trial because 90 per cent of court trials are decided in favor of the plaintiff. That would make more of an effort to determine what was right than
the professionals on an arbitration board.
IT TAKES A monumental gall—a kind of awesome chutzpach—for any member of the military armamenties. In the whole of our government, no group is more petted, pampered, coddied, cuddled and richly sub- served in the House and Senate.
is the "watchdog of Congress". It would be a pure pleasure, one of these days, to see the watch-dog report on his master's perquisites. No such study has ever been made.
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It is hoped that the solution to the malpractice mess will be found soon. In the meantime, health care costs will continue rising. The medical attention will continue to decline as more doctors quit, move away or refuse to take necessary risks for fear of losing clients or efforts. It is important that the public be informed as to the seriousness of the situation, because if nothing is done, the doctor will have a bigger loser than a doctor having a million dollar lawsuit.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
THE "CLAIMED mission" of these facilities, said the GAO, sneering ever so faintly, is to provide opportunities for servicemen to rest and relax. The GAO interns in Germany offer skiing, tennis, ice skating, fishing, golfing, bowling, sailing, and the like. A center in Hawaii walleys in such luxuries as a cafeteria, spa, gym, recreation lodge, bar shop theater, and library. The Hale Koa hotel on Wakiki Beach has "restaurants, cocktail lounges and banquet facilities," as well as swimming pools, flower gardens. The whole tone of the report was that all of heavy disapproval.
Business Manager
Rosy Parris
A senator or congressman parks in the morning in a magnificent heated garage. He ascends to a "members only" elevator to a posh office. His flowers are provided free from the building, but the pictures on his walls have been framed, free, by a special service. He works on his mail, which goes out free. He saunters to the barber shop for a haircut, free, and a shoeship, free. He goes to the gym for a fitness class, free. He goes to the congressional pool. He eats a subsidized lunch in a luxurious dining room. Then he goes to the floor to vote himself a sneaky pay in pay.
The GAO has prepared many useful studies of government spending, and Sen. Proxmine has done a constructive job of helping GAO to understand but this particular report starts a slow burn. In theory, the GAO
and free prescriptions. He gets a $3,000 tax deduction for living expenses. He can look forward to a lush pension. He gets a free thousand-dollar set of law books and a free custom-made trunk to pack them in. He ordinarily arrives on Thursday. Exhausted by his labors, he votes himself three months of recesses and vacations, a part of which he devotes to a European junkt. The day seldom passes that season and the floor to denounce the military for extravagance. These pampered darlings of the Congress steadily have whitted away at the benefits promised to servicemen as inducements to military retirement, Military misseries, military health benefits, military educational benefits—all these come under incessant attack.
SEEN. BARRY Goldwater, God bless him, laid all this on the line in a blistering speech to the National Space Club on Feb. 4. He put the speech in the Congressional Record, and urged his colleagues to "stop being hypotensive, damages the body," and others about the defense establishment." A few other members share Goldwater's indignation. Mighty few.
IF A MEMBER gets ill, he gets a subsidized room at Walter Reed or Bethesda. He gets free medical examinations
(c) 1975 Washington Star Syndicate Inc