Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1982-11-18

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75th Year No. 57 , Good Morning Mt's Thursday, November 18, 1982 3 Sections 16 Pages 25 Cents
Nation's factory- tis- e rate plummets to record low
Reagan hints
at early tax cut
for consumers
WASHINGTON ( AP) - Nearly
one- thir- d, of the production lines at
U. S. factories stood idle last month
as the recession deepened, in what
one economist called a " near de-pression."
The 68.4 percent factory- us- e
rate reported Wednesday was
the worst on record.
Shortly after the Federal Reserve
Board report was released, Presi-dent
Reagan told reporters he was
thinking about asking Congress to
give Americans access to next July's
tax- rat- e cut in January in order to
stimulate the economy by encourag-ing
consumer spending.
In a third economic development,
the Commerce Department said
housing starts by U. S. builders rose
1 percent in October. That was only
a modest increase to an annual
rate of 1.12 million units but the
same report provided better news in
the form of a second straight jump in
building permits for future construc-tion.
Permits rose to an annual rate of
1.18 million, up 17.7 percent from
September and up a full 60 percent
from October of last year good
news because permits indicate how
well builders should be doing in com-ing
months.
For the present, however, the Fed-eral
Reserve's factory- us- e report
was nothing but bad news. For ex-ample:
The decline was the 13th in IS
months. And rather than getting
smaller, the monthly drops have
been getting larger: 0.2 percentage
point in August, 0.6 point in Septem-ber
and now 0.8 point in October.
There were new declines in two
major industries: Factory use fell to
49.7 percent for automakers and to
42 percent for iron and steel produc-ers.
The latter figure was that indus-try's
lowest since a big 1959 strike
stifled output.
For the first time in the reces-sion,
overall factory use fell below
the 1975 low of 69 percent, a figure
that had been the lowest level in sta-tistics
going back to 1948.
Allen Sinai, a vice president with
Data Resources Inc., said the new
operating rate " is further evidence
that the U. S. economy has suffered a
near depression over the past few
years" as a result of efforts to bring
down the high inflation rates of the
1970s.
But he said the unemployment
rate already at a 42- ye- ar high of
10.4 percent, should rise no higher
than 10.7 percent. And he said " the
processes for recovery" including
lower interest rates and moderately
improving sales of houses and con-sumer
goods have begun and
should lead to " meaningful recov-ery"
by early next year.
In Washington, White House econ-omist
Martin Feldstein said moving
up the date for reducing amounts
withheld from taxpayers' paychecks
would put an additional $ 14 billion in
consumer hands.
A disadvantage would be that it
would increase a budget deficit al-ready
headed for record levels of
$ 150 billion or more, he added.
Halisville tabloid
Hallsville B- I- V basketball and
the Little Dixie Conference are ex-plored
in a four- pag- e tabloid in to-day's
Columbia Missourian.
Today
Noon " Handguns: What women
should know." Women's Center, ' Gentry Hall on the University cam-pus.
7 p. m. Parks and Recreation
Commission meets, fourth- floo- r
conference room, County- Cit- y
Building.
7: 30 p. m. County Planning and
Zoning Commission meets. Coun-ty
Courtroom, fifth floor County- Cit- y
Building.
!
7: 30 p. m. " Moonchildren." Gen-try
Studio Theater, Gentry Hall,
University. Tickets S1 .
8 p. m. " The Music Man." Hick-man
High School auditorium. 1104
N. Providence Road, through Nov.
20. Tickets S2 50 and S3.
Inside
Business 7a
Classified 2- 3- B
Comics 6A
Opinion 4A
Record 7a
Sports 1- 2- B
Belden to close
local factory
at month's end
By Jeffrey Pundyk
Missourian staff writer
For Cambodian refugee Lan Yun- tain- g,
even simple conversations are
tests of patience. She begins every
conversation with her disclaimer, " I
speak very little English." and ends
with a broad smile and a tentative
nod of her head.
An employee meeting Monday at
the Belden Corp.' s Columbia plant,
1809 Nelwood Drive, was particular-ly
confusing for Lan. That was when
I. an found out the plant is closing,
which means she is loosing her job.
Lan says she doesn't really under-stand
the recession or unfair foreign
competition. What she does under-stand,
now that it has been explained
by an interpreter, is that, as of Nov.
1 30, she will no longer earn S4.35 per
hour working at a machine that
manufactures a part for electrical
cords.
Lan came to Columbia in May 1981
with her husband, their infant
daughter and their 4- year-
- old son.
She has been working for Belden for
a year.
" These are the people I feel really
sorry for," says Dick Rasnick, plant
manager, ' i can always go out and
get a job. It'll be really tough for
them."
Rasnick says the plant, which has
been open for 32 years, will be shut
down because sales are at about one- quart- er
of what they should be dur-ing
what is normally the company's
busy season.
" This is a darn good plant with
good employees. The whole industry
is down. It's no fault of the employ-ees,"
he says.
Rasnick, a tall, thin man with a
grey beard, speaks of the matter in a
slow, quiet voice: "' Business started
to decline a year or so ago and kept
going down. At one time we em-ployed
as many as 45 people. This
will be a permanent ' shutdown with
no relocations for any employees."
Frank Haes. an official with the
Belden Corp.. says the Columbia
shop was vulnerable because it is the
smallest of Belden's eight plants.
Belden is a subsidiary of Cooper In-dustries
of Houston.
Rasnick. a Belden employee for 18
years, sat in his wood- panele- d office
decorated only with the company's
business licenses and one picture
frame holding shotb of his wife and
four daughters. He looked out at the
machinery in his plant and reflected
on his 31.-- years as plant manager:
" At one time it was pretty busy
around here. There's just not any-thing
to produce. Someplace has to
be closed and this one was. chosen."
Rasnick isn't annr; . just disap-pointed.
Alan Beeler. the plant supervisor,
agrees.
" You can't blame amone," the 28- year-- old
says. " I kind of saw it com-ing,
but I wasn't fully prepared."
Lan didn't see it coming not un-til
it was told to her over and over.
' I will just look for another job," she
says, smiling and nodding her head.
Hung over
Christmas decoration time finds Charles Perkins, 214 Shady
Lakes Estates, stringing Christmas lights at the Broadway
Dana Piper
Inn, 1111 E. Broadway. These and other downtown lights will
be turned on the day after Thanksgiving.
Local hospitals could lose lit Medicare cutbacks
By Debbie Stone
Missourian staff writer
Columbia's medical industry may
be entering a new and perhaps
less profitable era of health care.
Local hospitals are closely watch-ing
the Reagan administration's ef-forts
to reduce Medicaid and Medi-care
funding. They should. More
than half of their patients pay their
bills with money from the two pro-grams.
Next year, government cutbacks
in payments for Medicaid and Medi-care
could reach $ 14.4 billion nation-wide,
according to a report by a
leading accounting firm, Peat, Mar- wic- k,
Mitchell & Co. Last year, Mis-souri
hospitals had to cut back $ 40,- 000,0- 00
in expenses due to Medicare
changes already in effect, said Dian
Sprenger, vice president of public af-fairs
for the Missouri Hospital Asso-ciation.
DG0DK! f
Columbia Regional Hospital, the
only private medical center in the
area, claims the largest federal out-lay
of any local hospital aside from
the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center. At
Columbia Regional, 59 percent of the
patients rely on Medicare and Medi-caid,
while about 10 percent use Blue
Cross- Blu- e Shield and about 4 per-cent
use other private insurance pro-grams.
That leaves only 27 percent
of the patients there paying out of
their own pockets.
The two not- for- pro- fit hospitals in
Columbia, Boone Hospital Center
and the University Hospital, say 53
percent of their patients use Medi-caid
and Medicare to pay the bills.
But the 30 percent of the patients
covered by private insurance at
Boone Hospital Center means that,
similar to Columbia Regional, only
27 percent pay out of their pockets.
Currently, 73 percent of Ellis Fis-chers
revenue comes from Medicaid
and Medicare programs.
When these programs were estab-lished
in 1966, Medicaid and Med-icare
funding seemed endless. An el-derly
or poor patient who could not
pay for hospital services was cov-ered
and the government re-imbursed
the hospital.
Analysts have called this type of
payment plan. " the smorgasboard
syndrome of health care." A patient
uses more services than he wants or
actually needs,
Now the once- endle- ss smorgas-board
appears endangered. A recent
article in Health Care Financial
Management magazine predicted
federal funds supporting Medicaid
and Medicare will be depleted by
1991.
In order to keep the programs
afloat, the federal Health Care Fi-nancing
Administration has pro-posed
a payment plan that would im-pose
tighter regulations and budget
controls on hospitals and force doc-tors
to be more cost- conscio- us.
Detroit has even begun a " Medi-caid
test," restricting a patient's
choice of doctor. They now must
choose doctors in a health mainte-nance
organization noted for its cost- consciousne- ss.
Consumers also are going to begin
taking more responsibility for their
mediral bills. As of Jan. 1, all Medi-care
patients will have to pay 17 per-cent
more out of their own pocket be-fore
insurance takes over. The
Missouri Hospital Association antic-ipates
that paying patients in private
hospitals will have to pay $ 10 a day
more to pick up the tab for what the
See OPTIMISM, Page 8A
It's just a man- eat- d- og world
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa ( AP)
It finally happened. A man bit a dog,
and it made news.
It also startled the dog's owners
and the dog.
Dennis Morris, 26, of Omaha,
Neb., was charged with public intox-ication
and criminal mischief after
he wrestled a mixed- bree- d Labrador--
Husky dog to the ground and
sank his teeth into its neck until the
owners dragged him off, authorities
said.
The dog, a mother of three, proba-bly
didn't fight back because she
knew her assailant, and had even sat
on his. lap from time to time, one of
its owners said.
Council Bluffs City Attorney Dick
1
Wade said the incident began when
Morris got into a fight with co- work- er
Mark Helzer at Helzer's Lake Ma- na- wa
home and Helzer told him to
leave.
After Morris stopped banging on
the doors, Helzer went outside to
find a telephone to call police but
was " attacked" by Morris, " the po-lice
report said. The Helzers do not
have a telephone.
The police report said Morris ran
off, but " a very short time later
Helzer heard his dog yelping in the
backyard."
The Helzers ran back and found
Morris " lying on top of the dog, bit-ing
its neck," the report said.
Bureaucratic snag
leaves poor in cold
300 apply for utility aid
By Lenny Heymann
Missourian staff writer
If bureaucratic red tape burned,
fewer Boone County residents today
would be without gas and electricity.
Assistance is available to help
those who can't meet the full cost of
their utility bills. But there's a
catch: these programs don't provide
money for deposits to initiate utility
service or to pay delinquent bills.
The Voluntary Action Center Tues-day
reported 60 families were with-out
heat because they can't meet
those payments. On Wednesday.
Betty Adams, the center's director,
said another 10 people who face the
same problem also asked for help.
" It appears at this point that it
could be a nightmare," she said.
Some of those without heat have
had their utilities shut off because of
delinquent payments. Others have
moved into new housing but can't af-ford
the deposit needed to begin
service, Mrs. Adams said.
Meanwhile, there are households
without gas or electncty. Many are
filled with single women and their
children who have no place to go, so
they bundle up the best they can,
said Mrs. Adams.
" Some of them have gone to stay
with friends during the day and
j'ump into their covers at night," she
said.
There is a program to help fami-lies
in crises, but it's stuck in bu-reaucratic
low gear. Formerly ad-ministered
by the now- defun- ct
Community Services Administration
in Washington, D, C, the Low In-come
Energy Assistance Project
now turns over block grants to the
state. That where's Mrs. Adams be-lieves
the trouble lies.
" What's coming down to me is
that the Feds were a little faster on
the draw than the state," she said.
" I think the state's sitting on the
money."
Human Development Corp.' s exec-utive
director, David Thayer, is try-ing
to shake those dollars loose. He
spoke with state officials a few- -
weeks ago and was promised a grant
of $ 40,000. But while he had a verbal
agreement, he only just received the
written guidelines explaining how to
apply for the money.
" It's one thing to sa you'll be get-ting
an award and another to get
something in writing." Thayer said.
" Without the commitment, we'd be
taking the risk of not being paid
back."
Once the grant comes through, the
Human Development Corp. will be
able to provide up to $ 300 per family
for utility start- u- p costs.
When that money will reach Boone
County is not known. Tom Lawlor. a
special projects coordinator for the
state Division of Manpower Plan-ning,
declined to set a date. Without
hitches, the applications could be
processed in two weeks, Lawlor
said. He also attributed some of the
delays to the federal government's
slowness in getting the block grant
to the state.
" It's just an awful lot of ducks to
get lined up in a row." Lawlor said.
" We've done as much as we could in
anticipation of the grant."
Those with current service can ap-ply
with the Division of Family Serv-ices,
2100 E. Broadway, for assist-ance
in paying their bills. Since the
program started on Monday, the di-vision
has received nearly 300 appli-cations,
said Executive Director Jer-ry
Brewer.
The division's money comes from
the same federal program, but can
only be used for those with existing
service. Brewer said.
The two programs are matched
together." Brewer said. " We're hop-ing
that HDC will get money for peo-ple
we can't help."
But it may be weeks until the state
money comes through. Meanwhile.
Mrs. Adams is leading an effort to
find help on the local level.
" We're developing resources as
quickly as possible." she said. " In
two to four weeks ou can be awful
cold with no way of heating the
place."
Reagan to urge reduction
in UeSe9 Soviet defenses
WASHINGTON ( AP) - President
Reagan is about to propose to the So-viet
Union an expansion of the Washingt-on-
Moscow hotline and other
" confidence- buildin- g" measures, in-cluding
notice of upcoming missile
tests, administration sources said
Wednesday.
The sources said Reagan, in his
new arms- contr- ol initiative, will en-courage
the post- Brezhn- ev lead-ership
in Moscow to reach an agree-ment
with U. S. negotiators in
Geneva on at least some of the prin-ciples
of his proposed treaty to
sharply reduce strategic nuclear
weapons on both sides.
The initiative is contained in a
speech nearing completion in which
the president intends to draw atten-tion
to the massive sums the two su-perpowers
are spending on defense
and urge that they intensify efforts
to reverse the accumulation of nu-clear
weapons.
However, he will not propose a
less comprehensive pact than one
mandating sharp cuts in current ar-senals,
nor will he support ratifica-tion
of the SALT II treaty, signed in
Vienna in 1979 by former President
Jimmy Carter and the late Soviet
1
President Leonid 1. Brezhnev, said
the sources.
The sources revealed the presi-dent's
plans on condition that their
names not be used.
The current hotline is a teleprinter
circuit between the two capitals. Es-tablished
under a 1963 agreement, it
was designed to flash alerts of immi-nent,
accidental nulcear attacks. It
has never been used for that pur-pose,
although presidents and Soviet
leaders have used it on other occa-sions
to exchange messages in times
of tension, notably during the 1973
Arab- Israe- li war.
Sens. Henry M. Jackson, D- Was- h.,
and Sam Nunn, D- G- a., have sug-gested
bolstering the coded message
system with a military crisis center,
staffed by U. S. and Soviet officials
who would quickly exchange nuclear
information and warnings.
The president's speech which
according to the sources could be de-livered
within a week, although an
occasion has not yet been specified
is designed to offer Yuri Andro-pov,
the new Communist party gen-eral
secretary, and other Kremlin
leaders the opportunity to chart a
new course concerning arms control.