Columbia Missourian Newspaper 1983-07-12

              1012 LQa) RY VXC
75th Year No. 256 Good Morning! It's Tuesday, July 12, 1983 2 Sections 12 Pages 25 Cents
Justice to aid
House inquiry
WASHINGTON ( UPI) - Presi-dent
Reagan tokl the Justice Depart-ment
Monday to permit congressio-nal
investigators qualified access to
any additional Carter White House
papas found to have been obtained
by ills 1980 campaign staff
The directive, issued after Reagan
consulted with a pair of his top ad-visers,
fell short of meeting a re-quest
by Rep. Donald Albosta, D- Mlc- h.,
that his subcommittee be
given copies of any further material
turned over to the Justice Depart-ment
by Reagan aides.
" The president feels confident that
Justice will work out these proce-dures,"
presidential spokesman Lar-ry
Speakes told reporters " It is the
president's desire to allow the inves-tigation
by see Justice Department,
by the congressional committee, to
proceed unimpeded."
Albosta's subcommittee is investi-gating
how Reagan aides obtained
debate briefing papers and other in-ternal
documents from the Carter
White House during the 1980 cam-paign.
In a June 29 letter, Albosta asked
Reagan for copies of any additional
papers located in the files of cam-paign
aides cr the campaign ar-chives
at the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University.
The current White House order is
that all such material be sent direct-ly
to the Justice Department.
White House legal counsel Fred
Fielding assured Albosta in a letter
approved by Reagan that the Justice
Department would work out ar-rangements
to give the subcommit-tee
access to any Carter papers lo-cated
in Reagan campaign files.
However, the White House pledge
carried the qualifier that such ar- rasgerc- ants
still must assure " the
integrity of the Justice Department
invesdgatian "
The White House sought to strike a
conciliatory chord in the Fielding
lefts?.
But Speakes made it clear that the
Albosta committee would not be al-lowed
to bypass the Justice Depart-ment
in seeking the Hoover Institu
tion files.
" The point is it's going to Justice
and the Department of Justice will
make it available,' ' he said
" I think Justice will work out an
accommodation," Speakes told re-porters.
He said the president " was direct-ing
Justice to promptly work out
procedures" to allow the subcom-mittee
access to the materials it
seeks
Justice Department spokesman
Thomas DeCair said " I'm sure that
well be able to work something out
with Rep Albosta."
Albosta said in a statement, " I ap-preciate
the fact that the president
has responded m the affirmative to
my request for materials that have
been turned over to the Justice De-partment
I look forward to working
out an arrangement for inspection
and copying of those files for the sub-committee
on human resources in
the very near future
" In regard to our access to the
Hoover Institution Reagan collec-tion,
we still do not have an affirma-tive
answer, but we hope that re-quest
will be granted m writing
tomorrow "
Albosta said in a telephone inter-view
earlier Monday that he has
asked the Hoover Institution to se-cure
Reagan 1980 campaign files
stored there and to permit his con-gressional
subcommittee staff to pe-ruse
them for material from the Car-ter
White House.
He said he made the request in a
telegram to Molly Tuthill, curator of
the Hoover Institution Library at
Stanford University
" I want to be sure that the original
copies do not leave the files," he
said.
Some former Carter aides have
privately expressed fears that Rea-gan's
aides might tamper with the
files at the Hoover Institution in an
effort to hush the matter. - -
Ms, Tuthill has been reviewing the
550 linear feet of files, and has sent
attorney Fielding copies of some
documents appearing to have come
from the Carter White House.
Alabama colleges biased
against blacks, U. S. says
NawYoricTimaa
WASHINGTON The Reagan ad-ministration
filed its first school de-segregation
suit Monday, and in it
asked a federal judge to dismantle
what it said was a " dral system" of
Eublic colleges for blacks and whites
1 Alabama.
The lawsuit charged that Gov.
George C Wallace, the Alabama
state Board of Education and other
state officials " by their policies and
practices, have maintained and per-petuated
the dual system of public
higher education based on race "
Moreover, it said, the " defendants
have failed to take affirmative steps
to remove the vestiges of the dual
educational system resulting from
their policy of racial segregation in
education."
The lawsuit comes after two years
in which civil rights advocates have
repeatedly criticized President Rea-gan's
record on civil rights. In re-cent
months, White House officials
have expressed growing -- concern
about the political damage that
could result from such criticism, de- spi- le
the president's efforts to rebut
it. In his weekly radio address Satur-day,
Reagan said he would send Con-gress
proposals to put " real teeth"
into the enforcement of fair housing
laws.
Justice Department officials de-nied
that political considerations had
figured in their decision to file suit
against Alabama
William Bradford Reynolds, the
assistant attorney general for civil
rights, said Monday's suit, filed in
Federal District Court in Birming-ham,
followed more than a year of
negotiations with the state. The fed-eral
Department of Education,
" having determined that compli-ance
could not be secured by volun-tary
means," referred the case to
the Justice Department in January
1582
Billy Joe Camp, press secretary to
Wallace, quoted the governor as say-ing
that Monday's lawsuit " did not
come as a surprise" because the fed-eral
government had been putting
pressure on other states to desegre-gate
public systems of higher educa-tion.
Wallace defied a federal court
order to admit blacks to the Univer-sity
of Alabama in 1963, but stepped
aside when confronted with National
Guard troops, and in recent years he
has said that he accepted desegrega-tion
as the law of the land.
Monday's lawsuit was the third
ever Sled by the Justice Department
to desegregate a state system of
higher education.
University Hospital Risk Manager Gary Kraus studies a patient's case history. s,,", lM'
By EraIn Shratier
Wlssourlan staff writer
It's his own job description pro-tecting
an insurance trust fund
banked in Kansas City while being
as humane as possible. Gary Kraus
is University Hospital's risk . man-ager.
The primary responsibility of the
47- year-- old lawyer, who also holds a
master's degree in hospital adminis-tration,
is to minimize errors and
miilnRiihn at Hip 45fVhpd tAnrhinff
hospital If he fails, he's faced with
the task of limiting the legal and fi-nancial
damage done to the institu-tion
and the University's self- insuran- ce
program, which usually means
settling patients' claims before they
get to court
Operating from a first- floo- r office
dominated by a computer, Kraus
monitors mishaps and complaints
relating to patient care. Failing to
give proper medication to patients,
falling out of bed incidents big and
small are recorded and fed into
the computer. The product, a report
citing any untoward trends in hospi-tal
practice, is sent to department
heads every month.
It's a question of whether you're
making it easy for humans to make
a mistake, Kraus says. " For exam-ple,
in the case of medication mix- up- s,
there may be kinks in the sys-tem,"
he says. " Where information
is entered longhand, maybe we
should require that it be typed "
Kraus says the computerized in-formation
system is one of the most
advanced in the country and can be
credited for keeping mishaps mini-mal
. Tiist as lmnnrtant he savs is to in- -
Still in doctors and nurses a " pre-ventative
legal mentality " Kraus,
who teaches a course in hospital law
at the University, lectures all incom-ing
nurses and resident physicians
on the hospital's insurance program,
national trends in malpractice suits,
documenting treatment and report-ing
problems, and, generally, how to
protect against possible legal
hassles.
" It's unfortunate that you've got to
do it " But, he says, it's necessary
for one disruptive and costly reason
A second malpractice crisis now
grips the medical profession
The first was in the early 1970s
when the rising cost of health care,
coupled with growing consumer
awareness, forced patients to de-mand
their money's worth, says
Kraus In such a climate, medical
treatment deemed unsatisfactory by
patients led more readily to legal ac-tion
Twenty years of television also
contributed, Kraus says. " It is what
we in the profession call the ' Marcus
Welby' syndrome In all those pro-grams
you have patients carried into
a hospital on a stretcher," he says
" 4nH aftsrfrpahripnt thov aro litor.
ally dancing out the door " The
American public, as a result, came
to expect more from the medical
community. And if treatment didn't
cure, there was often resentment on
the part of the patient
At the same tune, medical care
became much more complicated, es-pecially
for some of the increasing
number of foreign doctors practicing
in the United States, he says " A lot
of scientific data was flooding the
educational arena, and many have
been unable to absorb it all "
To top it off, lawyers got in on the
act. Law schools were turning out
more and more graduates to make a
living " As other markets dried up,
they began to see malpractice suits
as a business opportunity," Kraus
says, with apologies to his legal
brethren.
The upshot of events was higher
insurance premiums, which put the
squeeze on hospitals and individual
physicians, not to mention the pa-tients
who end up footing the bill
State legislatures, pressured by
health care interest groups, rreated
methods to screen potential mal-practice
suits, Kraus says The
strpam nf suits dwindled
But now the legislative dam is
crumbling, says Kraus, who serves
as president of the Missouri Associa-tion
of Hospital Risk Managers
Many of the screening mechanisms
have been ruled unconstitutional
Malpractice suits are on the rise
again, amounting to a second mal
practice crisis in the medical com-munity,
he says
One response to costly court action
and insurance premiums, says
Kraus, has been self- insuran- ce In
1978, the University took that route
" I wasn't here prior to that tune,"
says Kraus, who came to Columbia
See RISK, Page 84
Patrol has new way to catch drunk drivers
JEFFERSON CITY ( UPI) The
crackdown on drunken driving is
getting tougher in Missouri, and the
Highway Patrol believes it has found
a new way to catch more motorists
who are intoxicated.
State troopers are setting up road-blocks
late at night, and the random
check of motorists is producing re-sults
The officers are catching
drunken drivers and getting them off
the highways before they cause traf-fic
accidents
Lt. Ralph Biele, a Highway Patrol
spokesman, said Monday the use of
roadblocks is a pilot program that is
being evaluated for statewide use in
the campaign against drunken driv
ing
Officers of Troop F in Jefferson
City conducted a pilot program to
test roadblocks in mid- Misso- un in
late June and found it successful Lt
John Ford of Troop F said road-blocks
were set up in Miller, Cam-den,
Cole and Boone counties June
15- June- 25.
The checks for drunken drivers in
Miller and Camden counties resulted
in arrests of seven drivers Two in-toxicated
drivers were caught in
Cole County and two in Boone Coun-ty
at a roadblock north of Columbia.
" It looks like we're going to try it
statewide, but we'll probably have
one or two more pilot programs
somewhere else in the state between
now and the end of the summer,"
said Biele " We'll evaluate it to see
what kind of results we're getting "
Ford and Biele both said that mo-torists
concerned about traffic safe-ty
were not annoyed at being
stopped, especially after learning
the purpose of the roadblocks was to
check for drunken drivers
" We've gotten a lot of good re-sponse
from the public," Ford said
" Motorists didnt have any com-plaints
because they were glad we
were after the drinking drivers,"
Biele said.
The roadblocks were operated
from 10.30 pm. to 2.30 am in areas
noted for having a high rate of acci-dents
involving intoxicated drivers
In the Jefferson City area, road-blocks
were set up on a highway out-side
a public park, where local
league Softball games are heavily at-tended
by spectators who bring alco-holic
beverages
The roadblocks are marked by
flares and parked patrol cars with
flashing lights A motorist is waved
through if a trooper detects no sign
of drinking
" If there is any smell of alcohol, or
a bottle or can is spotted, or if the
motorist has difficulty talking, we
ask him to get out of the car for fur-ther
investigation," Biele said
By Mlndy Matthews
Hfltasourtan statt writer
Last month, Columbia's Voluntary
Action Center referred 278 hungry
people to local service agencies for
emergency food.
In the best of times, hunger is an
all but invisible problem, one that
most of us preter not to dwell upon.
But increasing unemployment has
made it a problem that cannot be ig-nored.
Nationwide, it is estimated that
31A million people are living on in-comes
below the poverty level $ 5,- SC- O
a year for a family of two. For
these people, and others in financial
straits, moat of the dollars that do
corns in must be carefully reserved
for the bare necessities of life. As a
result, millions in the United States
ore suffering because they can't af--
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HUMGER:
Close to Home
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ford to fulfill their Dasic nutritional
needs.
In contrast to such statistics are
sobering figures on how much food
the " land of plenty" wastes each
year.
According to a 1882 study by UJS
' Rep. Tony HalL D- Ghi- o, Americans
feed their garbage cans approxi-mately
137 million tons of food a
year, enough to feed almost 50 mil-lion
people This waste, coupled with
figures on malnutrition in America,
has drawn the attention of federal
lawmakers and private organiza-tions
alike
This spring an agriculture sub-committee
chaired by Sen. Bob
Dole, R- Ka- n., heard testimony on
the magnitude of hunger in the Unit-ed
States and on the efforts of some
of the organizations designed to help
alleviate it.
Missouri's Sen. Jack Danforth,
who has supported most of the Rea-gan
administration's cuts in social
programs, was among those who tes-tified
at the hearing
In March, he toured nutrition
sites, food pantries, soup kitchens
and other such agencies in Kansas
City, St Louis, Springfield and St
Joseph to get a first- han- d look at the
problem m Missouri
" Nutritional programs are
stretched to the absolute limit," he
said, " and economic recovery wont
solve the problems Federal efforts
in the area of nutrition must be ex-panded
to meet these needs and
shortages "
The Dole subcommittee referred
to a recently published survey of
American food programs, compiled
jointly by the Center on Budget Poli-cy
Priorities of Washington, DC,
and Second Harvest, a national food
bank network.
The report surveyed 181 emergen-cy
programs, including many in Mis-souri,
from February 1982 through
February 1983. Tbe survey found that
the number of people helped by
emergency food agencies increased
by 50 percent, and nearly one- fourt- h
of the agencies were forced to turn
people away.
Recipients of emergency food in-cluded
a significantly larger number
of unemployed workers with chil--
dren, the report said.
In his spring testimony, Danforth
emphasized the magnitude of the
hunger problem. " Recovery, no
matter how quickly it arrives or how
robust its nature, is not a full answer
to the hunger problem. We will put
some people back to work, but not
everybody.
" It is an ongoing problem, and the
report's findings make it beyond ar-gument
that more needs to be done,"
Danforth said.
The Dole committee also discuss-ed
the continued distribution of gover-nment-
owned surplus food stored
throughout the country. Congressio-nal
legislation earmarking this food
for public distribution expires Sept
30, the end of this fiscal year
A bill authorizing continued distn--
Sea MAYOR, Page 0A
Cards lose
The St. Louis Cardinals lost
a heartbreaker to the Los An-- 1
geles Dodgers Monday night
( Story on Page IB) 1
Qcasnsti
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