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Show . it 8) All is not well at If you don't have your health, you don't have anything. This old and oft repeated saying helps explain why so many people are concerned about medical costs which have of risen far faster than the general inflation in recent years. Families with young children and the elderly have been hit particularly hard by a climate which has priced millions out of the market for medical insurance. This threatens to make medical care available only to the rich and those poor enough to qualify for "medical welfare." We have been disturbed on multiple occasions in recent weeks by Intermoun-t?i- n Health Care (IHC) which operates many of Utah's hospitals, including Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Pro-vThe two most disturbing items surfaced in the past few days. It was reported earlier this week that the top five officials of IHC were paid a total of $1.5 million in salaries and bonuses last year. President and CEO, Scott S. Parker, was reportedly paid $392,640 in 1989. For an organization it and status which claims we find thereby avoids property taxes such salaries exorbitant, especially in a state where per capita income has traditionally been well below the national o. non-prof- average. Arguments that the salaries of IHC executives are at or below those of their professional counterparts in other parts of the country don't impress us. When there are working people who have no medical insurance, something needs to give and it ought to start at the top. Also this week, it was reported the Cache County Mayors' Association says there are irregularities in the way patients are billed at Logan Regional Hospital, an IHC facility. Administrators of the Logan hospital blame the "irregularities" on "cost shifting," a practice in which patients who can pay their hospital bills are billed for services they do not receive to cover the hospital's costs of treating patients who cannot pay. John Stewart, mayor of River Heights, Utah, said, "We believe this is dishonest, unethical, illegal and reprehensi- - WHAT DIRT? ble." We think the good mayor may have hit the nail right on the head. The Cache Valley mayors' group said the hospital even charges extra for the billing process and lamented that they "know of no other kind of business that tacks on an additional charge just for adding up the bill." We believe in free enterprise and find socialism repugnant. Charging one party for services not received to make up for revenue lost because another party couldn't pay strikes us as sneaky socialism. Then too, as long as IHC is it and thereby exempt from some taxes, non-prof- the organization appears somewhat Does this mean their dealings should be a readily open book? Probably. An official at Utah Valley Medical Center called recently to say doctors were upset over a series of Associated Press stories the Herald published called "Doctors for sale." May we point out that neither the stories, nor this newspaper accused local doctors of anything. To the contrary, we feel doctors in this area are among the best in the profession. We are not suggesting that hospital employees are to blame, or that they are overpaid. Certainly those men and women who work as orderlies, housekeepers, and nurses' aides in health care facilities are far from overpaid. The fact remains, however, that there are many problems to be solved before Americans can once again enjoy quality, affordable health care for all. A good start locally would be for IHC to rethink some of its billing policies and the remuneration schedule for its top executives. Those two moves may not solve all the problems, but they would make some Cache Valley mayors and, we trust, quite a few other folks feel a whole lot better. This letter is in response to the one that appeared in the Tuesday, Oct. 1(1 Herald written by Dean Nickel, Orem City TreasurGenola er. It is interesting to us that with a possible loss of revenue of $560,000 with the loss of food sales tax, the city of Orem has proposed a salary increase for the Orem Editor: City Director of $24,000. How on earth can the city officials of On October 3, before the House SubcomOrem possibly justify a 50 percent mittee on Mines and Mining (of the Interior to anyone. What we would like to and Insular Affairs Committee), Jim Hansen know is how many other public jobs are ignored a perfect opportunity to advance his being looked at for that kind of salary pipeline bill out of committee and onto the increase. The mayor of Orem already floor. This pipeline bill (H.r. 4023) intromakes more than any other mayor in Utah duced by Jim Hansen on February 20, 1990, 5 with public jobs around and a 50 would preclude the Wasatch Variation Natupercent increase in each area. There is half ral gas pipeline route. of your revenue loss. Dean. Since May of 1988, Hansen has told constitPlease give us and other citizens a break. uents and opponents of the Wasatch VariaThe U.S. Government is going to have to cut tion, that he would help us prevent it. Since spending, so why can't Orem. We are tired 1986, the FERC and now two pipelines have of paying a tax on a tax. The money we use advanced the Wasatch Variation to a to buy food is already taxed, so please leave reality. Since introdution of us the rest, what little that is with a total of H.R. 4023, Jim Hansen has done nothing to 32 percent coming out already with the assure or work for its passage. With construction to begin early next year, combination of social security and federal. We're voting for the removal of tax on residents, property owners, and communities now face the double barrel shotgun of what food, and we hope and pray all clear, citizens will do the same. Don't let will be Utah's largest natural gas pipelines. government and public officials scare tactics With survey and staking completed, and. fool you. They're just protecting their jobs condemnation proceedings beginning, the 11th hour is upon us. and their 50 percent salary increases. Jim Hansen, will you stop the Wasatch John and Sara Heitz Orem Variation, as you said you would? Or would Alan and Libi lendall you have us believe that Utah's First Salt I.ake City Congressional District now represents the oil liOava Dailey companies, southwestern Wyoming, southern Orem California, and the Williams Companies of Tulsa, Oklahoma (Kern River Gas Transmission Company). Dave Bromi Stop pipelines salary-increas- DIRT ?! Herald comment We must stop abortion! We must insist this task force submit a strict abortion bill that will end this ruthless savagery and protect these precious little babies, because unborn babies are people too. Sonya Ray Editor: Oct. 24, 1990 I Letters Don't be fooled Wednesday Amnions "History must always be taken with a grain of salt. It is, after all, not a science but an art. " Phyllis McGinley, American author (1905-197- e Gorbachev changed spots; still a leopard In one of his Philipics against the tyrant Antony, the Roman orator Cicero anticipated the reasoning that would lead to the recent presentation of a Nobel Peace Prize to Mikhail Gorbachev: "That, senators, is what a favor from gangsters amounts to; they refrain from killing someone, and then they boast that they have spared his life." The Nobel Committee is apparently in the business of commending gangsters who have refrained from killing when they have had the opportunity to do so. If Gorbachev's Nobel is meant as a consolation prize to Marxism which has come in second in the "Long Twilight Struggle" perhaps it will serve a noble purpose. If continued probity on the part of the soviet regime can be purchased at the , price of a medal, $700,000 and perfunctory-acclaimit would be a bargain. But the award is an amplification of the Gorbachev personality cult and an enrichment of the statist conceit upon which perestroika is predicated. Gorbachev, who is still a committed Leninist, sees freedom as worthwhile only in an instrumental sense. From the perspective of Marxists and other tyrants, freedom is a quantity that government can ration, rather than a set of natural rights that government must respect. How often has Gorbachev been praised for "giving freedom to the Soviet People" as if freedom were the property of rulers like Gorbachev? Will Grigg conference Gorbachev was roundly denounced as a reactionary apparatchik determined to hold onto power with the help of western counterparts specifically George Bush, James Baker, and sundry Western banking magnates. Soviet economist Larisa Piyasheva, sounding a note familiar to western denounced perestroika as nothing more than a search for western credits and declared, "Our economic system is texts wrong. We must translate supply-sid- e so that we can teach our students." Roberts insists that "The day is near when even Western academics will have to acknowledge that communism is dead and buried in its homeland, and justly so." Who then should have received the Nobel? Repentant Soviet official Uya Zaslav-sk- y effectively nominates "an old .American actor who, nearly eight years ago, predicted the democratization of our country ... I believe that the true originator of our reforms was none other than that old actor Ronald Reagan." "right-wingers- t "- ABROAD The gulag still exists under Gorbachev, and the death penalty is occasionally administered for "economic crimes"; such crimes include the sundry "sins against equality" that are the result of individual initiative. The Soviet Union, which has correctly been referred to as "The most comprehensive failure in the history of human enterprise," bears tragic testimony of the pointless misanthropy of the Marxist idea. Yet Gorbachev will not relinquish the hope that somewhere there exists a "true socialist model" upon which to build a perfect society. How much longer will the suffering Soviet masses have to pay the human cost of this quest? Perhaps the Russian masses will shortly find relief. Paul Craig Roberts of the Cato Institute has just returned from a conference on economics sponsored by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. At the free-mark- et ", This column, Will Grigg Abroad, is the The Daily Herald's popular columnist dealing specifically with national and international topics. -- Abroad" will run first by on this page Mondays. Tuesdays or Wednesdays as space allows. Grigg will continue to appear Fridays in the Local section, writing about local and state issues, under the title Will Grigg At Home. 10-1- free-thinki- Stop abortion Bountiful Brass spends big bucks on recruitment ads - WASHINGTON The Marine Corps is trying to get new mileage out of a recruitment ad, one of the most expensive ever produced by the Pentagon for television. The ad a medieval fantasy worthy of George Lucas or Steven Spielis now airing during Sunday berg afternoon football games. The ad shows a knight in shining armor being dubbed by a king. With the help of lightning bolts, the knight turns into, what else, one of the few, the proud a Marine. When the ad was produced in 1986, it cost the taxpayers $355,000. That year the Marine Corps took in 35,000 recruits, up about 1,200 from the year before. Recruitment numbers dropped in 1987, rose slightly in 1988 and fell again last year to about 33,000. A Marine spokesman told our associate Scott Sleek that the service doesn't worry about big numbers. He said the ad was designed to attract people who have the qualities the Marines want. For the kind of money the Marines spent When our Utah legislature refused to pass on the ad. they should have stuck to bill last session, they in2 an reality. The Marines sweltering in the stead set up a task force to study the issue a Persian Gulf waiting out Saddam Hussein little more. Since May, this task force has Editor: would have a hard time identifying with Vote against ballot Proposition No. 2. been holding hearings listening to testimony King Arthur. And the news photos" from the "Emergency Powers Amendment." so it can Gulf will for and against abortion. speak louder than the halftime sent be to the back legislature for reword- hype of swords They have now drafted a bill, which will and sorcerers. To see 14 the actual text ing. why, study be presented to the legislature in January, ip. Television is a big expense advertising Voter in the Information Pamphlet of this which they first want to take befcre the for the Pentagon $203 million this vear to amendment Utah the Constituproposed people of Utah for approval or disapproval. for all the services. Until the knight in tion. They are holding these public hearings in armor came along, ads produced You will note the proposal refers to "man-mad- e shining nine different areas of Utah from Oct. 22 to for the Marines over the years "Man-made- " averaged disaster." which is the Nov. 7. To find out the details for your area, about $20,000. The most expensive for the to is the equivalent "synthetic" hardly way call Brian Newell at For the Orem Marines over the last five years had cost to describe a disaster. Also, "man-made- " Provo area it will be Nov. 1 at Orem City $77,000 to produce. should be replaced by words. Council Chambers at 7 p.m. The Army tops the Marine dollar figure Therefore, in the Utah Constitution, "human It is vital that we who are opposed to on a single ad, but that ad at least spent is the wav ii should be caused disaster" abortion show up at these hearings to has some relation to reality. It is the stated. $555,046 ad showing a woman soldier holdexpress our views on the proposed legislaALso, "in periods of emergency" should be tion. Some parts of the bill need to be cut. mobile communicaing down a high-tecretained rather than being replaced by tions because they are too broad and have too a training exercise. post during "when such operations are seriously disruptThe Marines' "Knight" ad is the best many loopholes. ed." Additionally, "immediate "duty to" evidence Some 27.000,000 little babies in America yet that the Pentagon has a should be retained rather than saying the have been killed since Roe vs. Wade in 1973. Hollywood fixation. The ad opens with blue legislature "may" invoke the powers of this lightning bolts coming out of a sword. Norma McCorvey was the Roe in Roe vs. section. Keeping those two items of current Wade. She claimed she was gang raped and Huge wooden doors open, and a knight language speaks to greater urgency and is rides his steed down the became pregnant. She has since admitted long hall of a more restrictive on the legislature. that she lied, that she was not raped. medieval castle. An old monarch waits for of for Go a the rewriting "Emergency him at the end of the hall, holding the Meanwhile, abortionists and abortion mills n have grown to become a dollar Powers Amendment" by voting against balsword spewing lightning. The knight lot Proposition No. 2' kneels, the king taps him on the helmet industry. Presently, 93 percent of all aborMarjorio fluids and, voila, the knight is transformed into a tions are done for birth control reasons -Brigham City l!W0s Marine. during all nine, months of pregnancy. Editor: Against Prop. anti-aborti- 538-103- h Jack Anderson & Dale Van Atia UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE The Pentagon says television is its most effective recruitment tool. But, instead of telling potential recruits that they will spend months sweating in the desert and staring at nothing but sand, the ads emperks of soldiering phasize the job training, education and world travel. The TV networks classify recruitment ads as a public service and often give them free air time. The brass is anxious to get free air time any way it can, including movie-lengt- h recruitment tools such as "Top Gun" and music videos filmed on battleships. One Army source told us with pride that actor Bruce Willis sang the Army's "Be all that you can be" ditty in an episode of "Moonlighting." We reported last January that Cher finagled the use of a battleship and its crew for he- - video "If I Could Turn Back Time." There's no way of telling how many new recruits were lured to the Navy by the vision of Cher gyrating in what passes for clothing and straddling a huge gun on the deck of the USS Missouri while 150 sailors cheered her on like so many party animals. The Missouri is now docked in Long Beach, Calif. without Cher and the Navy is still embarrassed by the fallout from the video. It was so racy that even MTV would not air it until after the junior set had gone to bed. PROPAGANDA OR REALITY George Bush is peeved at the American media for what he thinks is too much Iraqi propaganda on network TV. The networks have d shown footage of grocery - well-stocke- rigorous war preparations and demonstrations in Iraq. Iraqi officials and people on the streets have been interviewed in a police state where no one is free to say anything they wouldn't want Saddam Hussein to hear. According to our White House sources, Bush thinks the American media has been had. A new Gallup poll says the poorer an American family is, the more likely it is to give generously to charity. Among households that contribute to charity, those making less than $10,000 p year give an average of 5.5 percent of that to charitable causes. While those making more than $100,000 give only 2.9 percent. The pollsters concluded that most wealthy Americans are downright stingy. It looks like the real philanthropists are scratching to make ends meet. They are the ones who understand what it means to be needv. shelves, L - Letters regulations Address letters to PC) Box 717. Provo, UT be typed, double-spaceand brief. Letters must' be signed and include the writer's name, address and a daytime phone number for verification. 84603. They should - Where to write lawmakers Following are Utah s elected officials in Washington. D C In the House ol Representatives. Rep Howard Nielson represents individuals in the Utah County area and other areas ol Central Utah. Nielson s Washington address is 1 122 Longsworth Building. Washington D C. 20515 The Washington phone In Utah County the number is (202) number is The number within the slate but outside Utah County is multi-billio- Also in the House ol Reptesentatives Rep Jim Hansen represents individuals in Ju.it) .i .her counties in north and southern Utah Hansen s Washington D C Adclies;. is U Longworth House OMice Building Washington D C. 20515 His phone number ir, COD Both Senators Jake Gam and Otrm Hatch represent individuals throughout the state Sen Garn s Washington address is 5207 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington D C 20510 his Washington phone number is (202 224 5444 Sen Hatch s Washington addrev, is Russell Senate Office Building Washington O 20510. his Washington phrjne number is (;02) C |