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Show iQurii iiTyim :nj bc akc Srilmnc gait Friday 21, 1986 ary Morning-Febru- Pa8e Section A H More Funding for Contras Like Stuffing Nicaraguan Rat Hole Its down a like throwing $100 million rat hole. Directly to the rats. President Reagans latest request that Congress provide $100 million in military and logistical financing for assailing the ought to be government Nicaraguan on basis that it the And rejected. would be nothing more than a down payment on increasing U.S. involvement in that Central American countrys political turmoil. Mr. Reagan insists on embracing the illusion that the known as contras can, with more weapons and ammunition, actually overthrow Nicaraguas government. Because that asgovernment is Marxist-coloresisted by the Soviet Union and Cuba, the president claims it must be plucked out as the latest, communist, subversive threat in this hemisphere. Even if that peril actually looms the ragtag a hotly debated point bands of contras, operating from sanctuaries in Honduras and Costa Rica, do not represent a massive, popular rising against Sandinista control. They arent much loved in Honduras and Costa Rica, either. On the other side, the Nicaraguan government has marshalled a large standing army, equipped and prepared to withstand contra incursions, $100 million richer or not. A recent increase in world coffee prices, a major Nicaraguan cash crop, could af- counter-revolutionari- counter-revolutionari- San-dinis- ta d, ford the Sandinistas equivalent economic help. The Reagan administration policy, then, conjures up countless hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars wasted on the contras or, eventually, U.S. troops taking over the job of routing the Sandinistas, an extremely costly enterprise, in American lives and international U.S. prestige. Other, better alternatives exist. Various Latin American countries have offered to mediate differences. The Sandinistas at one point agreed to cooperate with such an attempt. Actually, Nicaraan guan government officials have shown far more interest in diplomatic negotiations than has the administration. Its almost as if the White House is determined to repeat its Grenada exploit in Nicaragua. Except Nicaragua is not Grenada. While may be numerous in Nicaragua, those who would oppose and resist a U.S. invasion are considerably more numerous, capable of inflicting heavy casualties for longer than just a few days. Another $100 million for the conas tras wont be enough. Sending in U.S. troops should be out of the question. So, as long as conciliation and treaty agreements, managed under hemispheric auspices, remain a doable option, they should be preferred. Let ratholes be for rats, not the bottomless siphon for U.S. tax money. no-long- er super-- abundant A Matter of Stability Utah has a state school board responsible for the public education system. It has a State Board of Regents to develop and administer policies for the publicly-finance- d colleges and universities. But why, some wonder, are the regents so keen on getting themselves mentioned in the Utah Constitution like the State Board of Education? Even some state employees, whose work requires them to follow up on such issues and to understand what is taking place and why, wonder about the need for either governing board to be in the constitution. Answers arent simple. They involve basic assumptions about governance and its stability, who or what should supervise educational activities in the state, and giving the two existing governing boards equal standing under the law. Placement in the constitution, whether its a state constitution such as Utahs or the U.S. Constitution, is the most secure lodgement any provision, concept or structme can have. This is why the nations system of government, with its division of responsibility split up into three branches, is in the U.S. Constitution. Aside from the overthrow or conquest of the government, the only threats a constitutional provision in Utah needs to fear are judicial interpretations, constitutional conventions and voter approval of repeal measures. The legislative, executive and judicial branches of state government, along with the state school board, were placed in the Utah Constitution simply to provide them the maximum amount of stability possible under the nations representative system of government. d In any confrontation between a statute and a constitutional provision, the statute is subordinate under the state and nations legal system. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land in this country. Based mainly on the latent instability of the current arrangement, regents have been eager to get themselves placed in the Utah Constitution so higher education can enjoy a government structure as stable as that of head-to-hea- Utahs public schools. Whether the regents or state school board should be in the Utah Constitution is of course debatable. If citizens and their elected lawmakers believe it is important for educational governance to be stable and reliable, and to be as important a government service as the legislative, judicial or executive branches, then the Constitution is the proper place for the two governing boards to be. If the way members of the boards are found is also important to stability, then this too should be provided for in the Constitution. Conversely, if educational governance is viewed by Utahns as something of insufficient importance or gravity to be cloaked in constitutional protection, there is no reason why either board should be in the Constitution. Both could instead be statutory creations, like the Utah Arts Council or Public Service Commission. Shuttle Probe Shatters NASA Icon New York Times Service NEW YORK After the explosion of the shuttle, and in the outpouring of emotional tribute to the seven astronauts lost in that fearful fireball, most Americans probably believed the cause would be found in some bloodless malfunction of technology a failure of hardware betraying the genius and judgment of human engineers. more properly, who Who could believe that the National Aerowanted to believe nautics and Space Administration, a nearly universal icon of contemporary American experience, the same NASA that put men on the moon, could bear equal or greater responsibility, owing to human error or flawed judgment? That has not yet been established. But the presidents investigating commission, after beginning its work as if under the general impression that only the hardware need be reviewed, has put NASA officials on notice that the decision-makin- g process leading to the fatal shuttle launch also will be a target of inquiry. Thats a sharp but necessary turnaround from the earlier attitude exhibited by the chairman, William P. Rogers. A NASA budget analyst suggested to the booster rockcommission that the solid-fue- l had the et seals aroused safety concerns among NASA engineers that might have justified delaying further shuttle launches. Rogerss line of questioning seemed to reflect doubts that the analyst was qualified to make such statements. Later, however, NASA officials confirmed that they had waived a backup requirement for the and had considered the budget anaalthough he lysts warnings overstated" only reflected what the officials knew qualified engineers were telling him. Since then, photographic and other evias the imdence has focused on the of which, in the cause mediate explosion turn, raises hard questions about NASA officials: Did they pay insufficient heed to warnings dating back at least to 1982? Did they abdicate their own better judgment, possibly for budgetary reasons, in waiving a backup Did they fail to take system for the proper account of the cold weather on the morning of the fatal launch, since they knew low temperatures could affect performance of the rings? Was their judgment on such questions influenced by a political or need to keep an apparently successful shuttle program moving ahead? Or had the very success of previous shuttle flights induced in responsible officials a deadly sense of routine that dulled precautionary instincts? which appeared to be Press inquiries the most extensive and intensive since Watergate also are laying stress on the possibility of human error, faulty judgment and lax administration at NASA. A report in The New York Times first brought the to public attention. NASA, to its credit, appears so far to be reasonably forthcoming under investigative pressures; but Rogers commission was clearly correct in warning the agency against letting the same officials public-relatio- once-sen-siti- The long battle began with steeply inincreasing rates for boosts insurance companies say surance are necessary because of the sharp increase in malpractice lawsuits, the multimillion-dolla- r legal awards and the number of cases with little or no merit that are settled out of court to save legal costs. medical-malpractic- e These insurance premiums, of course, are tacked onto hospital and doctor bills and in higher ultimately are paid by all of us consumer prices to cover employee medical benefits and in taxes that support Medicaid and Medicare. Physicians have been fighting these increases for years, with a variety of heavy weapons In some states, they have formed their own insurance companies, hoping to keep premiums down They have tried educating patients about the uncertainties of medical treatment. There are even some hot lines that tell doctors the names of people who are prone to suing I ) With the help of the American Medical Association and state medical societies, doctors have persuaded legislators in every state to set some limitations on malpractice suits. Among the most common are a ban on punitive damages, limits on monetary awards for pain and suffering, screening panels to head off frivolous suits and penalties for filing groundless cases. Some states especially angered lawyers by putting a sliding cap on their contingency fees, which can take a Hurd or more of awards to patients None of this has helped enough, especially in some urban areas and for some medical specialists. In Massachusetts, for example, an estimated 70 percent of the obstetricians have been refusing to take new patients to higher-powere- low-lev- near-magic- Is Philippine Army Turning to Aquino? Special Features Syndicate To many Western intelligence experts with Third World experience the situation that developed in the Philippines early this week appears to be a prescription for violent unrest, which, unless it is handled intelligently, may lead to civil war. The worst case, one intelligence analyst said, is internal chaos that will end with the United States being forced to withdraw from the bases at Subic Bay and Clark Field. The optimum solution is the retirement of President Ferdinand Marcos and the installation of a clean government supported by both the church and the army." The reference to the army is significant. During the election campaign little attention was paid to the army, aside from the ritual demands for the removal of Gen. Fabian Ver, the chief of staff and the presidents cousin and confidant. Ver has now been removed as chief of staff, but he remains a consultant to Marcos, a situation unlikely to dam the tide of criticism within the officer corps against presidential handling of defense. This tide has reached the point where, according to some qualified U.S observers, it is highly doubtful that the army would obey orders to disperse rioters in the streets of Manila or other cities. The armys opposition to Marcos is based first on his politicalization of the high command, including the retention until now of Ver and other cronies, and second on corruption, which has robbed the army of the weap protest an increase in annual malpractice-insuranc- e premiums to $50,000. literNow, lawyers are fighting back ally, in one incident of pushing and shoving last week in Washington. They are rallying support groups to counter the AMAs allies. They are challenging state malpractice legislation in the courts and getting some of it declared unconstitutional. One group has set up a hot line to tell patients the names of doctors who have been sued for malpractice. Wrapping themselves in legal piety, lawyers are arguing that they protect innocent victims against greedy and incompetent physicians and that contingency fees keep the justice system open to the poor. They sloganize that there wouldnt be malpractice-insurance problems if there were no medical malpractice. (A new federal government study says the medical profession has failed to deal effectively with the 5 to 15 percent of physicians who are not fully competent to practice medicine and that new laws and peer review mechanisms aren't solving the problem.) Last week, the American Bar Association went further. Lawyers at the ABA convention voted to reject the AMAs proposals within the armed forces, which number about 200,000 men, of a growing reform movement. Originally its leaders were captains and lieutenants, newly graduated from the national military academy. Today, intelligence analysts report, colonels and brigadier generals have joined the movement. This participation by higher ranking officers, the sources said, in many cases results from their observation of blatant fraud by the Marcos organization during the presidential election. This is a factor propelling many of the officers, previously to the support of opposition candidate Corazon Aquino. ons and materiel it needs to fight the communist New Peoples Army. Philippine army colonel confided to an official visiting the Philippines late last year: Its impossible to lead men through jungle trails if they havent the proper boots, the proper ammunition and haven't been paid for three months. Contemporary estimates by friendly neutral sources are that the Philippine army, despite Marcos bragging, is not in position to prepare and launch an effective campaign against the NPA, which controls perhaps 10 percent of the countrys villages. This situation has fostered the growth A American- Doctors, Lawyers Must Work to Cure Malpractice Crisis Chicago Tribune Service The fight between lawyers and doctors over malpractice and money especially got a lot hotter last week and money spread more tarnish on both professions. who made vital judgments now review and evaluate those judgments. William J. Broad of The Times has reported, for example, that after NASA began d using lighter-weigcasings and solid-fue- l booster for the engines erorockets in 1983, the frequency of sion and damage reports increased. Only one such problem had been reported before the changeover, but six afterward. A backup safety system for the was waived before the decision to use a more rocket. powerful engine in a lighter-skinne- d But the more frequent damage reports had not caused either decision to be rescinded before the Challenger was launched. NASA had ordered design changes, however, to solve the problem that was known to exist, and the manufacturer, Morton Thiokol Inc., was at work on these changes at the time of the explosion. Should a matter that serious, the Rogers commission surely will want to know, have caused NASA officials to hold up shuttle flights until a solution was reached? Other serious questions that involved the judgment and administrative zeal of NASA officials include whether they sufficiently monitored the performance of private contractors, and whether the chain of command allows relatively warnings like that of the budget analyst on the to reach top management. of The aura of invincibility that once surtechnological capacity rounded NASA, its computers and its engineers probably could not have survived, in any case, the fireball that consumed the Challenger and its crew. But the Rogers commission and the press seem to have recognized the shattered icon sooner rather than later; now they can move on to root causes and true responsibility. e for easing the problem. The ABA urged state legislators (where lawyers are heavily represented) to fight legislation exempting physicians from full espelegal penalties for malpractice and to preserve contingency fees. cially Now that lawyers and doctors have dirtied each other up fighting for their professional prerogatives, what next? Two fundamental changes are essential to ease the chronic malpractice crisis. 1 Medical malpractice must be decreased and incompetent physicians retrained or replaced; if the medical profession can't police itself better, states must do so, however undesirable that may be. 2. Changes must be made in the legal system so that a much larger share of awards goes to real malpractice victims and less is eaten up by legal costs, and so that there are effective disincentives for filing frivolous cases. medical-malpractic- The unresolved problems and the profesof the ABA and the AMA are costing all of us a lot of money. We deserve better from the doctors and lawyers we pay so handsomely and must trust with sional our lives and our legal system. . Aquinos appeal for a campaign of nonviolent resistance to the Marcos regime and the Roman Catholic Church's sharp criticism of that regimes election methods are two major elements that can lead to violent unrest. The third is action by the officer corps. Although Aquino has stressed the need for intelligence sources from Manila to Washington, D.C., and other NATO capitals aren't sure how long it could be maintained. Youre not talking about Americans or Swedes or Swiss," one source said, "but about tempestuous, people. One act of brutality against a peaceful demonstration would be enough to set Manila and the Philippines ablaze. Under present conditions, I doubt if Marcos could count on the army." This is not a situation that the U.S. administration can view objectively. Sources in the Pentagon and the State Department that America's emphasize and stakes are too high. e, hair-trigg- The stakes are the secure retention of the two American bases, the largest outside the United States. Both are essential, in the view of American and Western military planners, in balancing the growing strength of Soviet naval forces at Cam Ranh Bay and air forces at Da Nang airfield in Vietnam. The elements in this military-politicsituation are easy enough to define. Aquino and her followers; Marcos and his crony government; the sugar barons deeply concerned about economic depression; the Catholic Church; and a miserably equipped, deeply divided army, which most experts believe would not muster all its forces to defend a regime it distrusts and that might even, in certain circumstances, take arms against that regime. Last, but far from least, there is the United States, with major strategic and political interests in the Philippines Beyond the rhetoric of the moment lies the question If civil disturbance or civil war occurs, which side gets the backing of the administration' o ( |