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Show The Enterprise Review , July 21, 1976 Page 4b Commission Balks at Premium Rates Continued from page lb SI million of coverage. But between 1965 and 1970, the study showed, insurance companies have been charging only $30.00 per bed. to According Our rural hospitals are often only 50 occupied beds. sudden increase in premiums are complex and vague. Ottosen said the Commission's next step would be to negotiate the rates with insurance companies, trying to find a wray for them to provide insurance at reasonable rates. Lang, percent occupied," stated Lang, so thats part of the reason right there." Part of the reason for extreme changes in hospital premium rates also lies in the difficulty of identifying the key variables of cost and claim frequency increases, stated Robert Finger, presenting the It is a Commission study. difficult statistical problem. We need a better formula, Wasatch Hospital is now payOne reason for the ing three times the rate termed reasonable by the change, brought out during Insurance Commission. the hearing,, was that insurance companies had begun Vague and Complex Reasons charging hopsitals rates based on the total number of availfor Reasons the able beds, rather than on SLC Books Largest Confab Legislation regulating malpractice insurance, passed by last years legislature and effective this April, has not kept rates down. Finger continued. There are too many loopholes in the law. Concealment by the doctor or a presence of a foreign object extends the statute of limitations. Those two items are enough to keep the rates high," he said. Finger described alterna- tive legislation presently being tried in other states in attempts to reduce the cost of insurance. Other states have tried adjusting a malpractice insurance claim to allow for payment from sources other than the court settlement, such as payments from Workmens Compensation or Social Security. Other states have tried allowing insurance companies to pay annuities to plaintiffs, rather than lump sums. Lump sum payments are based on a life span assumed by the jury. And juries tend to overestimate life spans. So annuities paid during a plaintiffs lifetime tend to keep ultimate costs down," explained Finger. Another alternative being tried is the use of arbitration This rather than lawsuits. tends to keep court costs places can be as as well Consider from arduous. a charter expensive, Thompson Flying Service. Within a Salt Lake City radius of 500 miles, well set you down in two and a half hours or less, in almost any spot where you have business. (There are over 700 airstrips within this radius; only 20 serviced by commercial airlines.) AtThompson, we consider metropolitan airports a luxury, not a necessity. Short notice, day or night-w- ell get you there fast. Call us today for rates. Your time is worth it. out-of-the-w- Thompson THOMPSON FLYING SERVICE, INC. Salt Lake City International Airport (801)364-643- 8 COMPLETE PRINTING SERVICE Letterpress Phototypesetting Creative Layout Design Lithography Business Intertypesetting Industry Commercial self-insuranc- WE HAVE THE KNOW-HO- Brochures Forms FOR YOUR PRINTING REQUIREMENTS Phone (801 ) 487-065- manager Greg Hilton, station management wants to move from Salt Lake City to South Salt Lake because South Salt Lake has no newspaper or station to serve them," and SaltLakeCity is saturated with media. He said they want to move to a format to us more time for public give affairs broadcasting." He said he anticipates airing 1952 West 1500 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84104 - t I.O.LM M M 1 4 ' i M i i i ' : i r I . ; i 1 ' - 1 M According to general 1 DRRAIN J tion to the Societys Board in San Francisco last week. e. has applied for permission to change its city of license, to increase its broadcasting power during the day and to begin broadcasting at night. KSOP-A- AND EQUIPMENT W the process, spend an estimated $9,000,000 on food, lodging, transportation and other retail purchases. The winning of the Societys convention was a combined effort of the Salt Lake Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau and the local chapter bid chairman of the S.P.E.B. S.Q.S.A., Max Lloyd. Lloyd and LaMar Williams, Convention Director of the Salt Lake Bureau, made the presenta- KSOP T o Change License FULL COLOR PRINTING Stationery Pamphlets , The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America has selected Salt lake City as the site of their 1980 convention. The S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A. is expected to bring 18,000 delegates to Salt Lake for a week-lon- g convention and in The cities bidding for the convention were narrowed to Cleveland and Salt Lake City. The board selected Salt Lake, voting 17 for, 4 against during the meeting. This is by far the largest convention ever booked for Salt Lake City during its history as a convention city." Williams said. During each convention, members of various quartets from around the world meet down. for a variety of competitions Finger estimated the including the International average plaintiff gets 20 per- Championship Quartet, as cent of the money allocated for well as the Championship damages in a malpractice suit. Chorus. The rest goes toward legal City residents can expect and other costs.. to be confronted with If the Insurance Commispromtu street comer concerts sion cannot find a way to make by quartets or seranaded in availinsurance malpractice hotel lobbies, at the Salt able at a reasonable cost to Palace, Williams said. hospitals, the new piece of The real benefit this Utah legislation allows the kind of convention has for Salt commission to force insurance Lake is in the sheer number of companies to write insurance. people attending and the dolBut that is a difficult probhe lars they will spend, It is added. Estimated lem," Ottosen said. spending of difficult to compel companies at least $9,000,000 in 1976 to write insurance," He said dollars, will mean a tax revalternatives to that measure enue of at least $450,000. include a kind of insurance Williams added that this is the ' like the state, provided by first recognition by a major Workmens Compensation, a group of Salt lake City as a form of great music capitol. When speed is necessary, a metropolitan airport isnt. If your time is valuable, driving to those Ever he said. V r : 24-ho- ! m w - ur question and answer sessions I:r iH about issues concerning resi- dents of South Salt Lake. We have been receiving complaints from listeners when we sign off at night that they have nowhere else to turn for the kind of music we play. Now we aire financially able to expand and the FCC just recently lifted its ban on expansion," Hilton said. KSOP wants to change from its current broadcasting power of one kilowatt during the day to 5 kilowatts. Hilton said this change would enable listeners to get a better quality signal. ' He said KSOP-Fwould remain in Salt Lake City. M |