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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (March 11, 1963)
PAGE- HERALD AND NEWS. Klamath Falls, Orf. Monday, March 11, 1963 EDSON IN WASHINGTON . . . dvbilaL (paqsL Recognizing The Problem One of the hottest, and bitterest, contro versies in the last Congress had to do with the problem of medical tare for the elderly. The Administration's proposal was Medicare a plan under which everyone drawing social security benefits would have been eligible for a variety of government-paid medical services. An impressive bill of particulars against Med icare was drawn by its opponents, who held that it would mark a long step toward gov ernment domination of medicine; that it did not take adequate account of the actual need of the individual, hut, rather, took a shotgun approach to a certain selected group; that it would not cover millions of elderly people who are not within the social security system; that the costs would be enormous, and, probably far beyond Administration estimates, and that it would result in the concentration of federal power and authority al. the expense of local government. Medicare got nowhere. But it will be back this year, probably in a somewhat changed and possibly expanded form. So whatever hap pens to any particular bill the problem of how to ensure a better life for the nation's elderly people not only in medical matters hut in other associated ways will again be a major issue. The American Medical Association's Board of Trustees has now proposed an eight point program designed to deal with the prob lem of the elderly in its many ramifications. In announcing it, Dr. Percy Hopkins, the board's chairman, said: "It recognizes that some of the aged have problems, some need help. It also recognizes that most of them aspire to be independent, self-reliant, useful citizens who want challenges and opportuni ties. They do not desire to be classified as a mass problem." The specific points of the program cover many latitudes. Among them: 1. A re-cval-uation of attitudes toward the elderly in order that they may be given the chance to use their time, talents and capabilities in worthwhile activities that encourage self-reliance and in dependence. 2. Support for, and implemen tation and revision of the existing financial as sistance to the elderly who need it to meet the cost of medical care. 3. Changes in the income lax laws, to liberalize medical care deductions for dependents over 65. 4. To assist in the continued expansion of health insurance and prepayment plans Blue Shield and Blue Cross which have shown an "ex plosive growth." 5. More flexible retirement policies in business and industry, so that pro ductive workers who wish to can continue at their jobs instead of being forced to retire at an arbitrary age. 6. Encouraging construc tion of additional nursing homes. The number of beds in these homes has increased dramati cally since 1954 from 180,000 to more than 338,000. But still more are needed. 7. Expan sion of community programs for the aged, under state and county medical society lead ership. These would be broad programs in cluding, in addition to health services, de velopment of recreational facilities and job opportunities, and so on. 8. Increased atten tion to measures aimed at prevention, cure and rehabilitation in the area of mental illness among the aged. This particular problem, says the AMA report, ". . . presents a unique challenge to the medical profession. . . . The aged occupy a disproportionate number of beds in mental institutions. Many of these ' people, are not mentally ill and should not be languishing in these institutions which are serving in too many cases primarily as cus todians of the aged." This broad program certainly proves that the medical profession is not in any way indifferent to the problems of the elderly and that, instead, it is most vitally concerned with finding the right solutions. High Cost Of Politics (Press-Herald, Portland, Maine) As the cost of politics grows, politicians and their parties adopt novel and often desper ate measures to finance election campaigns. The talk of Washington recently has been the gala put on by the Democrats to pay off a million-dollar debt left over from the 1902 elections. This was not the ostensible reason for the double-docker affair; party faithful who gathered from all over the country as sumedly were celebrating the second anni versary of President Kennedy's first inaugu ration. Moreover, they paid handsomely for the privilege. Seven hundred Democrats paid $1,000 each for a dinner at the new Interna tional Inn in the national capital. At the Wash ington armory another huge throng paid $100 each to see a floor show, but no dinner. The President and Vice President and their en tourages showed up at both occasions, and the whole thing was an apparent success. Massachusetts, on the other hand, which produces more droll politics than any state we can think of, is still chuckling over the testimonial dinner the insurance industry planned for Slate Insurance Commissioner C. Eugene Farnam. This was apparently a good-will affair in tended to improve insurance firms' relations with the state government and the legisla ture. But sponsors overlooked the fact that only recently the lawmakers, fed up with pure ly political "testimonial" dinners intended to pay election debts or build a campaign fund for the future, enacted legislation against the practice. So, after a ruling by the New Attor ney General that the dinner would violate the law, it was called off and ticket money re lumed to about a thousand Bay Staters. It should be noted that Republicans raised the question of violation of federal law (the Hatch Act) against Kennedy's gala, but were only laughed at for their presumption. (The GOP is now planning a $500,000 Goldwatcr dinner of its own.) This does not necessarily prove that the Kennedy administration's eth ics are showing. It does, so far as we are con cerned, ring an alarm bell over the increasing cost of running for public office in this coun try, meanwhile noting for the record that hard ly anyone is doing anything about it, in a con structive way. Perhaps this is tiresome repetition, but the nation ought not to drift into a situation whereby only rich men can afford to run for high public office, In the slates and the fed eral government, unless they arc willing to accept help from special interests that infercn tially has strings attached. There is something of a Roman circus at mosphere about a lush Washington affair that attracts 700 persons able and presumably will ing to shell out a thousand dollars each for the privilege of saying "I was there." It causes us some anxiety, looking toward the future, but it and similar events will continue until public opinion recognizes the potential risks involved, too. BERRY'S WORLD , Al manac "Vby ctn't wt ketfi ufi uttb the Satiugtrt InsUtd tbt KtnneJyi" By I nilrd Press International Today is Monday, March II, the Tin h day nf with 295 In fo. low. The moon is approaching its last quarter. The morning Mars are Venus and Mais. The evening star is Mars. On this day in history: In 18.13. the great blizzard be gan in New York City and snow fell or (our straight days. In IMii, William Howard Tall became the first President of the I niled Stales lo be huried in the National Cemetery at Arlington, Va. In President Roosevelt signed the holly debated lend lease bill and immediately or dered goods sent In Britain and llreece. A thought for the day: British statesman Sir Winston Churchill said: "I cannot forecast lo you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma " State Taxes Penalize, Hobble Business By PETER EDSON Wakhingtoa Correspondent Newspaper Enterprise Ami. WASHINGTON i.NKAi SUule Congress and the country crab against lax reform and new trade iv.ar Christian A. Herter prepares lor negotiations with foreign coun tries to lower tariff restrictions on international trade. American businessmen are faced with a crazy quilt of state and local income, sales and use taxes which have the same cflcct as tarifls on interstate commerce. The abuse arises when one state levies an income tax on the busi ness done within its borders by merchants, manufacturers or oth er concerns located in other states. These oul-of-date businesses also may be required to collect sales and use taxes on their goods sold in the taxing state. Forty - seven states now levy one of both of these taxes on business originating in other states. The total take on these taxes is over $ billion a year, from both local and out-of-state sources. Thirty - six states collected S4.5 billion in use taxes in 1961. Thirty - seven states collected $1.2 billion in income taxes. Business gripes against these taxes as they apply to interstate commerce. The administrative cost of complying with a code of over 100 fal volumes of conflicting state tax laws is necessarily . great. There is a duplication of taxation by the state in which goods arc manufactured and the stales in which they are sold. Companies doing interstate business are faced with tax lia bility which often leads to heavy assessments (or back taxes, in terest and penalties. Companies in some cases are forced to pay traveling expenses for inspectors Irom other states who come in to audit their books. All this trouble may in some cases make small business reluc tant to try tu expand tlieir oper ations into other states. A Special House Judiciary sub committee on State Taxation of Interstate Commerce under Rep. Edwin E. Willis, D-La.. has been quietly investigating those prac tices for over a year. It has as sembled voluminous data from all 30 statrs and (rom thousands of business firms all over the country. This materia! now is being ana lyzed by the committee's slafl under Murray Drahkin. A report will be made before July I. Then it will be up to Congress to decide what to do about the situation. I'nder the l" S. Constitution. Ar ticle I. Section 8. only Congress has the power to regulate inter state commerce. Many business men now feel, however, that stale taxes interfere with tlieir doing business across stale lines and restrain trade. More than 300 Supreme Court decisions and perhaps thousands in slate courts-have tried to draw Hie line between what constitutes a tax on interstate commerce and what is a permissible business lax. The Supreme Court has recog nized thai it is institutionally in rapahle of solving this question as a broad national policy. But in IttiH the court held that a Crazy Quilt of State Taxes WAWMNr.zV4'.N. dak.' I. M Wa... 'J N.H-KVVL n f iSr 41? IJ SALESUSE TAX V Rga STATES WITH BOTH PROBLEM FOR CONGRESS Taxing income or imposing use or sales taxes on out-of-state business firms has become big business for almost every state. Newsmap shows states which tax income, those which have usesales levies and ones which have both types. Only three states Nebraska, Indiana and New Hampshire do not have such taxes. Because interstate commerce is affected, Congress may be called upon to clear up states' taxing powers in this area. state can tax a reasonably appor tioned share of the income irom a business whose only activities in the state are in furtherance of interstate commerce. The court also decided that a state could tax a business which maintained a sales office withm its borders. - Subsequently, the Supreme Court declined to review two cas es appealed from state courts which upheld the pow er of a state to tax the income of an out-of-stats business engaged solely in inter state commerce, even though it maintained no offices in the state but only sent in salesmen to solicit business. The laws of the 47 states in this field now present a wallow of confusion. No exemptions are made for small business. In some stales taxes are levied onlv if the manufacturer has a branch plant in the taxing state. ln a few states, taxes are levied on an out-of-state manufacturer if he merely advertises in the lax ing stale. In still other states, if .? manufacturer sells only through local dealers and not di rectly, there is no lax. Taking its first step to clarify this maze, Congress in 1959 passed its first law on the subject. It prohibits taxation of interstate commerce if the only activity of an out-of-state manufacturer or merchant is solicitation. This law also sets up a con gressional study now being made by the Willis committee lo de termine whether additional legis lation is necessary and recom mend what it should be. But Congress may not act on this before next year maybe after it gets through reforming U.S. tax laws. alii STRICTLY PERSONAL By SYDNEY J. HARRIS A man I used to know some years ago died in New York re cently, and when I asked a mutual friend twho happens to be a doc tor I the cause of death, he an swered "Secrecy." This was a most provocative reply, and 1 pressed him to let down the medical barriers and explain what he said. It was real ly quite simple and, so the doc tor added, fairly common. The man had had two ailments, one affecting the heart and Ihe other Ihe blood. He went to sep arate doctors for treatment and did not tell either doclor about the olhcr ailment, because he did not want to be loo severely restricted in his diet, his work, or his so cial life. As a result, Ihe regimen prescribed for one of the ailments adversely affected the other, and he was carried off before either of his physicians knew what was happening. This may seem a bizarre little talc, but it occurs more often than the layman realizes. More than a century ago. F. B. Winslow, in his book. "Physic and Physi cians." wrote: "Secrecy is com monly mixed up in medical af fairs. Some great city practition ers have little closets to indulge this feeling nf fanciful patients who do not want to be seen by their fellow sufferers." Winslow goes on to relate the I On the Farm case of the Comte de Virey. "who carried this mystery so far as to make the slightest indisposi tion a state secret." One day the Count called a sur geon to dress a wound in his leg; and when a similar one broke out on the other, he sent for a differ ent surgeon, so that the disordered slate of his limbs might not he known. "A circumstance," adds Winslow, "which was the cause of his death." As an ironic footnote, to a per son who inquired for the Count shortly after his death, his secre tary said. "He is dead, but he docs not wish il lo be known." The recalcitrance of patients must be cited as one of the ma jor factors in the mortality ta bles. Patients who lie about their symptoms, who fail lo follow in structions, who pour pills down the drain and toss diets into the fire, who think that merely visit ing a doctor or holding a pre scription will magically cure them all these contribute heavily to ward the total of medical "fail ures. " Asked about the reception of one of his comedies on opening night, Oscar Wilde quipped, "The play was a success, but the audi ence was a failure." Likewise, patients can fail doctors quite as much as the reverse: for all thcreapy involves a collaboration of candor. ACROSS 1 Weeding instrument 4 Orourtd- brraking firm tool ft Farm crop 12 Sick 13 Uncommon 14 Operatic solo 15 Farm dessert 16 Of latinmn substance IPs Communists 30 Arthurian lady 21 Conjunction 22 Veined p" m 24 Pokrr staka 2 Shred 27 0reek letter .10 Defectively .12 harm 34 Selector 3A Landed property 3ft Abstract being .1" 1-ayer .19 (lenu f freshwater ducks 40 Asterisk 41 Bitter vetch 42 Retinue 45 Small brook 49 Undervalue 51 Hawaiian pepper 52 European stream 53 Solar disk 84 Poetic contraction 55 Medicinal Quantity 5ft Farm meats 67 Wapiti nows 1 Body parts 2 HodcepodKe 3 Oram 4 Scrutinised 5 F.ndure ft Prayer 7 Small tumor 6 Chalice "Relax, We're Following Through On Your Program!" III 'jfr ' .'1 Letters To The Editor Pay Scale 9 Algerian seaport 10 Rebel 1 1 Cartoonist 17 Archaeological rictoftraphs .etharfiic 23 Finer 24 Section of a church 25 Middav 26 Middle East nation 37 Carry over ?P Philippine ahoriginft 2fl Km ploys 3t Missive 33 Japanese city 38 Priming mistakes 40 Cubic meter 41 Uvels 42 Prosecuted 43 Bring lo ruin 44 Koman date 46 ledger entry 47 Wicked 48 Work SO College rheer 1 12 13 I 14 15 IS 7 33 19 110 111 il 13 14 F5 il w re 19 mP """H51 ir zT" 2i I j j 27 28 29 3(3 31 P" 35 33 51 1 33 35 JJ7 38 35 i4o In 41 TP 77" 77" i 46 47 4? 50 51 52 53 5? 55 56 37 li In Ihe February 21, l3. is sue of the Herald and News was an article where the Chamber of Commerce opposed ScnMe hill No: 1281, which would reduce the number of hours served by fire men from 72 hours to oft" hours per week. In expressing opposition to Ihe hill Mr. Orth Sisemore relcrred to a letter rom City .Manager Rob Kyle, in which it was stated that the city would be required lo hire an additional 12 firemen at an annual cost to the city of $.",4.(100 if the bill were passed. I would like to take exception to the statement supplied to the Chamber of Commerce by City Manager Bob Kyle. 1 don't know how he figures as tlie salary for 12 additional firemen, at tlie low starting salary o( S.W5 er month would onlv hr SAT, wo per year, but to bring the lire department tin fu .strength this Senate Bill No. 12.11 passes would only require the hiring of 7 additional firemen inot 12' at Kite per month, at a yearly cost of only JoO.firt). As the low starting salary of MiVS per month, for Ihe first lour years a such a low scaie of pay, I doubt very much that Hie city could hue the seven needed liremen at the low wages, let alone hiring of 12 firemen Tne aera;e work week all over the nation is 40 hours, and fcr tl'f city manager or Chamber -' Com merce to (eel thai these liremen if should continue to work a 72-hour week is out of reason, not to tlie best interest to our city or proper ty owners. As a member of the Klamath County Taxpayers League, 1 have made a six-month study of our city fire department, and the ef ficient way it is run, and some of these liremen have up lo 2:1 years of service, they are skilled in Iheir work, and have the know how to fight any fire, and to save lives when persons are trapped in burning buildings. Now how long can tltese men continue to go on working ?2 hours per week at such a low rate of pay without getting disgusted and seeking employment elsewhere? Then if we liad a green horn fire department, and they had to answer the call to a major fire, what kind of a job could they do? I shudder to think what would happen when such a fire got out of control because of the lack of experienced fire fighters. I believe that the city manager and the Chamber of Commerce should feel just as proud as 1 do of our city fire department and city firemen, and instead of try in? to make serfs out of them, should look to their welfare and do even thing in their power lo improve their pay scale and work ing hours. Hollo J. Shaw 1012 Eldorado Ave. Disagrees The front pa;e "In the Day s News" column of the Herald and News of Feb. 3 lauded the cat tlemen as people that ask for rit give no quarter. So that must make them great people. The article, however, is at Uu't or false. I think the cattlemen have a very strong lobby in Wash ington and spend a lot of money to further their ends. Not only that. These people take up a lot ot lime of our public servants, such as county extension service employes who arc paid by tha public at large. 1 made a trip around the small water impoundments last year, and found poison scattered all over in swonsful and not a trace of any birds or small game. Noth ing but cattle and poison. All this, no doubt, furnished by county ex tension services and scattered by Ihe cattle people. ' If you doubt my word, look for yourself. I've seen it in Montana. Idaho. Wyoming and other West em states. It s all over the grass, and in some places is down to the grass roots. 1 am not trying to condemn th cattle people. What 1 am trying lo bring out is that they are not the holy of holies, but just people, and they are just as greedy as the rest of us the spirit of "I'll get mine and if there's anything left ou can have it but remember. 1 come first." Paul R. Oshanic. P.O. Box 541. Klamath Falls.
