osmeticurgery Over 50 years continuous experience E. Sabbagh, M.D. C. Choi, M.D. R. Rifai, M.D. W. Sabbagh, M.D. Before face lift After face lift JAMES D. BESSER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT I •Specializing in all facial, nose & body surgery & liposuction •View hundreds of our before & after photographs •Obagi Skin Rejuvenation Program •Accredited Office Surgical Suite (AAAHC) • Doctors on staff at Straith Hospital (JCAHO accredited) • Free initial consultation/brochure Val/ Or next seminar, After Rhitiopiasty 17100 W. 12 Mile Rd, Southfield, MI 48076 Shredded Safety Net Affects Fiscal Tightrope (810) 557-1622 Above photographs are Straith Clinic patients Announcing our new location in January 1996! 32000 Telegraph Rd., Bingham Farms, MI (at 13 1 2 Mile) WE ARE GROWING! AMERIND EYE MITITUTE Total Family Eye Care Maitin I. AR*, MD, • Michael Y. Greenlet', M,D, • Amy B. Elton, M,D, Are Pleased To Announce The Opening Of Another Location For Complete Eye Care Commerce Medical Center 8391 Commerce Road #112 Commerce Township, MI 48382 2 Miles East of Huron Valley Hospital (810-360-7300) Our Southfield Location 28905 Northwestern Highway, Southfield, MI 48034 (810-358-3937) Next time you feed your face, think about your head. Go easy on your heart and start cutting back on foods that are high in saturated fat and cholesterol. The change'il do you good. I, American Heart Msociation WERE FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE n Washington, political dis- cussions these days rarely get much beyond Colin Powell's presidential aspirations and the apocalyptic battle of the bud- get taking place on Capitol Hill. Mr. Powell's candidacy could fade as the Christian right exer- cises its veto power in the Re- publican Party; the fight between President Bill Clinton and the Re- publican Congress over funda- mental questions of government activism already is producing consequences that will affect Americans for years to come. As the nation approaches this major crossroads, the overheat- ed political rhetoric is making it more difficult by the day to see the direction signs and hazard warnings. ' For example, Democrats insist — not without reason — that Re- publican plans to trim Medicare and Medicaid would harm mil- lions of middle-income seniors, all in the interests of giving big tax breaks to the rich. Republicans cry foul; all they are doing, they say, is cutting the growth of Medicare and making programs more efficient. The re- sults, they argue, will include bet- ter medical care, not worse. Jewish community agencies are trying to figure out what all this will mean for their clients — the elderly, the disabled, children, ordinary middle-class Jews whose lives have been turned around by corporate and govern- ment "downsizing." The exact answers are too en- tangled in political hype to be clear, too obscured by the fact that the nation is moving into wholly uncharted territory. But the broad factors at play in this high-stakes debate are plain for the Jewish agencies that will face daunting new challenges in this uncertain new era. The first factor is the obvious one: Congress is in a headlong rush not only to cut the budget, but to eliminate the very concept of entitlements — a moral re- alignment of the nation, not just a policy shift. The real legacy of the Great So- ciety and the War on Poverty is the idea that our government has a clear moral obligation to assist the least fortunate among us. Medicare and Medicaid are classic entitlement programs. Their creation and growth re- flected a tremendous change in philosophy for a nation that had, in the past, relied primarily on private charity for social welfare = -aroliarice that consigned hun- dredg ofthaisands of the- elderly to substandard nursing homes and woefully inadequate medical care. Those and other entitlement programs were created in re- sponse to real and shameful shortcomings in social policy, not because of voracious government bureaucrats seeking to expand their fiefdoms. Most Jews un- derstand that the good old days promised by some Republican lawmakers were not very good for most people, and particular- ly not for minorities and the poor and the fixed-income elderly. A second broad factor is the popular argument that local and state governments can provide better and more efficient services, the official justification for today's "block grant" approach to budget cuts. There is something appealing about the idea that close-to-home government is more responsive than a faceless federal bureau- cracy; just ask anyone who has ever faced an Internal Revenue Most Jews understand that the good old days promised by some Republican lawmakers were not very good for most people. Service audit, or tried to track down a missing Social Security check. But before the 1960s, many states provided almost nothing in the way of social, ed- ucation and health care services; there is no evidence that what they did provide was delivered with honesty or efficiency. And some included overt dis- crimination in their menu of pro- grams; the rise of federalism made it harder for places such as Mississippi to deny entire class- es of people access to vital ser- vices. A third factor is the fact that the rise of federal programs has given the Jewish community a chance to devote a dispropor- tionate share of its resources to what we should regard as luau- , ries — supporting Israel, giving money to projects promoting con- tinuity and Jewish education, helping distressed Jewish pop- - ulatimis in.otlre, sowtlies._