Page 14-Friday, May 8, 1981-The Michigan Dail'
Hike in
health
care costs
expected
CHICAGO (AP) - A sagging economy in the first
half of the 1980s will have a severe impact on health
care, with poor people and public hospitals becoming
the most vulnerable to cutbacks, a group of resear-
chers has predicted.
The researchers said in an article in the current
issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association that hospitals, public health agencies,
and health science centers will suffer from projected
declines in government spending and private philan-
thropy. They said they based their predictions on
long-term economic forecasts and national opinion
polls.
CURRENT POLLS, THE article said, show much
lower levels of interest in social problems, such as
health care, than in the recent past. "The public
today places lower priority on the overall im-
provement of community services, particularly tax-
supported services," the article said.
One of the results "will be a public retrenchment in
care for poor people," said Dr. Robert Blendon, an
author of the article and member of the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation in New Jersey. The foundation
calls itself the nation's largest health care philan-
I
thropy and says it makes about $50 million in grants
annually to health services organizations.
"Public dollars will be going down," he said in a
telephone interview, adding that there is likely to be a
large-scale cutbacks ii Medicaid, neighborhood
health centers, and clinics that provide preventive
health care.
PUBLIC HOSPITALS ALSO could face serious
problems because a significant part of their patient
load is poor people.
Some of those poor people will receive free health
care, Schramm said, but "there will be a great
amount of pressure to shift the cost of treating those
patients to the insured patients."
That would result in increased insurance costs, he
said.
Blendon also said the poor will not be the only vic-
tims of high inflation and a slowdown in the growth of
the economy.
There will be less scholarship money available for
medical schools and tuition costs will increase shar-
ply, Blendon said. "It will be harder for middle-class
people to meet the costs for training their children to
be doctors or dentists."
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Medal may
be denied
to ex-hostage
Joe Subic
WASHINGTON (UPI)-An Army
awards panel will not recommend a
commendation medal for former Iran
hostage Joseph Subic, Jr. because of his
questionable behavior during captivity,
sources said yesterday.
While in captivity, Staff Sgt. Subic,
24, and three other hostages appeared
in an Iranian film that condemned the
role of the United States in Iran.
LAST MONTH, Subic told his
hometown newspaper the films his
Iranian captors made of -him were
"faked." He said he was beaten and
suffered a bleeding ulcer at the time.
Nevertheless, sources said the Army
awards panel regarded Subic's
behavior as questionable and "foggy."
Maj. Gen. Jerry Curry said Subic-was
not under investigation by the Army.
Other sources said no investigation is
contemplated.
Neither Curry nor an official Army'
spokesman would confirm whether the
Army board.recommended withholding
the commendation from Subic,
The Joint Chiefs of Staff or Defense
Secretary Caspar Weinberger can
overturn the board's decision concer-
ning Subic if they feel all 20 military
personnel among the 52 Americans held
hostage for 444 days were heroes, the
sources said.
Subic, whose parents livein Redford
Township, Mich,, has been back on ac-
tive Army duty since April.
He reportedly plans to seek an early
discharge so he can tell the story of his
captivity without risking a military
reprimand and take advantage of
commercial and political offers.
In the film, Subic said he arrived in
Iran as a defender of the shah but after
seeing "more and more poor
people-people without homes, food,
education-my thinking started to turn
around."
The film was released shortly after
the November 1979 takeover of the U.S.
Embassy in Tehran.
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