European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 21, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes saturday february 21,1987 Carl Rowan police state corporate posture defies reason no cause no idea of social Reform is so Noble thai some zealot will not push it beyond the limits of reason or we Nils permitted by the Constitution. Readers or this column know that 1 hate tobacco smoke. Am sickeningly allergic to in. I have App Budaj Laws and regulations thai give air travellers office workers diners in restaurants Protection from the passive smoke of discourteous or insensitive addicts to cigarettes and cigars. But 1 am dismayed thai the us corporation has announced that employees at nine us acoustical products plants will lose their jobs if they do not Stop smoking whether at work or at Home. Stop smoking period and he company plans to give lung tests to the 2,000-or-so employees covered by this ultimatum to ensure that whoever lights up gets let off i am a lot More allergic to this police stale corporate posture than i am to smoke. If a taxicab Driver says. Please do not smoke in my vehicle 1 say that is his right. If an employer says you May not smoke in my  1 say that is his prerogative. If a City ordinance or slate Law forbids smoking in restaurants and other Public places where the smote irritates or damages non smoking people nearby 1 accept this As a legitimate use  Power. We now know  silting in a plane or restaurant inhaling someone disc s smoke can be hazardous to a non smoker s health. But us has gone too far. So far in fact As to discredit Lugai and legitimate campaigns to limit areas where smokers  puff with abandon. What gives us the right to decree that an employee May not smoke a cigarette in his or her Home when buying and smoking cigarettes is a Legal activity us justifies this frightening in Vasion of privacy with the argument that smokers have More ailments and Lake More Days of sick leave. So someone George f. Will Here concludes that this gives us the right to tread Over the fourth Amend ment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and to subject employees to pulmonary tests to Sec who has been keeping Cool puffing a Kool. If us gels away with his outrage some other employer is going to Tell workers to give up sex in the office or at Home or expect the Pink slip. Rationale single employees engaging in sex can get gonorrhoea syphilis chlamydia herpes aids or a horrible new disease they Haven t even named. Any of these ailments could cause time away from the Job. A faithful married woman employee could gel pregnant and under new supreme court ruling she would be entitled to spend four months away from work and then gel her Job Back. So says the corporate big brother we arc going to give random Short Arm inspections Pap smears and whatever else it takes to determine who has been a ganging in sex. The offenders will be  sound absurd not in the co Maxi of this us decree so i say us you have become an abominable ally of Hose who insist upon the irresponsible and destructive usages of tobacco. And you have made an egregious strike against our constitutional protections of privacy. Would some san soul at your corporation strike a match and let this new regulation go up in smoke a Newt a Ironica syrd cwt medicare plan sickens some conservatives the Reagan administration is wicked according to some conservatives. They Are not talking about the Iran debacle although they May b ame that for the wickedness. The cause of their consternation is president Rea Gan s proposal to expand medicare to provide catastrophic health insurance for the elderly. The plan would pay for unlimited Days of Hospital care for medicare patients who would face out of pocket expenses of Only $2,000 a year. Some conservatives think Reagan is proposing this onlys a Means to jump Start his stalled second term or be cause Congress would enact it anyway. But perhaps Rea Gan thinks it is a Good idea politically and socially. Elderly voters arc diligent voters and the children of the elderly Are Apt to have school and College age children when their parents arc vulnerable to huge medical Bills. So the Middle aged Middle class feel vulnerable Loo. Only one in 35 medicare beneficiaries 800,000 of 28millionj would Benefit from Reagan s plan each year but most of the elderly face acute care expenses before they die. Although one in five medicare beneficiaries will need custodial help Only one in 16 has private insurance for Long term nursing Home care. Reagan s plan docs not cover thai yet. For the elderly whose expenses exceed 12,000 a year 80 percent of those expenses go not to hospitals but to nursing Homes. Reagan s plan is certain to be expanded leaving him looking opportunistic to conservative critics of any such plan and looking grudging to supporters of the principle of such care. The coming debate Aboul expanding the plan to cover nursing Homes will Shock the majority of people Over 65, surveys show Hal a major Ity erroneously thinks medicare covers nursing Home Bills. Such Bills Are covered Only by medicaid and Only after the elderly have qualified for welfare by exhaust ing their savings Reagan s plan comes from Otis Bowen 69, the for Mer governor of Indiana and now Secretary of health and human services. He is a physician whose wife died of cancer and whose Mother is in a nursing Home. Bowen says nursing Home care is too expensive for government to pay for. Id 1986, americans spent $39 billion on such care More than $22,000 per patient. The elderly and their families paid half. Most of the rest was paid by medicaid after the patients were impoverished. Private insurance paid i percent. Bowen favors tax incentives to encourage people to make private plans for Long term care. Tax incentives get results but clash with the recent reverence for  besides Congress knows there is much More political mileage in voting direct benefits rather than Mere incentives for self provision. This year or Scon Congress will add some coverage for nursing Home care Home care prescription drugs and physician fees not covered by medicare. Furthermore Reagan s plan will pay primarily for patients suffering terminal illnesses. Next will come care for. Say the 35 year old father who has been in an Accident. The initial Cost will be $4.92 per month paid voluntarily on of of the existing $ 17.90 medicare charge. The $4.92 charge will be indexed 10 inflation which is not dead Only sleeping. The danger is that the new Premium will Noi Rise nearly fast enough. Nothing is More certain than that Congress will expand coverage faster than it raises charges. However one thing is As certain As that the pro Gram will be More expensive than expected. Expensive new pharmacological and other technologies Are com ing. Today while the general inflation rate is about i percent inflation in medical costs is 8 percent the impulse to finance the coming coverage partly from general funds which Means from More Bor rowing we have a deficit will be irresistible mean ing not resisted. The Reagan revolution like most revolutions is a wayward thing. In year seven it is emphasizing set education aids and another increment on the Al ready substantial edifice of socialized Medicine. Two cheers for waywardness the administration is defensible on both counts. Reagan says with characteristic exaggeration that his health plan will give americans the last full Mea sure of  ii will not but now that he has endorsed that Ideal his objections to congressional enrichment of his plan can concern Only Price no principle. However Reagan has never opposed the principle involved. To the recurring Surprise of Tome of his most ardent and least observant supporters Reagan is a new Deal conservative quite reconciled to modern govern ment s steady impulse to build a social insurance  Reagan is being Reagan. He probably is thelast president the nation shall have for whom the de pression and for s response to ii was a direct forma Tive influence. His legacy will include one of the most important Post new Deal enrichment of the welfare state