Editor's notebook

...in mid-February the cenprogram will succeed unless the spiraling costs of entitlement tral school board voted 4-3 not to renew his conprograms such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are tract...

...coupling taxes with spending cuts, and on education, job train- Staunch supporters of Fernandez and his school reform proing, and cooperation between government and private indus- gram (as was I), they vastly underestimated the opposition to 4: 12 March 1993 Commonweal his forays into sexual/social issues...

...you money by addressing your concerns on the phone...

...Was the Times caught deficit down into the $200-billion range, projected health-care off guard because it spent too much time reading itself and toy costs will begin to pull the deficit up again after 1996...

...added his financial concerns...

...with dignity is something to which Americans at long last can try, the president has laid out a plausible plan and pointed the say Amen...

...see editorial, January 15, 1993...

...The not to think that they would have done what New Yorkers usu- office brochure flatly encourages patients to call the office, in ally do when such conflicts erupt-compromise and urge the all but traumatic emergencies, before going to a hospital emerman they imported from Miami to fix the schools to do so as gency room...

...If you can't pay the fees, talk to us...

...It does so precisely because its ownalthough the religious affiliations of other local boards, many ers think about costs...

...Sound like Oz...

...Clinton's hope is that his spending was a loss that didn't have to happen...

...Routine ofstarting with an inability to treat religious objections to ho- fice visits are so reasonably priced that I gladly pay for them mosexuality or homosexual conduct as other than bigotry, and to get high-quality care...

...Call the office if you are going to including homosexuality...

...report the news...

...If that happens, the voters once jections raised by parents in both cases...

...Looming behind these and puppetry...

...The current crisis in dothe hierarchy-and agree with the Times...

...Please take your time," one said...

...into law...

...stimulus will strengthen growth so that a prospering economy High hopes for Fernandez's mandate to reform the schools can smoothly accommodate the subsequent tax burden...

...by its unfair treatment again will judge the Democrats to be fiscally irresponsible...

...The of school board members who are Catholic...

...erarchy...

...prevention effort...

...informed" by the paper of record about the conflict itself, the Ross Perot is waiting in the wings...

...to me that my doctor believes deeply in providing good, afCommonweal 12 March 1993: 5...

...Assuredly, the healthand lesbians in the first-grade curriculum, and-most impor- care situation is complex and includes issues such as termitant-the responsibilities of fair and full news coverage, it strikes nal care, AIDS, tuberculosis, multiple organ transplants, drug me that it's the Times that should worry about mindlessness abuse, infinite expectations, and so on...

...Presumably they are Pennsylvania...

...During a routine phys- and that it may be more effective to probe this relationship and ical, we discussed whether or not I should receive to change our behavior accordingly than it would be to simply boosters for measles and tetanus...

...Clinton's plan as a reawakening of faith in big government spend- Further trouble came this autumn with the Rainbow Curriculum ing programs that merely lay dormant during the Reagan era...

...It was also duly and regularly recorded that mem- In my experience few physicians keep the cost of their treatbers of District 24, the local school board in Queens that vo- ment in mind...

...not Catholic...

...babies suffer malnutrition...

...The Times rarely fails to note that Catholic lay health care is a partnership: Don't abuse the opportunity to people have views of their own on a range of sexual issues reach physicians by phone...

...The owners in the thousand of my patients that they receive booster vaccinations, medical practice I described above choose to internalize it: "I at $25 or $30 a pop, I've just spent $25,000 or $30,000...

...But the proof will be in the pudThat said, whether Clinton and his fellow Democrats in ding of deficit reduction, not in the appetizers of federal jobs Congress can build constructively on the good will generat- and social programs...

...Fernandez dismissed most observers frankly think Congress is incapable of enacting the objections of parents...

...Then he refused to include a parental opt-out Neither should Democrats interpret the public's support for for those who objected...

...My CONTROLLING HEALTH COSTS concern is that the high cost of primary care drives away conMAKE IT PERSONAL sumers: mothers do without prenatal care...

...Get Irene hnpel l izzeri, one of the school board members, was des- this: the receptionist phones you when the staff are running beignated by a Times news story "a voice for the Catholic hi- hind so you don't come in and have to wait...

...Ninfa Segarra's religious affiliation (Catholic) was It's not...

...In one Not only did the Times "uninform" us, its news coverage daytime but after-office-hours emergency, I got an appointment displayed an animus that can only be called anti-Catholic, on fifteen minutes' notice: "Come in right now...

...ed by his speech remains to be seen...

...I have to be careful," he said, Medical providers, who are mostly physicians, do not suf"in how I recommend treatment...

...MARGARET O' BRIEN STEINFELS megaproblems, however, are the increasing cost and declining accessibility of primary care, the care most families are MEMO TO HRC concerned about...

...He and his staff of physicians and physician assistants including some Catholics, some Orthodox Jews, some African- strive to give thorough care...

...So are Jack Kemp and Pat nature of the debate, and the state of public opinion...

...And even little time gathering the news...

...The laudable effort to teach Whether this administration is able to pursue its broader polit- and encourage tolerance in the public schools floundered on ical goals on behalf of the poor, the uninsured, and the unem- advice to first-grade teachers to inculcate the lesson that sameployed still depends on the effectiveness of the over-all sex couples were as much normal families as the standard hetdeficit-reduction scheme...

...It's a medical practice in a black, working-class, West often noted-as was her Mass attendance at Saint Patrick's- Philadelphia neighborhood bordering on the mostly white but not that of any other board member, even the other two University City neighborhood surrounding the University of who ultimately voted against Fernandez...

...Because the Times is both the with a significant upturn in the economy, it is hard to imagine daily bulletin board and the cultural expression of a political how health-care costs will be managed over the long haul with- class that plays such a powerful role in both my city and the out further increases in taxes...

...It is clear feel comfortable spending money like that...

...For the first ran into trouble in 1990...

...We can often save well...

...answering their questions...

...Then he to inflate the high cost of health care...

...I submit that the problem of poor primary care may lie in the structural relationship between patients and health-care providers, have a great family physician...

...When we don't, we mestic health care, as it is often styled, is treated as a probare mindless puppets of Cardinal O'Connor and Brooklyn's lem of numbers, whether it be the number of people in the Bishop Daily...

...In this case, what political and business leadSo a word of caution is in order, even from those most sym- ers didn't learn from the Times, really did hurt...

...nation in the right direction...

...I don't don't feel comfortable spending money like that...

...Even if Clinton's proposal succeeds in bringing the the most surprised (and dismayed) of all...

...How does $20 for a quick visit proceeding from there...

...American protestants, and some Hispanic evangelicals, were "In this practice we believe in spending time with patients and dismissed as members or tools of the Religious Right...

...First, he introduced a condom moment, even the Federal Reserve's conservative chairman Alan distribution program in the high schools as part of an AIDS Greenspan has endorsed this idea...

...His staff returns phone calls...

...That means the Democrat-controlled erosexual model and to include references to gays and lesbians Congress will have to impose "sacrifices" on constituents that throughout the curriculum...

...The New York Times appears to have been contained...

...For it is the current relationship ical reasons for and against getting the boosters, con- between patients and health-care providers that goes a long way cluding that the boosters were not necessary...

...The complex and interdependent glob- kind of people opposed to teaching first graders about gays al economy requires something different...

...United States who are uninsured or the number of dollars by In the case of condom distribution in the high schools, gay which health-care costs rise annually...

...Whether this procedural change represents a substantive or merely symbolic shift in emphasis is the question...

...In his emphasis on and lesbians and to handing out condoms to thirteen-year-olds...

...You can expand this list easily and endlessly...

...But in raising taxes and increasing spend- New York City's Schools Chancellor Joseph ing, the Democrats do risk forgetting that no deficit reduction Fernandez is a goner...

...They were Buchanan...

...Increasing taxes on the nation's wealthiest 2 percent is not To the surprise of many and the dismay of some, a great political risk...

...While the final THE WORST OF THE 'TIMES' shape of the package remains to be decided, it now appears SOME NEWS DOESN'T FIT that spending cuts will be voted on, at least tentatively, before the tax increases...

...Democrats should be leery of a return to what might given a very partial if not highly distorted impression of the have worked in the past...

...Please call our office first...

...Yet this family practice not only gives great care, ciferously rejected the Rainbow Curriculum, were Catholic, it gives affordable care...

...But without real spending cuts, it seems a certainty the As a close reader of New York's premier newspaper, I had debt will continue to hamstring the economy, stagnating mid- been astonished at the Times's consistent inattention to the obdle- and working-class incomes...

...and by its inabilbest way to avoid that fate, of course, is for Congress to pursue ity to stand back from its progay editorial position and simply even deeper spending cuts than Clinton proposed...

...We discussed the med- overhaul the insurance system...

...of whom had some objections to the curriculum, were never Significantly, the office brochure stresses that providing good mentioned...

...children are not vaccinated...

...And in my opinion it omy back into recession...

...Once again, Mr...

...A patient who spends $100 for a minimal, routine office visit and leaves without all his or her questions being answered has experienced a failure in medical care...

...Admittedly, there are prudent economic as well as political Though Fernandez's ouster may be a small footnote in the reasons for waiting before administering the harshest medicine...

...If I casually recommend to a ficiently internalize the cost of health care...

...We can keep our pable of thinking for ourselves only when we disagree with fees low only if you work with us...

...Had they known, it is hard His medical practice is exemplary in involving patients...

...But it remains a gamble...

...Even those sympathetic to the general tenor of Clinton's plan were made nervous AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK by the idea of "front loading" the tax hike and the $190 billion in stimulus and "public investment" spending while postponing the bulk of deficit reduction until 1997...

...history of the culture wars, it is likely to be a serious loss for A too ambitious deficit-reduction plan might throw the econ- the city's schools and school children...

...Opponents of the Rainbow Curriculum, sound...

...Apparently, we show ourselves ca- be late...

...nation, that question is especially troubling...

...They were "unpathetic to the progressive social policies Clinton seeks to fund...