St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 43

itnsl ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH jiy 2.1, 1975 5D AMA Brought Ford Into Fight Mrs. Per on Fights To Save Regime Against Health Flan Jn 1972 with the AMA's lobbying of cials of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare who were intimately involved in the pending legisla Benitez was reported to have discussed the President's health at a meeting of Revolutionary Christian Party members at the Interior Ministry offices. "The subject of the President's successor was not considered and there was no concrete date for a leave of absence mentioned," Dip said. But he said, "The health of Mrs.

Peron is deteriorating seriously and it is advisable not to press her more than she can bear. Perhaps she will ask for a leave of absence for several days to help her recover from exhaustion." Dip said he based his statements on the talks with Benitez. The leftist Peronist Authentic Party demanded that Mrs. Peron resign and call new elections. They charged that her government no longer represented the broad-based labor movement on which it was founded.

Right-wingers threatened to execute- "anyone who touches the President." BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, July 23 (UPI) President Maria Estela (Isabel) Peron struggled today to keep her government together amid labor unrest, leftist calls for her resignation and reports of her "seriously deteriorating" health. Martin Dip, president of the center-left Revolutionary Christian Party said yesterday that he had received news of Mrs. Peron's worsening illness from Interior Minister Antonio Benitez. A press spokesman from the Interior Ministry denied the report, and Benitez was unavailable for comment. Casildo Herreras, secretary general of the powerful General Confederation of Labor, said the organization "will give its unqualified support to the legal successor to the chief of state," the Senate leader, It-alo Luder.

Luder, elected over Mrs. Peron's objections, met with her for 20 minutes yesterday. There was no official announcement on the talks. 175, Chicago Sun-Timet CHICAGO, July 23 The American Medical Association in March 1972 got Gerald R. Ford, then House minority leader, to intercede with the Nixon White House in an effort to dilute a proposal for prepaid health-care programs.

The AMA said yesterday that the effort was part of one of the most intensive lobbying campaigns in its history, outstripped only by its unsuccessful opposition to medicare in the early 1960s. The move to bring Mr. Ford into the fight against health maintenance organizations (HMOs) was but a part of the campaign.which failed when Congress enacted an HMO program in 1973. The Ford Administration is now supporting but did not originate a package of amendments to the 1973 bill that would reduce service such prepaid plans are required to provide. Details of the AMA's dealings with now-President Ford and other legislators on HMOs were disclosed yesterday after several internal AMA documents were supplied to the Chicago Sun-Times by confidential sources.

These same sources, in Chicago and Washington, have been leaking AMA files to newspapers and Government agencies since early June. I a -w. fmmM, wifc ff House on the AMA's behalf. The White House press office referred inquiries on the matter to Hartmann. Precisely how Mr.

Ford conveyed his views to White House staff members of President Richard M. Nixon was not spelled out in the AMA documents. However, AMA sources and former HEW officials said that Mr. Ford had agreed to take the AMA's case to the White House, beyond mere telephone communication. AMA officers, who asked not to be identified, conceded that an intense effort to kill the HMO bill in 1972 and 1973 had been carried on.

"There was lobbying going on by all sides of this and many, many arms were being twisted in Washington," said one AMA officer. Details on the overtures to Mr. Ford were contained in a memorandum and a letter supplied by sources of the leaked AMA documents. The letter, addressed "Dear Jerry," was signed by Wayne W. Bradley, an AMA Washington lobbyist, since transferred to the association's Chicago headquarters.

Bradley thanked Mr. Ford for meeting with AMA representatives, including several members of the association's board of trustees. But the letter did not acknowledge Mr. Ford's agreement to intercede with the White House directly in the matter a a top AMA officer said yesterday had only been used one other time in his six year fice. In a memorandum to this supervisor, Harry Hinton (also since transferred to Chicago), Bradley reported: "You will recall that Ford promised to make a telephone call to an appropriate person in the executive branch." Mr.

Ford also apparently offered to let the AMA tell him whom to call, and the lobbyists suggested Kenneth R. Cole, who later succeeded John D. Ehrlichman as chairman of the White House Domestic Council. HMOs are organizations that provide for all the healthcare needs of their subscribers for a flat fee. The Nixon Administration embraced the concept in 1971 and HEW has reported that 172 of them are now in operation.

The AMA's opposition has been based on reservations about the ability of such programs to actually provide services for which they contract. Hillsboro Man Is Killed In Crash Eugene Valley, 66 years old, Hillsboro, was killed about 7:30 p.m. yesterday when his station wagon crossed the center line of Highway 21 north of Hillsboro and collided with a truck, the Highway Patrol said. The patrol said Valley was southbound and collided with a northbound truck driven by Shelton Mitchell, 44, of tion in 1972 also have confirmed the accounts. Such lobbying is accepted practice by special interest groups presenting their cases to legislators.

"It probably didn't take much to convince Ford," said an AMA spokesman, "because his position on healthcare issues and the AMA's have always been pretty similar." In addition, the Michigan State Medical Society has confirmed that, apparently contrary to its usual policy to refrain from making campaign contributions to officeholders in "safe" districts, Mr. Ford got $5000 in 1971 from the Michigan group and the AMA's political arm, the American Medical Political Action Committee (AMPAC). There was no election that year. At the time, Mr. Ford represented a congressional district around Grand Rapids.

The money was supplied before the Federal Campaign Money Disclosure Law went into effect in 1972. However, the Michigan State Medical Society supplied (he donation information voluntarily. No 1972 contributions to Mr. Ford by an AMA affiliate were reported. Mr.

Ford's top political adviser, Robert T. Hartmann, could not be reached for comment on the 1971 donation and Mr. Ford's March 1972 intercession with the White Firm Will Halt Scare Tactic Use mal retail prices, that its salesmen were "safety specialists" and that its products were recommended by leading hospitals and health personnel. The agency said the scare tactics involved false statements that conventional high chairs were the frequent cause of fatal infant WASHINGTON, July 23 (UPI) A manufacturer of high chairs and cribs has agreed to stop using scare tactics to induce parents to buy its products, the Federal Trade Commission said yesterday. The agency said also that Guild Industries had agreed to stop saying that its prices were lower than nor FLIP: Laurie Brenner, 11 years old, Toledo, who appears to be walking on her pigtails, is actually practicing for a gymnastics group she belongs to.

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