The Town Talk from Alexandria, Louisiana • Page 15

A-15 Town Talk, Alexandria-Pincvillc, Monday, April H. 1977 No-Fault Insurance Might Be Hot Issue for Legislature after one in Michigan, although he says he is still Recently, a U.S. Senate committee was told that La. News eyeglass prices are kept artifically high by state regulatory boards who want to limit competition. "The profit on a pair of glasses may be as much as 400 or 500 per cent," said Herbert Haft, president of a firm which sells glasses in Virginia and Maryt land.

Tapp said he is not sure of the profit margin there's no doubt that you can buy eyeglasses cheaper in Texas where they advertise than you can buy them in Louisiana which prohibits advertising." Tapp said he believes that if the state doesn't do-something about it, the U.S. Supreme Court will, comparing the eyeglass prohibition to the prohibition of drug advertising, which was stricken by the high court last year. He said he was more concerned with a bill to help the motorist who needs car repairs. His bill basically would not allow an auto repair shop to exceed its estimate of work by 10 per cent unless the repair shop notified the customer first. "Right now, you can take a car down to the shop, and the guy says it will cost $150 to fix," Tapp said.

"You go back and he says that it cost $600 andthat you can't get your car back until you pay." Tapp acknowledged that a similar bill was adopted by the house last year but died in a senate committee because it was gutted. He says he doesn't know about its chances this year, but "we're going to Bang in there." ByGnyCoates BATON ROUGE (AP) Now that consumer activists are claiming victory over milk price fixing, they are taking aim at auto insurance rates and that could develop into one of the hot issues in the upcoming legislative session. "I'd like to see a consumer on the Insurance Rating Commission," said Charles Tapp, director of the governor's Office of Consumer Protection. "I'm afraid that the commission at the present time is not doing a heckuva of a lot to protect the general public." Tapp and others are taking the same tact as they did. a few years ago with the Dairy Stabilization Board, which has since lost much of its State Insurance Commissioner Sherman Bernard says he is tired of taking the heat for high insurance rates in Louisiana.

Rates are set by the seven-member commission and Bernard has only one vote. The other six mem- -bers are chosen by the governor. Bernard's bills regarding auto fnsurance have been stymied in the legislature for the most part since he first came into office in 1972. His frustration led to a recent 30-minute television program aired over 13 stations around the state, entitled "The Truth about Automobile Insurance in Louisiana." Bernard hoped that the program will stir enough looking into the Michigan law. Such a law would say that an individual injured in an auto accident could sue another party only when the injury was serious enough and the sueable injuries would be listed in the law.

'The attorneys will love that," laughed one veteran lobbyist, who said such a bill had little if any chance of passage. No fault insurance basically means just that that each insurance company pays for the damages of its own clients regardless of who is at fault, and without costly court proceedings. Most officials say high insurance rates are due in large part to high claims and high settlements in court. What other consumer-type bills are in the offing for the session which begins April 18? "It's going to be very sparse from our point of view," Tapp said. "It's our feeling that the legislature feels, and the people feel, there's enough laws on the books now.

but they're not being enforced. We're just going to try to get as tough as possible" with the present laws. However, Tapp said he was pushing hard for two. bills one to allow the advertising for prescription eyeglasses and another to restrict unscrupulous auto repair shops from giving cheap estimates for work and then charging "three or four times as much" when the work is completed. public Interest to put pressure on the legislature to do something about auto insurance rates.

One insurance executive, who didn't want to be identified, said that legislation such as no-fault insurance has gotten nowhere because attorneys dominate the legislature and attorneys benefit from auto acci-, dent suils. Nearly 35 per cent of the Louisiana legislature consists of attorneys. No other profession conies close to that percentage. Bernard also claims that his bills have had a tough time in the house Commerce Committee, which he claims has looked after the interests of the insurance firms. Bernard said Louisiana is the only state which allows attorneys to get information on who has insurance and how much they have.

That information allows attorneys to file suit directly against the insurance company rather than against the policy holder. By eliminating the access to records, Bernard said, rates could be lowered and the insurance rating commission could eliminate 200 file clerk jobs. He did not expand. Bernard wants a no-fault insurance law modeled New Orleans Homosexual Ring May Have Foreign Connections other parts of the country," Connick added. "Some have been prosecuted in England and the Philippines IW '-'ft z.

7' shuttle bus -1 jrf i' "A NEW ORLEANS (AP) An investigation that started when a commercial film developer reported a customer had brougt in photographs of men-boy sex, has led police to believe a homosexual ring based here has established connections as far away as Saudi Arabia. So far, 17 men have been charged as the result of an investigation that began with a New Orleans Boy Scout troop whose leaders reportedly supplied victims for the homosexual ring. One of the men arrested is Troop 137 scout leader Richard Halvorsen. He stands charged on 16 counts of aggravated crime against nature. Also charged is Boston millionaire Richard C.

Jacobs. -1 "It has been like dropping a pebble into water," said Dist. Atty. Harry Connick. "You think you've got it ail but the ripple ring keeps spreading." The men were charged with sex acts with boys from 8 to.

15 years old over a two-year period" ending last September. Not all of the scouts in the how defunct troop were i "We find some of the men have also been active in for sex involving children. The first of the series of trials was scheduled in Criminal District Court Tuesday but a lawyer for Raymond T. Woodall, 38, of New Orleans, asked for a delay. He said Woodall had been committed to a state mental hospital due to severe depression and suicidal tendencies.

Woodall, assistant scout master of Troop 137, was charged with 13 counts of "unnatural carnal knowledge." The most numerous charges were filed against Jacobs, a millionaire who lived at Arlington, a Boston suburb, and against scout master Halvorsen. Jacobs, whose trial is scheduled May 10, is facing 15 counts of "aggravated crime against nature," which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years per count. Connick declined to spell out how the investigation led to Jacobs, or how five other men from distant sections of the nation allegedly turned up in New Orleans to join the proceedings. "Obviously there was some kind of communications or network involved," he said. The City of Alexandria's shuttle bus makes its rounds employes to park there unless they use their cars on on the levee.

The bus provides service between the city business three times or more during an average levee parking lot and city hall for those who park work day. (Town Talk Photo by John F. Jones) their cars at the lot. The city council requires all city Investigation Aspin Wants Jr Of Missing A rmy Equipment I twit he noting the figure represents about 5 per cent of the installation's supply budget for" the current year. Aspin said' investigations at Ft.

Hood found no one for the, loss of most supplies. He said "knpwledgable told him in most cases where someone was found liable, they were already AWOL. VAspin said he hopes the investigation will uncover the scope of the losses, why no one. is blamed in most cases, and whether officers filing loss reports are' merely covering up for their friends and co-workers at the base. -V One report for a 200-man company showed $3,509 worth of missing flashlights, batteries, gasoline cans, shovels, screwdrivers, wrenches and several padlocks, Aspin said.

A company at Ft. Hood had $10,200 in missing telephone cable, leather gloves, and tools. WASHINGTON (UPI) Some of the world's best-equipped auto mechanics are in the area of the Ft. Hood, Army base, according to Rep. Les Aspin, and he's asking the General Accounting Office to find out why.

Aspin says about $1.5 million of Army equipment has "disappeared" at Ft. Hood over 15 months and there are similar unexplained losses at other installations. The congressman, a frequent critic of defense spending, said an officer told him, "You can get your car fixed by some of the best-equipped mechanics in the world in the Ft. Hood area." Aspin said Sunday there will always be some items missing in an operation as big as the Army. "But $1.5 million worth of equipment that evaporates into thin air from a single base is completely un- Hawker Tell Tricks Ex-Car is.

I'd say 98.5 per cent of the time people don't come to buy a car they're sold. These guys are high-powered pushers." Joe Car said many salesmen enjoy both the feeling and the money of making customers pay prices higher than necessary, and laugh about it with their colleagues. "Car dealers are out to make all the money possible on each and every car, and they can put you in a car for $1,000 profit. ten by a 28-year-old salesman using the pseudonym "Joe He said a bad experience with his first new car, in 1970, prompted him to enter the business to learn the tricks and tell others how to combat overpriced cars and Unethical dealers. "I don't think any guy can protect himself rom these salesmen," including himself, said Joe Car in a recent interview.

"The closing tactics usually break down a guy, no matter how tough he MISSION, Kan. (UPI) Consumers don't buy automobiles car salesmen sell them, often making a $1,000 profit "pushing" a car onto a person unprepared for the purchase, according to. one salesman who's tired of the rat race. A number of "unethical and high-pressure" tactics car salesmen have used effectively for decades to put car and driver together quickly, painlessly and profitably have been outlined in a small book writ- il Radiation Patients Sought physician who performed those ra diation therapies is dead, he said. Flamm says persons who received such radiation treatments whether at Charity or at some other hospital should write to him at the hospital's nuclear medicine department.

He says the persons who are located will be tested and then referred to a surgeon if they're found to have cancer. studying the hospital's records and will notify as many of the former patients as can be located. The hospital's personnel also are studying old city directories and phone books, looking for persons whose names or addresses have changed. "Many such therapies were performed at Charity and also among private practitioners here, and it is likely that more were performed in private hospitals and offices than at Charity," Flamm said. But he says the search may be more difficult for patients treated at private hospitals or clinics.

"At least one large private hospital, in which numerous patients were treated, has destroyed its medical records of the period, and the NEW ORLEANS (AP) Persons who as youngsters received radiation treatments in New Orleans now may be susceptible to cancer, says a Charity Hospital doctor who's trying to locate the former patients. Dr. Martin Flamm says they need to be examined and, if necessary, operated on. Doctors in two other cities, Chjca-fgo, 111., and Pittsburg, are on a 1 similar quest. The problems stem from what Flamm says was an accepted medi-1 cal practice in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

'Then, youngsters with enlarged thyorid glands or tonsils often were given radiation treatments. Flamm says Charity Hospital and several private clinics in New Orleans employed those methods. He points out, however, that he talking about radiation therapy, not routine X-rays. He estimates that the former patients now have a 10 per cent chance of developing thyroid cancer. Flamm says "he and five other workers at Charity Hospital are GHEST FREEZERS 6 CU, FT.

$209,95 15 CU. FT. 10 CU. FT. $249.95 20 CU.

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