The News Tribune from Tacoma, Washington • 1

heavily favored Entertainment Section Video Week Syracuse Indiana earn final spots in NCAA final today Spot Accent Section nr Bp Sports Section The IUB Founded 1883 Our second century of service 11987 The Tacoma News Tribune affiffiTacoma1 Washington j-t-- rswi 5 rj'f i TMWVW 1 V-- Yeaiy No 358 S1Qo Hospitals profit from Medicare despite control i i --'v 'f" tt 'y 5 'mZ iJ- 1 "'f yV'-i "'V VV: '-J-y -v iisr ''c-wi i-v they did not result from improper actions by hospitals The new data compiled from hospital cost reports submitted to the government have provoked fierce debate both in Congress and in the health-care industry and will influence members of Congress who are now considering whether to cut Medicare payments to hospitals Hospital executives say such cuts could adversely affect the quality of care and access to it for millions of consumers young and old They say that if Medicare payments are reduced many hospitals would increase charges to patients covered by private health Insurance Under the new system a hospital receives a fixed payment tor each Medicare case depending on the diagnosis of the patient and regardless of the length of the stay in the hospital A hospital can keep the surplus if its costs for treating the patient are less than the payment it receives from the government But it stands to lose money if its costs exceed the federal payment The profit rate or margin is calculated by dividing a Medicare surplus by its Medicare revenue A 12 percent profit rate means the hospital's cost of treating each Medicare patient was on the average 88 percent of what Continued on back page Tha New York Tlmei WASHINGTON Profits earned by hospitals on the treatment of Medicare patients have unexpectedly risen under a payment system established three years ago to control the costs of the federal health program for the elderly government officials say The Congressional Budget Office estimates that hospital profit rates under Medicare were at least 157 percent last year and at least 176 percent in 1985 The budget office the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services and an independent advisory commission established by Congress agree that the hospital profit rates on the treatment of Medicare patients were 12 percent to 15 percent ip 1984 the first year the new payment system was in effect The financial gains occurred even though the number of Medicare patients admitted to hospitals declined steadily from 11 million in 1983 to 108 million in 1986 according to the government Health economists said the profits resulted from several factors: the success of hospitals in controlling costs a dramatic reduction in the length of hospital stays reflecting perhaps the premature discharge of some patients and errors in the data and projections used to set the Medicare payment scale Rep Pete Stark (D-Calif) chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health said that the profit rates but that I i x' -ti 'v '-s't i mi 4 A i riv i 1 v- i Ramtha teachings paying off for Knight tmw Vv fe' By GARY LARSON and KATHLEEN MERRYMAN The Newt Tribune elievers in the Enlightened One" say their behind the fence is finished it will boast six fireplaces a spa sauna and indoor pool The four-car garage shelters a Rolls Royce ami a BMW Knight began charging small sums in the late 1970s for sessions with Ramtha held around the country AP Laserphoto Care parked on a quiet west Beirut boulevard where seven died Saturday smolder from the first fatal blast since intervention Beirut car bomb kills 7 along lane teachings which involve reincarnation and the belief that everyone is divine and has the power to create his own happiness have caught on like wildfire attracting thousands of believers Among them is actress Shirley MacLaine who maintains a home in rural Pierce County annual receipts in 1986 from Ramtha activities were estimated to be in the 3 million range Although her accountant Ray Johnson of Puyallup did not give a specific figure he said her earnings had increased sixfold since 1984 when she earned about 8500000 Knight declined repeated requests to Continued on back page lives have been enriched by the spirit of a 35000-year-old warrior who tells them they have the power to realize their dreams Knight a 41-year-old former cable-TV executive from New Mexico has taken those teachings to heart and to the bank by serving as the for Ramtha's messages Thanks partly to the flow of Ramtha cash Knight and her husband Jeff have been able to build a dream home valued by Thurston County authorities at 11 million on their 50-acre farm near Yelm A cinderblock fence equipped with a security system runs along the frontage on Yelm Highway Southeast When the 20000-square-foot home The Associated Press order on Feb 22 Among those killed were a Lebanese army soldier and his fiancee who were in a Renault automobile parked next to the BMW sedan which police said was packed with an estimated 165 pounds of explosives There was no claim of responsibility for the attack Nor has there been in 14 earlier bombings after the Syrians Continued on back page i BEIRUT Lebanon A car bomb explosion on a seaside boulevard killed seven people Saturday and wounded 12 most of them strollers who stopped at beachfront stands to sip coffee police said The 8:20 am blast on Ramlet al-Bai-da thoroughfare the was the first fatal car bombing in Moslem west Beirut since 7500 Syrian troops fanned out in the sector to keep CHRISTIE JENKINS Knight Index Scientists plan cut-rate space station Los Angelas Timas i i BOULDER Colo A consortium of 57 major universities and research institutions has put together a bold plan to build its own space station out of discarded fuel tanks from routine launches of thef shuttle space said Randolph Ware president of External Tanks Corp a nonprofit company set up by the university consortium to build the station are a warehouse on the edge of an industrial The heart of the proposal involves the use of the massive external fuel tanks used during the shuttle launches The 30-ton tanks constructed of high-grade aluminum and reinforced to serve as the supporting the shuttle and its two solid rocket Continued on back page tiful it could be offered for rent to universities governments and corporations at bargain-basement prices according to officials with the project The proposal is being sponsored by the University Corp for Atmospheric Research which Includes prestigious universities such as California Institute of Technology Stanford Harvard Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology The universities' space station would be designed to supplement station "We are not a substitute for the and research parks in space Although austere compared to the state-of-the-art space station that NASA wants to build the facility envisioned by the universities would cost a fraction of station The space station planned by NASA is being designed to push technology to the limits through the use of artificial intelligence high-speed computers and sophisticated hardware However the station proposed by the universities would be much larger than so large in fact that space would be so plen More sunshine today with highs around 60 Complete weather Page A-2 i Normally the massive tanks are destroyed as they tumble from near-orbital velocity plunging 1 through the atmosphere and even-I tually into the Indian Ocean The consortium wants to propel the tanks into orbit and use them as building blocks for huge industrial.