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xDic (gamecock hHHHhHBSI Bush announces prescription drug plan by Karen Guillo Associated Press ALLENTOWN, Pa. -Calling Medicare “too vi tal to be neglected,” George W. Bush announced a $158 billion plan to help seniors pay for pre scription drugs and to improve benefits in the health program that ensures millions of elderly Ameri cans. “By history and by choice, our nation makes a promise: We will honor our fathers and our moth ers by providing quality health insurance for every senior,” Bush said Tuesday. The Republican pres idential nominees’ plan would pay at least one fourth of the cost of prescription drug coverage, whether seniors choose the optional new Medicare benefit Bush proposes or a private plan. The el derly poor would get drug plans for free. Democratic nominee A1 Gore, who wants a more expansive prescription plan added to Medicare, said Bush’s plan wouldn’t do enough for millions of middle-class seniors. “Nearly half of all of those who don’t have coverage today would not get coverage under the plan that he’s announcing today,” Gore said dur ing a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio. He also chaiged that the plan would push seniors into man aged care plans and said Bush wouldn’t be able to pay for it because of his tax ciits. “The biggest problem is there’s no money to pay for it if you give away all of the surplus in the form of a giant tax cut to the wealthy at the ex pense of the middle class,” Gore said. But a Bush spokeswoman said the proposal fit with the gov ernor’s balanced budget plan. Under Bush’s proposal, health plans that par ticipate in Medicare would be required to provide a prescription drug benefit, which most of them do already. Traditional Medicare plans adminis tered by the government currently offer no pre scription coverage. The Texas governor said his effort would “mod ernize” Medicare, and criticized Vice President Gore for failing to do so. “For eight years the cur rent administration has had this opportunity and has squandered it,” Bush said during his speech at a senior center. Bush’s plan will sharpen the debate over health care. Gore has proposed spending an estimated $253 billion over 10 years to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, the federal program for elderly and disabled Americans. The Bush cam paign has characterized Gore’s plan as an expen sive, big government program. Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said he would let seniors choose the best health plan and help them pay for it, whether it’s private or under Medicare, “unlike A1 Gore’s plan, which locks you into a one-size-fits-all government plan.” In Washington, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said Bush’s plan would vary from state to state and “leads down a path that changes the Medicare plan.” “What they do is they privatize and start in come-testing for the first time a benefit, and the question is which one is next,” Shalala said. As Bush was promoting his Medicare plan, the Democratic National Committee unveiled a new TV ad to run this week in nine key states, criti cizing Bush’s health care record. The ad focuses on another program — Medicaid — and accuses the Texas governor of failing to extend the state federal health insurance program to enough of his state’s poor children. The Bush campaign called the ad a distortion. About 25 million people in the Medicare pro gram have prescription drug coverage of some sort; 12 million people on Medicare have none. Bush is proposing to spend $110 billion over 10 years to modernize Medicare and give $48 billion to states over the next four years to help se niors pay for drugs in the short term. Bush also wants to restore $40 billion worth of Medicare cuts made under the balanced budget act of 1997. “Medicare is a vital program, too vital to be neglected,” Bush said. “It needs preventive health care now.” Bush wants the “Immediate Helping Plan” money for states to flow as soon as 2001 if he’s elected. It would cover all costs of prescription drugs for seniors earning up to $ 11,300 (135 per cent of the poverty level), and a part of the cost for seniors earning more. The longer-range $110 billion plan would: • Guarantee that every senior shall remain entitled to current Medicare benefits. • Give Medicare recipients a choice of mod ern health plans, including coverage for prescrip tion drugs. • Cover the foil cost of Medicare premiums for seniors with incomes at or below 135 percent of poverty, and subsidize the cost of prescription drug coverage for seniors with incomes between 135 percent and 175 percent of poverty. • Cover catastrophic Medicare costs in ex cess of $6,000 annually for all seniors. • Pay 25 percent of premium costs for pre scription drug coverage for all seniors above 175 percent of poverty. Native Americans help fight Western fires by Shannon Dininny Associated Press HAMILTON, Mont. - Drawing on their knowledge of the land and the behavior of wildfires, thousands of American Indians are helping battle the blazes burn ing across the West. Firefighting has become a much-needed source of revenue for tribes across the country. And at a time when blazes across the Wfest are stretching man power thin, the native firefighters play an important role. “They can carry their weight,” said Mike LeBrun, assistant fire management officer for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Rocky Mountain regional office in Billings. The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates that Mon tana, South Dakota, North Dakota and northeastern Nebraska alone have contributed 2,400 Indian fire fighters this summer. Indian crews are well-represented among the hun dreds of firefighters in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, which is facing one of the West’s biggest fires. Black feet Indians are here. So are the Gros Ventre, Assini boine, Chippewa Cree, Kiowa and Choctaw. Fire has been an integral part of Indian culture, making Indian firefighters particularly well-suited for the jobs, said crew boss Dondi Tonasket, 36, a Colville Indian with his hair in braids. “We used to set our own bums just to cleanse the forest in the past,” he said. “Now, our fire knowledge, the way we move through the mountains, is an ad vantage. We are more aware of the type of situations we could get into, and we’re better at remembering ground. It seems to come natural with our crews.” Tonasket, who has been fighting fires for 13 years, keeps his crew in a tight circle of tents — a Circle of Life. “It’s the way I treat my crew,” said Tonasket, who learned the celebration-of-life tradition from his elders. “We stay in the circle, we treat each other as family.” “I guess you could say we’re well-adapted to this,” said 33-year-old Leonard Foreman, a Kiowa from Carnegie, Okla. “Wfe can adapt to things better because we’ve had to survive.” Foreman has been fighting fires for the past six years and is on his fifth fire this season. This year, his 29-year old brother also joined his crew. “Most of us are related by blood or by mar riage,” Foreman said. *We learned how to handle pres sure a long time ago and work well together because of it.” It is more than culture and it is more than family. Lloyd Reevis, 68, started fighting fires in the 1950s and returned to camp this year from Montana’s Blackfeet Reservation to make some money. On Indian reservations where unemployment of ten is staggering, the seasonal work of firefighting for the federal government has become an economic an chor. The salary for firefighters starts at more than $10.60 an hour, and rises to as much as $ 13.30 an hour for crew bosses. This year, Reevis’ daughter also turned to fire fighting, and his wife watches their grandchildren while their daughter is on the fire line. Tonasket, who works as a road engineer for the Colville Tribes during the winter, said his firefighting money serves as more of a bonus for his family of six. To members of his crew, it is much more. “Their salary, wages, here is probably a third of their wages for the year,” Tonasket said. “Firefight ing is a big part of our employment on the reserva tions.” While no one is cheering, the busy fire season has been a boon for the Indian fire crews after two rela tively quiet years that hurt reservation income. The huge fires in the Bitterroot Valley are waning, blunted by cool, rainy weather over the Labor Day weekend. Fires continued to bum on more than 400,000 acres in and around the valley Tuesday, and hundreds of firefighters worked to contain them. Tonasket’s crew of 19 men and one woman re ceived word it is pulling out for a couple of days of rest. “We made a good reputation for ourselves here,” he said. Hormones from page 5 lesser-known long-term effects. “Ultimately, it’s up to the patient to decide if this is the direction they want to go,” said Bieber. So what are the facts? Naturally occurring estrogen keeps brain cells healthy, benefits the heart by helping keep choles terol at healthy levels, helps bones maintain cal cium and remain strong and helps keep breast tis sue firm and the vaginal lining moist. The facts get murky, however, when the question is whether supplements of synthetic es trogen can step into the breach and do all those pos itive things when levels of the natural hormone drop. Synthetic estrogen is approved only to treat bone-thinning osteoporosis and vasomotor symp toms such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. Though many women say hormones help them with menopausal moodiness, depression and forgetfulness, drug references advise against taking them for those conditions. Some research has suggested that women tak ing hormone supplements are less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease, but a study earlier this year found no estrogen benefit in women who already have the memory-robbing disease. Because of the drop in estrogen, women’s risk of heart disease increases after menopause, and doc tors have thought that synthetic estrogen helps the heart by improving cholesterol levels. But recent research suggests that, at least in patients who al ready have heart disease, estrogen doesn’t pre vent heart attacks. Estrogen also promotes cell-growth and has been linked to cancerous breast tumors, but re searchers disagree on the degree of risk. It’s also been linked to uterine cancer, but taking it with progestin has long been thought to alleviate that risk. Recent studies, however, suggest progestin can also increase risk for breast cancer. There are many reasons for the seemingly con tradictory findings, including differing study meth ods and differences in patient populations. In the past, women who decided to take hor mones tended to be health-conscious and healthi er and therefore started out at low risk for things like heart disease, Stefanick said. Now, with some 20 million women nationwide on hormones — a number expected to rise as ba by boomers reach menopause — users come from a broader group and evaluating hormones’ ef fect on health is trickier, she says. Donna Bender, a career planning instructor at San Jose State University, has read the negative re ports but swears by hormone supplements. For months, she suffered severe hot flashes, night sweats and memory loss. She lost shopping lists, misplaced her wallet twice in one week and cried when the grocery store was out of her brand of tuna. Eating “the natural stuff,” like tofu, sweet pota toes and other foods containing estrogen, didn’t work. “My life was miserable,” said Bender, 51. “I went from having this really smart, great memory to just feeling stupid.” That all changed when she began treatment three years ago. “I would do without my cats and my husband but not my estrogen,” she said. “There is a possi bility this is not a good thing for me, but I have to weigh both sides for me, and so maybe live a short er but a better life.” When your socks stand at attention, it's time O,, to go to... CL ° ' V :. . SQO 0 O ksn&lfill0 O Corner of Assembly C* Whaley_2j2-BBB5 Find the Best Price on New and Pre-Owned Hondas www.rickhendrickhonda.com HONDA 791-5660 1650 Airport Boulevard • West Columbia, SC 29171 Fox pledges to fight corruption in Mexico by Julie Watson Associated Press MEXICO CITY - Soldiers open fire on thousands of peaceful demonstra tors. A presidential candidate is gunned down on a campaign stop. The gov ernment spends $100 billion to buy overvalued bad loans, some from its own supporters. Mexico has a lot of dirty laundry. During the 71 years that Mexico in effect had one-party rule, the se crets lay buried. But now the Institu tional Revolutionary Party is out of office, and the new president, Vicente Fox, is pledged to eradicate the cor ruption that pervades Mexican soci ety. He says that one of the first things he will do after he is sworn in Dec. 1 is have Mexico’s Congress set up a “Transparency Commission” to start digging into the dirt. “Tliis is essential for Mexico’s new democracy,” said Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, a senator and key member of Fox’s transition team. “But this is a very dif ficult task.” It will also be the sternest test of Fox’s credentials as a reformer. Among the cases Congress could consider: • A banking scandal in which loans to ruling party supporters were never repaid and then were absorbed by the government as part of a $ 100 bil lion, taxpayer-funded bank bailout. • Lingering suspicions that shad owy, still-unidentified figures might have played a part in several high-pro file murders, including that of ruling party presidential candidate Luis Don aldo Colosio, who was gunned down at a campaign stop in Tijuana in March 1994, and that of Roman Catholic Car dinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, who died in a fusillade of bullets at Guadala jara’s airport in 1993. • The stunning assault on a peace ful democracy protest Oct. 2, 1968, in Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City that killed hundreds. The exact number of dead remains unknown, and it is un clear who ordered a security battalion to open fire on the unarmed crowd of mostly university students. Other unhealed wounds include the disappearance of hundreds of left ists during an army crackdown on guer rilla bands in the 1970s, the unsolved killings of hundreds of opposition par ty activists over the past 12 years, and the work of domestic intelligence agen cies that opposition parties have long accused of political spying. The hope is that a war on big corruption will set an example that will stamp out the petty corruption which people tend to take as a harm less fact of everyday life. Motorists avoid a traffic ticket by forking over a few dollars to the cop as casually as they would tip a wait er. Bar owners slip an official a few hundred dollars for a liquor license rather than take on the bureaucracy. Some journalists support them selves with the money they receive for writing favorable articles, and gov ernment purchasers pocket up to 10 percent of any contract. Delal Baer, a Mexico specialist at the Center for Strategic and Inter national Studies in Washington, sees a risky balancing act ahead, lest the housecleaning become “a witch hunt” that could bring the whole house down. “Mexico is in a bind,” she said. “You need to be careful not to destroy your entire establishment because much of tliat establishment is also good. But by the same token you need to meet people’s expectations that rule of law is not an empty promise.” The risk is that such a commission under the control of Congress could get Doggeci down in politics and end in failure, dragging Fox’s administra tion down with it. Mexicans aren’t encouraged by the Italian example, in which a sweeping corruption cleanup implicated so many politicians, businessmen and bureau crats that the courts were clogged and accusations were made that the in vestigation had turned political. Aguilar Zinser said Mexico’s cleansing must involve all political parties — including Fox’s National Ac tion Party. There is also the fear that given Mexico’s record of political violence, the deeper the investigators dig, the greater the physical risk to them will be. “Obviously this is going to be a dangerous task,” Aguilar Zinser said. Jesus Zambrano, secretary-gener al of the leftist Democratic Revolu tion Party, said an investigation is “ab solutely necessary and indispensable in proving that the new government wants to combat corruption and im punity.” Summit from page 5 liameiu-in-exile. The group denied in volvement in the attacks. There were also three separate bomb threats at the hotel where Khata mi was staying, but the suspicious pack ages were found to be harmless, po lice said. Following up on his call two years ago at the United Nations for a “dia logue among civilizations,” Khatami on Tuesday launched a yearlong cam paign to promote global discussion. The General Assembly has proclaimed 2001 the Year of Dialogue Among Civ ilizations. Opening a daylong round-table talk Tuesday, Annan said the United Na tions itself was created “in the belief that dialogue can triumph over dis cord, that diversity is a universal virtue and that the peoples of the world are far more united by their common fate than they are divided by their separate identities.” The reformist president, whose country has been criticized for its hu man rights record, uiged Iranian ex patriates on Monday to embrace their native land and help it develop eco nomically. “Our hearts are beating for the love of one place, and this place is Iran,” Khatami told an applauding au dience that filled a U.N. conference room. He did not mention a bill submit ted to the Iranian parliament Sunday that would grant amnesty to Iranians who fled the country, but his speech clearly signaled his support for an open door for expatriates. St. Thomas More Catholic Center Rev. Tun Lfjewski Mass Schedule Sacrament of Penance Chaplain Saturday 4:30pm Saturday 3:00pm-4:00pm Sr. Julienne Guy OSU Sunday 11:00am, 7:30pm or by appointment Director of Christian . _ . _ . Formation Newman Club Tuesday 7:00pm T^mo»^w i6io Greene St. 799-5870 (Across from School of Nursing) Apply for the Truman Scholarship Attend the Truman Workshop September 7 at 4 p.m. rui experienced studdnt leaders seeking careers in public service. Is this you? bressette Room Qjlu) Harper College, 3rd floor * For more information: Office of Fellowships & Summer Programs Harper College Room 101 777-0958 - www.sc.edu/ofsp