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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 30, 2007

For-Profit Health Care

Regarding 'Nursing Home Cuts Put Costs Over Care, Analysis Finds' (Nation/World, Sept. 23):

My mother was a patient at the Habana Health Care Center after its acquisition by the investor group. My impression was that the employees were warm and caring but that the facility was a hellhole. When I visited her I felt like I was entering another world that nobody should have to endure. I moved her to a not-for-profit home in St. Petersburg where she is thriving at age 96.

This experience made me consider how health care should evolve in the United States. Should Americans devote 100 percent of their health dollars to care, or be willing to line the pockets of wealthy investors, which in the end will result in misery and needless deaths?

DON GREEN

Tampa

High Standards The Norm

Those concerned about the quality of care provided in our state's 700 nursing homes should know that Florida has the highest staffing standards in the nation. Facilities typically staff well above the minimum (there are severe penalties for falling below) and the steady and demonstrable improvement in Florida nursing home quality over the past six years is the result. In addition to the extra bedside caregivers, every single Florida nursing home is required to have risk management and quality improvement programs in place, and those too have since yielded solid results. Long-term care stakeholders, including AARP, the state ombudsman, state regulators - even trial lawyers and their paid advocates - agree that care has vastly improved since landmark elder care legislation was approved in 2001.

Unfortunately, this dramatic improvement in quality is directly threatened whenever federal and state legislators cut Medicare-Medicaid reimbursement to nursing homes, as is currently being contemplated. For the sake of the 72,000 Floridians who live in nursing homes now and for those who one day will, this must not be allowed to happen. Keep greedy trial lawyers out of the equation, too; they have already caused enough harm.

DAVID SYLVESTER

Tallahassee

Having It Both Ways

Regarding 'Health Care: Who Do You Trust?' (Other Views, Sept. 24):

Cal Thomas seems to want it both ways. First he concedes the present health care system isn't working, but later in the man's diatribe he asks what's wrong with the free-market system. Which is it Mr Thomas?

After spending a good quarter of a page blasting Mrs. Clinton, does Cal Thomas offer up anything constructive in getting the nearly 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance covered? Of course not. Perhaps Mr. Thomas doesn't realize the single largest cause of bankruptcy in this countryis due to medical bills. Imagine in the course of a day how many people you see. One in six of those people have no health care coverage. Since Mr. Thomas offers no solutions to changing this can we assume that he likes this situation?

Taxing the richest Americans, to give the less well off health care, sounds like a good idea to me. Perhaps it will even out the huge Bush tax break that so favored the richest Americans.

F.M. YOUNGLOVE

Brandon

'Retail' Prices Vary

We need to make affordable health insurance a priority in the 2008 election. A two-day hospitalization last month, for tests only, resulted in a $28,000 gross billing. My doctor tells me my HMO's contract with the hospital will reduce the actual net billing to around $4,000! That means the uninsured and the insured with a very high deductibles and an HSA pay retail - or spend the rest of their lives in debt.

Cost and price management are essential. Everyone should pay the same 'retail' price for health care.

THOMAS A. PETERSON

Riverview

Hispanic War Heroes

Regarding 'POWerful Recollections Of World War II' (Baylife, Sept. 25):

Thank you to The Tampa Tribune and Leland Hawes for the article on Augustine Fernandez, World War II prisoner of war. The remarkable article recognizes what Ken Burns' documentary, 'The War' on PBS, does not: that Hispanic Americans played heroic roles in the war.

There are several others from Tampa who left the ethnic island of Ybor City to fight for our freedom. Medal recipients Joe Benito, fighter pilot, and Luciano Prida, infantry, come quickly to mind. I hope you will share the stories of other Hispanic American heroes while they are still with us and can appreciate being so fondly remembered.

MARCELINO J. HUERTA III

Tampa

Where Is The Sacrifice?

Watching Ken Burns' 'The War' can't help but make one think of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. But in World War II everyone was involved and sacrificed. Now it is on the shoulders of just a few, while the rest of us just go on with our lives. As one friend put it, we live in a 'military' town with MacDill Air Force Base, and yet where are the public schools doing fundraisers for our troops?

Instead of prom night, homecoming or even the furor over the Bucs or Bulls - whether you support the current wars or not - where are the rallying efforts for our troops or their families? I watched the HBO special 'Alive Day,' and it is a very powerful statement of the suffering endured by a few while we all just look on.

J. NADER

Tampa

The writer is chair of the Florida Health Care Association.

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