I was absolutely disgusted to read in the May 30 Journal that Novant Health Inc. is laying off 289 people in order to cut costs at a time when its CEO, Carl Armato, makes over $2 million a year ("Area to take big job hit"). Apparently he thinks it's OK for him to have more money than he can ever spend while laying off workers.
If Novant wants to reduce costs, the company should cut the obscenely high salaries of its top management so that it will be able to retain its employees. At a time when many people are struggling and state and local governments need more revenue, we are giving these big businesses huge tax breaks — we must be crazy!
These companies have become too big to care about the general public or the country. Any business that can pay executives millions must be making a profit. The fact is, they have found a way to disguise their profits so that they do not have to pay taxes on them, while the rest of us are paying our fair share.
Surely our state legislators know about this situation. Why don't they act?
Oh, I forgot, we have a Republican majority that believes in protecting the benefits of the super-rich while sticking it to the middle and working classes.
Remember this in November and vote!
ELIZABETH L. SANER
Kernersville
No more war
I have always wanted justice for everyone, especially for the poor and helpless. However, I think it is time to refrain from intervening in other countries' wars. It is time to stop spending trillions trying to solve the world's problems, at least until we get our own problems under control.
We have needlessly lost thousands of American lives, and there are thousands who will live with horrible injuries for a lifetime. Very often none of this has changed a thing, and the countries we have tried to help end up hating us.
Some in the Middle East have been at war with each other for centuries despite all our efforts, and that is not likely to change regardless of what we do.
The policy of "bring them on," or Mitt Romney's flexing his muscles at China or wanting to bomb Iran, will only mean more killing and maiming of human lives.
We will never get out of our mounting debt as long as we are spending trillions on war. Diplomacy has worked before and could work again. I, for one, am sick of war and killing innocent people. Before dropping bombs on people, we need to remember that they are also God's children.
NAOMI J. DAVIS
Winston-Salem
The new prohibition
I admire Dr. James S. Campbell for having the guts to speak out about America's "war on drugs," or our other "prohibition," in the May 31 Finish the Thought reply to the statement: "The next culture war will be over ... ."
Haven't we learned from the last prohibition? It didn't stop people from drinking alcohol. It caused violence. Just like the dreadful violence taking place now at our borders.
This war only helps to fill up our jails with non-violent people, as marijuana does not make people violent and distracts our police force from concentrating on the real criminals. It makes cartel leaders more powerful so that they can kill more people. Instead of arresting these people and ripping their families apart, the U.S. government should give people with an addiction problem access to professional treatment and stop locking them up. We won't solve our drug problem this way, as there will always be people who will abuse drugs.
COBY BISHOP
Clemmons
Emergency care must be available
People who believe they are having emergencies should go to the emergency department without fear that their health plans won't cover the visits. That is the position of the nation's emergency physicians, a position backed by the more than three-quarters of Americans who believe health insurance should pay for every ER visit.
Yet private health plans and Medicaid increasingly want to cut back on coverage for ER visits if those visits turn out to be non-emergencies. The Prudent Layperson Standard protects people from exactly this kind of Monday-morning "quarterbacking" since the average person cannot distinguish between excruciating pain that won't kill them and excruciating pain that will. A recent poll shows that 85 percent of Americans who have been to the ER felt they could not have waited to see their regular doctors.
Apart from being bad medicine, denying payment for emergency care is shortsighted and unlikely to save much. Despite what the fallacies promote, emergency care represents just 2 percent of all health care spending in the United States.
DR. BRET A. NICKS
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE
WAKE FOREST SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Winston-Salem
Looks like a day for complaining.
ReplyDeleteIf this Novant CEO takes a pay cut to just a paltry 1.75 million, will that make the writer feel ok?
No more war. Wish it could be. There will always be those who believe others need to be killed. No bringing God into the discussion-it sends some into fits of rage.
Next culture war? The last one was all about drugs and all that went with it. "One toke over the line sweet Jesus..."
If emergency care is just 2% of HC spending, maybe we bide our time until it becomes 3%.
LTE #1 - In the 1960s, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay in the US was about 25-1. By the end of the Reagan administration, it had risen to about 70-1. It hit a peak around 2000 at 300+ - 1 and has since dropped a bit to somewhere around 250/260 – 1.
ReplyDeleteIt is much lower in the best companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google , Berkshire Hathaway, etc.
And it is also much lower in the rest of the civilized world, ranging from 10-1 to 20-1 in most western democracies.
The wealth imbalance in the USA resembles the imbalances in many third world countries. But if we mention such matters we are accused of waging class warfare.
The truth is that the wealth imbalance is a much greater threat to our future than the national debt.
LTE #2 – The most unrelentingly bloodthirsty warrior of all time has been god.
LTE #3 – The drug war is just another example of the stupidity of our leaders, which means our own stupidity, since we are the ones who keep electing them. The most destructive drug by far is alcohol, which is perfectly legal in all states.
LTE #4 - Dr. Nicks is right. People die unnecessarily every day because they hesitate to go to the emergency room.
Good afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: Actually, it's the BOD who sets the compensation for ceo's, not the ceo himself. Making it public that Armato made over $2M last year followed by the news of Novant laying off nearly 300 to cut costs isn't very good p.r. Executive compensation in this country does appear to be out of whack with what has been the norm previously in this country as well as the norm that still exists in the rest of the world.
LTE 2: It would be nice if there were no more wars, but as long as idiots rise to power in various tender spots around the globe, war is inevitable.
LTE 3: People saw college kids turning on, tuning in and dropping out in the '60's, followed by some infamous deaths in the '70's and '80's from drug overdoses, then decided that a zero tolerance policy was the best for certain drugs. This created a gold mine for US gangs as well as drug cartels in places such as Mexico and Columbia. It's long past time to declare the effort a failure, legalize the drugs, then tax the crap out of them.
LTE 4: Whether one lives or dies or suffers agonizing pain needlessly for extra hours should not be determined by the size of the person's checking account or whether the person has insurance.
Cosby: You've obviously never seen a woman with a needle stuck in her arm, running downing a public street, if you think legalization of drugs is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteDr. Campbell is good example of a smart person that can be extremely foolish and naive on some issues.
Vintage Mitt, from the Conservative Byte, no less:
ReplyDeleteMitt Romney Contradicts Himself on Blind Trust
http://conservativebyte.com/2012/01/mitt-romney-contradicts-himself-on-blind-trust/
If you took everything that Buck boy knows about drugs and put it in a one ounce glass, then poured in exactly an ounce of water, the glass would not overflow.
ReplyDelete