Winston-Salem Journal LTE SA 12/01/12

A chance for redemption

On Nov. 4, 2008, Barack Obama was elected to the office of president of the United States.

On Oct. 23, 2010, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

On Nov. 6, 2012, Barack Obama was elected to the office of president of the United States for the second time.

Waiting until October 2014 to get this straightened out would not show good decision-making by McConnell. It would behoove McConnell to make a comparatively early call by immediately stating the following: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a two-term president.” McConnell will have solidified his leadership credentials. He also will have gotten it right this time.

BRAD NIVEN

Winston-Salem

The bottom line

As a registered nurse actively practicing for 30 years now, I would like to address the announcement in the story “Wake Forest Baptist eliminates 950 jobs,” Nov. 15). The articles I have read indicate that changes in reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid have impacted the decision. I would like to add and remind people that in 2010, Medicare and Medicaid stopped reimbursing all hospitals for hospital-acquired infections. I was working in a hospital setting in the few years prior when this became known to the health-care community, before President Obama was elected. There was much murmuring of how this was going to impact their bottom line.

I have said for years that a hospital or medical practice should not be able to make more money because they made you sicker once admitted. They have done this for years. Our federal government said that is enough. I feel like it is not truly representative of what brought the changes about for them to imply it has to do with the Affordable Care Act.

President Obama's administration also is cracking down on fraud and abuse on the part of facilities and practitioners. This also cuts into the bottom line as hospital’s claims are being more carefully scrutinized. They took advantage when people became infected with antibiotic-resistant organisms and made lots of money from prolonged hospital stays and treatments. Why get serious about infection control when the same germs make lots of money for them? Doing that is no longer an option.

REBECCA SNODY

Winston-Salem

Misses the point

Once again, columnist George Will rambles on and on yet manages to completely miss the point (“Digesting the Twinkies’ lessons,” Nov. 26). This time, he tries to lay blame for the demise of Hostess on the bakers union, who declined a 27 percent (not 17 percent, as Will quoted) wage cut he argues might have kept the pastry giant alive.

What Will fails to mention is the long history of terrible management and corporate greed at Hostess, and that the union had already taken $150 million in wage cuts in 2005. Despite this, last year after initially filing for bankruptcy, CEO Gregory Rayburn and other executives gave themselves massive raises, doubling and even tripling their salaries — Rayburn’s alone jumped from $750,000 to $2.55 million.

Meanwhile, they looted the worker’s pension fund, all but stealing the retirement money that had been withheld from paychecks. Then last week as the company was finally going under, executives gave themselves an additional $1.75 million in bonuses.

Hostess had $2.5 billion in revenue last year, yet the same clowns who couldn’t make that turn a profit rewarded themselves while demanding sacrifices of everyone else. Did it ever occur to Will that maybe this kind of avarice and stupidity might affect the bottom line? Nah, gotta be the union’s fault ...

Indeed, the photograph the Journal chose to run above Will’s column — a striking worker protesting greed — silently told the real story better than Will’s blathering ever could.

JEFFREY LUNDRIGAN

Lexington

Math

A school board that votes to spend millions of dollars (public funds or private) on tearing down an existing building in order to create a football field for five home games per year (“School board approves stadium,” Nov. 28) needs to repeat fifth-grade math.

BRENDA HUTCHINS

Winston-Salem

Finish the Thought

Briefly complete the sentence below and sent it to us at letters@wsjournal.com. We’ll print some of the results in a few days. Only signed entries, please — no anonymous ones.

“President Obama and Congress will strike a budget deal if...”