Lincoln Daily News
welcomes letters of appreciation, information and
opinion on matters pertaining to the community.
Controversial issues:
As a
community we need to be able to talk openly about
matters that affect the quality of our lives. The
most effective and least offensive manner to get
your point across is to stick to the issue
and refrain from commenting on another person's
opinion. Letters that deviate from focusing on the
issue may be rejected or edited and marked as such.
Submit a letter to the editor online |
You may also send your letters by email to
ldneditor@lincolndailynews.com
or by U.S. postal mail:
Letters to the Editor
Lincoln Daily News
601 Keokuk St.
Lincoln, IL 62656
Letters must include the writer's
name, telephone number, and postal address or email address (we
will not publish address or phone number information).
Lincoln Daily News reserves the right to edit letters to
reduce their size or to correct obvious errors.
Lincoln Daily News reserves the right to reject any letter for
any reason. Lincoln Daily News will publish as
many acceptable letters as space allows.
|
 To the editor:We can learn
from our mistakes. According to the March 2021 AAUP Bulletin, a
decision by the Trump Administration's Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS) resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths
in the United States. Responding to President Trump's call for
deregulation, two years ago the CMS decided to use onetime fines
rather than the fines that formerly accrued for each day of past
violations in nursing home facilities. That action removed a key
incentive for nursing homes to correct problems with their
sanitation programs. As a result, nursing homes were less safe when
the COVID-19 pandemic hit them in 2020.
Before the 2017 rule change, nursing homes were fined up to $22,320
for every day that they didn't comply with federal rules. The 2017
change allowed nursing homes to overlook threats to their residents.
[to top of second column in this letter] |
After July 2017, nursing homes had little impetus to
identify and quickly correct faults in their sanitation protocols.
As a result, more than 153,000 residents and staff of American
long-term care facilities unnecessarily fell victim to the
coronavirus.
To the best of my knowledge, no one from the Trump Administration
has every expressed regret for dropping the ball that killed 153,000
so many of our fellow Americans. Just as the recent "big freeze" in
Texas revealed the dangers of ditching regulations simply to save a
buck, the failure of the Trump administration to regulate nursing
homes properly demonstrates that reasonable regulations are
essential. Fortunately we now have new leadership in Washington.
Gary Davis [Posted
March 20,
2021]
Click here to send a note to the editor about this letter.
|
