Talk back

Readers respond to Work & Money and Business section coverage

Government control complicates hospital expansions

Your article on WakeMed and Rex satellite locations ("Hospitals scurry to build satellites," Business, Nov. 20) exposed two problems with health care in North Carolina: The state controls who can locate where, and consumers don't pay their own bills, so nobody directly sees higher costs. Government control over hospital expansion, through certificates of need, makes the planning process more expensive for these hospitals and in the process restricts access to health care. In the 1950s, patients paid more than $1 of every $2 on their care. Today, we pay about $1 of every $8 directly, with insurance companies and the government paying the rest. Somebody else is paying for our care, but we get mad when they deny care.

More government involvement might stop the building for lack of funds, as Medicaid and Medicare do not pay enough for hospitals to survive. It could also lead to worse care. Medicaid and Medicare refused to certify the state's Broughton mental hospital because of the poor care provided. Where patients pay for their own care, such as LASIK eye surgery, inflation-adjusted prices have fallen 30 percent in a decade and customer satisfaction with the procedure runs about 93 percent, according to the journal Health Affairs.

Joseph D. Coletti Fiscal and health care policy analyst John Locke Foundation

Raleigh

Payday loans were better alternative

In response to your coverage of the N.C. Commissioner of Banks' recent consumer survey ("Survey: Payday lending not missed," Business, Nov. 14): Conclusions reached in the survey do not represent the experiences of the hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who used payday advances to address short-term credit needs. The majority of people surveyed had never used a payday loan or even experienced a financial hardship in the previous three years. Because they never used or needed the product in the first place, it's logical that they did not miss it when it was gone. In fact, the survey demonstrates a strong demand for credit to cover small, unexpected expenses between paydays. Many consumers don't have savings, friends, family or a church from which to borrow.

The elimination of payday loans in North Carolina forced consumers to substitute payday loans with costly, less desirable and even dangerous options. When asked how they handled their most recent financial crises, the most frequent response was "did not pay/paid the expense late." Other telling responses included "bounced checks/used overdraft" and "used a credit card/cash advance." The option of a payday loan could have prevented these negative outcomes. Hard-working, middle-class Americans sometimes fall short of cash between paydays. The authors of this report suggest they are better off paying higher fees for late bill payments and bounced checks or damaging their credit. We believe consumers are better served when given a variety of regulated options and trusted to make decisions about what financial products work best for their families.

Darrin Andersen, president Community Financial Services Association

Alexandria, Va.

TurfAide is sensible on artificial fields

Your newspaper recently reported on the decision by our company to make TurfAide antimicrobial protection standard on all AstroTurf-branded, synthetic turf systems, for which we hold the exclusive license in the U.S. ("Turf maker reacts to staph," Business, Nov. 1). Jeffrey Engel, an epidemiologist with the N.C. Department of Public Health, responded in a letter that "an antimicrobial agent impregnated into artificial turf may prevent growth of MRSA on the turf but not on human skin." He is correct and makes a point we wish to emphasize.