North Carolina Medicaid is compounding this state's economic woes. Thousands of nurses' aides will be having their wages reduced and some will lose their jobs all together in the coming weeks, while we can expect to see more elderly and disabled persons flooding our hospital emergency rooms, increased nursing home admissions and death certificates issued.
Medicaid will pay for the ER visits and nursing home stays. Home care agencies will be laying off their administrative staffs, reducing wages and some totally closing. Unemployment claims will rise.
Those affected will rise up and express their anger to the legislators who passed a budget which called for 3 percent reductions in home care rates.
Finally, on the afternoon of Sept. 30, Medicaid officially posted on their Web site that Medicaid home care providers would be cut upwards of nearly 6 percent that night at midnight. The margins have been so thin for these services that reducing wages to caregivers is the only alternative agencies have.
State law requires that employers give employees a 24-hour notice before reducing their pay. Should not Medicaid be held to a similar standard? This illustrates the current Medicaid administration's total disrespect for its providers.
STEPHEN M. SMITH
Whiteville
Who are you for?
City Council, who are you for? I hope, for all people.
We've asked you about landlords with 10 to 12 people in a one- or two- bedroom home with six to eight cars in driveway and backyard and on streets. You have asked us to put trash cans on yards next to the street for pickup for safety, yet sanitation workers leave them in the street. You've asked for money for Rolling Hills which is on Lakewood Avenue and Roxboro Road.
You've asked for money for NCCU parking on Fayetteville Street. Now, what about Avondale Drive-Roxboro Road where the city raised the streets and lowered the manholes?
How about North Miami and East Geer Street at the stoplight, which is a roller coaster? Maybe it's on the wrong side of town.
Voters, time is coming up to vote!
J. HORACE MIMS
Durham
