House Bill 412 removes protections from elderly

House Bill 412 removes protections from elderly
EDITOR:
Thank you for your excellent March 5 editorial on the plight of nursing home residents ( & quot;Nursing home residents must be protected from harm & quot;). It was extremely timely as the Ohio Legislature is currently considering House Bill 412. This legislation is nothing more than a cynical & quot;get out of jail free & quot; card for Ohio's 1,000 nursing homes.
HB 412 is a dagger to the heart of Ohio's seniors. I can hardly imagine a crueler, more vicious attack on the rights of our elderly and disabled. This bill would effectively strip nursing home residents of the ability to sue for negligent care.
Imagine what HB 412 would do to the 90-year-old woman who develops deep bedsores because her nursing home does not feed her or turn her in bed or take her to the bathroom. The bedsores resulting from the nursing home's negligence cause great pain and suffering. She sues the nursing home with the help of her family.
At trial, thanks to HB 412, she cannot show the jury evidence about her 20 fellow residents who are also suffering from bedsores because of the nursing home's neglect. She can't even show the jury the Ohio Department of Health citations against the nursing home for failing to feed residents and prevent bedsores.
May God help Ohio's 100,000 citizens in nursing homes if HB 412 passes. Thirty-eight legislators have cosponsored this attack on seniors. They need to hear what you think about it.
BILL ADAMS
Austintown
Investment in higher education needed for high-tech development
EDITOR:
On March 4, you noted the report of a high-tech study panel set up by Ohio's legislature. The gist of the article was that it was going to take years to develop a high-technology, high-wage economy. The lawmakers, industry and labor officials on the 17-member panel clearly recognized the ongoing shift of Ohio's economy from a manufacturing platform to a knowledge platform and that the success of this conversion is intimately connected with an educated work force.
Three of the panel's six recommendations to encourage high-tech businesses include boosting R & amp; D in public and private research facilities, recruiting scientists to attract federal research dollars and helping to foster partnerships between industries and universities. It should be self-evident that improving higher education's infrastructure is essential to the state's future economic success.
Yet in the face of such compelling logic, and, one might add, the real experience of other states like California, New York, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia that long ago invested in their higher-ed systems to open up the high-tech future for their constituents, what have we actually done here in Ohio?
Unfortunately, the Ohio legislature has pulled money from higher ed to fund K-12 education, which needed increased funding under the state constitution's guarantee of a thorough and efficient education for all of the state's schoolchildren. So we have to rob Peter to pay Paul rather than find new sources of funding.
Things get even worse when one considers the dominant philosophy on funding higher education in Columbus: "Let the user pay. Why the heck should taxpayers support the education of students who are the beneficiaries? Are we in the charity business of just helping a few? Let he who eats, pay for the food!" Why are we then surprised to see tuitions going up?
Maybe we could realize, like the panel, that an increased investment here might actually pay dividends to Ohio -- by strengthening the economy and the tax base.
Why don't we try to raise all the boats here with a real state investment, instead of putting the destiny of Ohio's economy on the backs of today's students? Aren't we shirking our responsibility to the next generation of Ohioans? Maybe we should pay attention to this panel in Columbus.
HOWARD METTEE
Boardman