Inbox: Thanks, Obama

Obamacare Enriches Hospitals

I like Willamette Week and read it every week, and I understand your "to provide an independent and irreverent understanding" phrase in your mission statement.

But the title and subtitle of last week's cover story ["Thanks, Obama!: The Five Things Hospitals Don't Want You to Know About Obamacare," WW, April 13, 2016] is unfair and misleading, especially because most people who just read the headlines incorporate that into their political and social views.

Hospitals not using their "profits" and cash reserves for community benefit is not Obama's or the Affordable Care Act's fault. State Rep. Mitch Greenlick is right when he says it's disingenuous that hospitals claim most of that money through underpayment from federal reimbursements.

I like the headline on the article's sidebar: "Voodoo Accounting."

—Richard Dandliker, North Portland

If hospitals are doing community-benefit work for less than their costs, shouldn't they be losing money rather than building large cash reserves?

If the numbers they are using are "real," then they are charging more than their costs for other services—much more by the sound of it.

—"Dispassionate Assassin"

City Council Candidate

As a therapist, I am appalled at the last line of this article ["Family Values," WW, April 13, 2016]. It speaks volumes to Fred Stewart's character.

Anyone who has ever parented a teenager knows how difficult and challenging it can be, but it is part of adolescence to push back and test limits. It is a parent's role and job to offer guidance, boundaries and limits that are also respectful. And safe.

Using one's power to physically control or intimidate a child is unwarranted. If you can't better handle your own child's disrespectful behavior, if you would actually prefer no relationship with your child to one where you are forced to learn how to appropriately deal with their anger, then you have no business working in government.

—"C.A. Therapissed"

Parents are supposed to discipline their children. Nothing in this story sounds like child abuse or assault.

Unfortunately, many Portlanders don't have children and may hold an unrealistic vision of how to raise children.

—Pamela Fitzsimmons

Corrections

A story last week on Portland City Council candidate Fred Stewart ("Family Values," WW, April 13, 2016) incorrectly stated he was arrested because he was $9,000 in arrears on paying child support. A warrant was issued for Stewart's arrest in 2013 for nonpayment of child support, but he was not arrested.

Last week's interview with the founder of Portland State University's "Students for Trump" group ("Four Questions for Volodymyr Kolychev," WW, April 13, 2016) misquoted his characterization of his political opponents. He described them as "aspiring Bolshevik commissars," not "aspiring bullshit commissars." WW regrets the errors.

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Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mzusman@wweek.com.

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