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Business letters, August 19

Published August 19, 2006 at midnight

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Qwest, U S West crooks leave the fallout to us

Between CEOs Sol Trujillo and Joe Nacchio robbing U S West and Qwest, no wonder my bill has doubled since 2000. It makes me mad that these men did this to a company where everyone now is paying for all the loot they walked off with. Nacchio worries that he won't get a fair trial in the Denver area, but we are very intelligent people who would weigh the pro and cons of the stock issues before judging. I, for one, want to daily find out how the trial is going, and why should Nacchio be allowed to have the trial elsewhere? Now we find out we are paying for Trujillo's huge retirement packet and find he is now working and probably making tons of money in Australia. What a bunch of crooks! They took a good company and not only made sure there were no dividends paid out but weakened the stock so badly, we will be paying for this forever.

Janet E. Berens

Aurora

Public needs to know nurse-to-patient ratio

Regarding Rachel Brand's Aug. 7 article, "Life, Death Decisions: Shopping for the right hospital can make a critical difference in the care you receive, medical experts say": I'm heartened that patients are slowly being given a peek at hospital quality data. But while some Coloradans may benefit by knowing things like a hospital's cardiac procedural frequency, I believe that they also deserve to know if a hospital is going to provide enough nurses to give them safe patient care. A mountain of studies shows that better nurse-to-patient ratios result in improved quality care and a decreased risk of death.

Coloradans were almost given the opportunity to access this data. Last year, the SEIU Nurse Alliance of Colorado supported the Colorado Health Care Transparency Act, which would have provided the public with hospital nurse-to-patient ratios. The bill passed the Senate but died in the House under heavy opposition by the Colorado Hospital Association. Next year, nurses will be back at the state legislature to ensure that Coloradans have access to a complete picture of health care quality indicators.

Mitch Ackerman, president

Service Employees International Union, Local 105

Denver

Net neutrality? Look who gets your money

Jeff Smith's article about Net neutrality was a fascinating and well-told tale. And so full of corporate blather and technical, free-market daydreaming that the real impact of the issue was hard to divine. One way to figure out who to believe in a case like this is to ask "who benefits?" Ask yourself: "Who do I pay for access to the Internet?" Right, the very same companies - Comcast and Qwest - opposed to Net neutrality. Why are they opposed? Because it would restrict them from increasing their profits at the content side of the connection.

Today, they charge you and me for access. And we already pay different rates for different speeds.

Now they want to make even more money by implementing the same kind of pricing at the other end of the connection. And they want you to believe that somehow - in violation of every law of economics and logic - this will come at no cost to you. But of course, if the company from which you download your movies, for example, is being charged more, there is only one place that extra money can come from - you. Obviously, it will come disguised as a higher price for the movie. This idea of charging more at the content end of the pipe is simply a sneaky way to raise your overall costs of using the Internet without raising your actual monthly rates.

Qwest's Steve Davis says, "We don't need to regulate the Internet." Sounds nice, but Net neutrality is not about regulating the Internet. It's about regulating Internet service providers such as Qwest and Comcast. Davis is really saying, "Don't regulate my company."

Steve Lang

Lake Luzerne, NY

It's plain rude not to tell job seekers of outcome

I was laid off and have spent the last several months job hunting. I have been appalled by the lack of courtesy afforded me during this process. A majority of the times that I have interviewed with a business face-to-face I have not been contacted about the status of the position afterward. An e-mail or call saying, "Thanks for coming in, but we have decided on another candidate" almost never comes. When I have e-mailed or called asking about the status of a decision, I generally don't get a response either.

I find this incredibly rude.

I don't expect a follow-up from a phone interview or from recruiters who ask to submit me as a candidate for a position, but I do expect a higher level of courtesy from a company that has brought me in as a candidate to fill a position. I have been brought in for interviews lasting several hours with three or four groups of interviewers and not gotten a follow up! Though the "We picked another candidate" e-mail cannot be a real fun one to write, I find it utterly unprofessional that hiring managers/HR folks don't do this.

Shelley Hull

Denver