Editor's note: Mary K. Wakefield's article was indeed her opinion, published in our Viewpoint column. This column presents a point of view on a topic that may or may not be controversial. We welcome submissions representing all opinions. Guidelines for the column can be found at http://www.editorialmanager.com/ajn.

I've been a reader and purchaser of AJN for 25 years, but I'm not renewing my subscription. I can no longer tolerate the partisan politicization of my professional nursing journal.

"Nurses and the Affordable Care Act" by Mary K. Wakefield (Viewpoint, September 2010) is nothing more than the opinion of a federal government worker who has a deeply vested interest in supporting the misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Not only is she a high-ranking bureaucrat in the present administration, but she patently misleads nurses, presenting the legislation as a boon for the profession. The fiscal nightmare and political feedbag that is this law is conveniently overlooked as Dr. Wakefield lists all the loans that will be available to nurses! Is our personal and national debt not enough that we have to encourage nurses to take on more? All this for "thousands of new nursing jobs," when we continue to have a nursing shortage. The word loan appears no less than eight times in this article, which is supposedly about affordable health care.

Although AJN is not responsible for the law, it's clearly irresponsible to use its bully pulpit to mislead our profession. Shame on you, AJN!

Mary Kay Sessa, MSN, RN

Metuchen, NJ