Dear Mr. President:
During my shift in the Emergency Room
last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile
revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with
a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very
expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular
telephone equipped with a popular R&B ring tone.
While glancing over her patient
chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as
"Medicaid"!
During my examination of her, the
patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of
cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and
beer.
And, you and our Congress expect me
to pay for this woman's health care?I contend that our nation's
"health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality
hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis
of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend
money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's
self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture
based on the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to
because someone else will always take care of me."
Once you fix this "culture crisis"
that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at
how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.
Respectfully, STARNER JONES, MD