View of a Doctor

[Jo McDonald]

Below is a short two-paragraph letter  written by a young physician by the name of Dr. Starner Jones. He wrote this to the White House.  He accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis".   


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 ringtone.  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 in 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





     I say Amen to this one!!! 
Jo Mc

[Dee Gee]

Dr. Jones, is right on.

[Ms Bear]

Stand in line at any grocery store and watch who pays with food stamps and who pays with money.  Most of the food stamp payers have new manicures, an expense I feel I use on other things and time that I can use in other ways.  Notice also the tattoos and jewelry, not all of it costume.   Shoes and clothes I can't afford to wear.

I think there should be a time limit on how long someone can get food stamps but as long as we have people that think they deserve them because they are too lazy to work we will continue supporting them.

[srkruzich]

Ms Bear,
I see it all the time and i just have to resist the urge to say to these folks, you need to thank me and the taxpayors for their food.  Even when i was working a decent paying job years ago, i couldn't afford some of teh steaks and seafood and high dollar food items that i saw foodstamp folks buying.   I instead bought staples to feed my family to make sure we all had plenty of food to eat, as nutritious as i could afford.  There were a lot of beans and cornbread meals over the years.

[Varmit]

You know, I wonder if Doc. Jones bothered to ask the patient what they did before they got medicaid?  Could be that that patient had a job that allowed her to purchase those items mentioned, then lost said job.  And while we're at it, anyone care to ask the good doctor why medical care costs so damn much?  I mean honestly, the excuse of "well, we have to pay for our equipment" is getting a little old.  Frankly, health care in the worlds richest nation should be free.

As for foodstamps, I'd rather see those folks buying better food, at least the money isn't wasted on hamburger helper.

[srkruzich]

As for foodstamps, I'd rather see those folks buying better food, at least the money isn't wasted on hamburger helper.

Do WHAT?  Why don't they get out and get a damn job to buy the steak n lobster. Screw that!  Let them eat hamburger helper and i consider THAT a luxury.  Personally i would ban meat sales, make it the only thing they can get is veggies. and beans, flour and cornmeal.

[Diane Amberg]

Nah, ya can't do that, but many urban poor would do well with cooking classes so they could learn what to do with more food basics, such as cheaper cuts of meat and yes, beans. Some very poor people who have learned to cook well have good nutrition, but are undernourished do to lack of amounts of food. They just don't get to eat much. Others are eating too much starch, the so called white diet, and are very short on protein, and fruit.

[larryJ]

When I was in high school in a small town in Colorado, my best friend's father was the custodian at the local courthouse.  One day a week, he would ask us to come help him haul the sacks of beans, rice, flour, sugar, canned goods, condiments, etc., from the basement of the courthouse to the back door.  Those who were on welfare (no food stamps in those days) would pull up and we would load foodstuffs in their car for them.  Sometimes it was difficult to find the latch for the trunk on the Mercedes or the Cadillac.  Others would get upset if you tried to put bags on their leather seats in the car.  Very few of these people would help load groceries into their car, insisting we should do it as we were getting paid for it. (We weren't)  I vowed to myself then that if I ever got to a point where I couldn't scrounge up something to eat, I would rather starve.  I thank the good Lord that I have always been able to fend for myself and to provide for my family later on.  I have seen those people at the grocery store who use food stamps and/or WIC recipients.  They get their groceries and load them into expensive cars or big SUV's.  I always make sure when I join a checkout line, that there is not some person leafing through their booklet to tear out the appropriate coupon.  They take forever.  I rank these people right up there with those who have managed to obtain a handicap parking tag even though they are not handicapped. 

We have had medical insurance all of our working lives and still have to fight the insurance company now and then for coverage of some procedure, while those on welfare or government assistance can walk into the county hospital and get the same treatment. 

So what is the solution?  These problems are too massive even for our government agencies to solve.  They can get some of the offenders, but there are just too many out there.  Do the honest people who don't abuse the system need to "rat out" those who do?  But, then again, how do you know who deserves the benefits or who doesn't?  Same with the handicap parking.  Someone might park in a handicap space and not show signs of a handicap, but maybe they have something wrong that is not openly apparent.  How do you know if that lady with the food stamps has a husband who just lost his job, and they owned that big expensive car before her was laid off? 

Why am I in Politics when I said I wasn't going to?  LOL

Larryj

[redcliffsw]

Abolish the Federal food stamp program.  What's so difficult to understand about that?

Handicapped parking spots is another Federal thing brought on by Bush #1 if I recall correctly.
Nice thoughtful program but that's not what the Fed's are to do.

There's no end to what they dream up for the masses.  After all these years, it ought not be a surprise that the Fed's are going broke. 

[twirldoggy]

Oh I ate beans and bread and beans and cornbread as a child and I learned to love it.  My grandmother always made sure we had peanut butter and homemade jelly.  We did not have the expensive food, so we did not miss it.

Nowadays I love whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter and red plum jam or jelly.