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 ore 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
Editor's Note: The one fallacy of this note and one commonly held by people who believe other folks are basically good folks is that Obama doesn't know the abuse of the system right now because if he did he wouldn't create a worse situation. WRONG!
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 ore 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
Editor's Note: The one fallacy of this note and one commonly held by people who believe other folks are basically good folks is that Obama doesn't know the abuse of the system right now because if he did he wouldn't create a worse situation. WRONG!
No Job=Medicaid
ReplyDeleteBeing a Crack Ho=Gold tooth and tats
"Starner Jones" could be a generic term for every ER Doc in the country.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall working a shift where I DIDN'T see a patient such as he described!!
-85
Starner Jones is a real doc...
ReplyDeletea Senior ER resident at Univ Mississippi...
and he's got some Big Brass Ones to write the President(Peace be upon Him) using his real name...
Poor guy might as well just move to Saudi Arabia...its not so bad once you get used to the Heat&Humidity...
Permission to quote to a class of nursing students, SIR!
ReplyDelete...and I'd have your babies in gratitude but that particular factory has been shuttered permanently.
Pattie, RN
I watched some video where a black woman was arguing with some Tea Party protestors about the need for the passage of this bill. She had been laid off of her job and was concerned that if her kids got sick, they would not have access to health care. One of the protestors told her that the state they lived in had SCHIP for uninsured children, to which the woman replied: "I don't want my kids on state assistance!" ....(?) I guess she thinks it's ok as long as she forces everyone else onto state assistance with her? By that same logic, we should all use foodstamps so as not to humiliate the people who receive assistance there as well.
ReplyDeleteI've seen that gal on TV. It's the Bombshell porn chick that broke up Jesse James' marriage...
ReplyDeleteCan I just point out that you already pay for that woman's health care. The bill is to help those who do work for themselves or who are just unlucky; those who your insurance companies won't cover.
ReplyDeleteA comic of Dracula (the Pharma Co.s) sucking on the patient (for his money) and the friend getting a kickback to be silent.
ReplyDeleteLINK
"a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self... "
A Doctor can't tell the patient the truth.
A patients illness often comes from a lack of minding the store, minding themselves.
gluttony (too much enjoyment of food) renamed an eating disorder.
greed- renamed Gambling addiction disorder.
sloth - (inability to be thankful for God's gifts, the five senses) renamed a depression disorder.
All the other disorders in the DSM.
Doctors opened the door in allowing people to deny their personal responsibilities due to a mental illness (as a medical illness), with the solution of Pharma drugs-meds SCIENTIFIC solution to the patients lack of discipline to mind themselves. Pharma Chemicals do not know right from wrong, and consuming them will not help a persons morals/self discipline.
"In physics the same laws are used to explain why airplanes fly and why they crash. In medicine the same principles are used to explain why people live and why they die. In psychiatry, however, one set of rules is used to explain sane behavior and another set of rules is used to explain insane behavior: sane behavior is attributed to reasons (choices), insane behavior to causes (diseases). " Thomas Szasz.
I read this letter a few weeks ago and it has so much truth to it. Anyone that doubts the sincerity of this letter just needs to come work a shift in the ER. Not even the whole shift, and hour or two would do!
ReplyDeleteDEAR mark ps2,
ReplyDeletei love szanz and believe that psychiatry, with the benefit of the retrospectoscope, will be recognized as being the "leeching and bleeding" of "modern medicine".
frank,
you go boy. subtle as a fart in church and just as funny.
see editors note added to post...
The new rallying cry for the Democratic party is,"I want me some of that Obama money!" What happend to, "Ask not what your country can do for you?" Shame on you!
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, in Fire/EMS we see this multiple times a day. The folks who have a big screen TV, PS3, and new furniture in their subsidized apt demand an ambulance ride to the hospital for a stubbed toe, and then ask for cab fare to get home. Meanwhile the working folks apologize to us for responding to their real emergencies. We are noting that the working folks are disappearing from our district though, and we are seeing the corresponding increase in calls.
ReplyDeleteSigh. All this medico-politico rumination is bad for you 911. Just read some of MDOD archives... a different time, huh. Better place.
ReplyDeleteWhere are Dr. X, SCat, Eto? How's OF?
-SCRN
I read this once a week... there is just so much truth to it.
ReplyDelete