VIEW OF A YOUNG DOCTOR

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