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Letter from an MD – Healthcare crisis or Cultural crisis?

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This should be on the front page of every newspaper in America — in large
bold letters. This was a “letter to the editor” in August 29th Jackson, MS
newspaper.

Dear Sirs:
During my last night’s shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a
patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very
expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped
with her favorite R&B tune for a ringtone. Glancing over the chart, one could
not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid. She smokes more than one
costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy
beer.
And our Congress expects me to pay for this woman’s health care? Our
nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or
nurses. It is a crisis of culture — a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable
to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or,
heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks “I can do
whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me”. Life
is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow.
Don’t you agree?
STARNER JONES, MD
Jackson, MS