Epictetus
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, MDTruth or fiction? Check out www.snopes.com
Does the doctor have a point? Is it a health care crisis or a culture crisis?
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PS - didn't find it on snopes.
ReplyDeleteA point? Yes. The point? not really; there's not a single cause to America's health care problems, and a single answer won't work. Would you support a fast-food/junk-food tax (revenues go to address the health care "crisis")? I certainly would.
ReplyDeleteIf health club memberships were tax deductable, would you join? I like that idea, but, health clubs would need to have the right/responsibility to eject "members" who haven't shown up in 90 days. Not sure how to pull that off without sounding Orwellian.
It's common knowledge that if you want to encourage something, you subsidize it; if you want to discourage something, you tax it. Taxing health-care plans is ludicrous when the whining is that 40 million people don't have insurance.
On the other hand, the case for a "for profit" health industry is to foster creativity, competition, innovation, etc. Considering that I'd like to see a little LESS creativity from my insurance companies, I'd suggest a 100% tax on them, possible exceptions for 503(c) or other non-profit insurance (mutual) groups. But, then...they're excess funds go back to the rate payers, anyway...that works for me. i think this would mean that insurance companies would look more like our Credit Unions than our Banks...can't the feds push that along, any?
When I am King, I'll fix this mess....
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/starner.asp
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