Don't Get the Wrong Message

I got this letter in my Hotmail inbox today.  I let out a small laugh in agreement as I read this letter.  I wanted to share it with you, but first I had to make sure it was a true story.  According to snoops.com, it is.  

The funny thing is, there is a follow-up letter on Snoops.  One that basically says, "Don't judge a person a person according to their looks and choices.  We are all Americans and we deserve better.  It is not an us vs. them,  we are all in this together."

The person who wrote the follow-up letter has totally missed the point of the letter.  The point is this lady does and has things that aren't CHEAP or necessary, yet we pay for this woman's health care.  It's an entitlement issue, not a looks issue.  To the credit of the follow-up writer, the doctor does mention "vices," but working in the medical field, I'm sure he has seen what smoking and drinking can do to a person.  I am also pretty sure that he wouldn't care if a person smoked or drank IF HE WASN'T PAYING FOR THEIR MEDICAL COSTS.  It's not a holier-than-thou judgement issue, it's an irritation!

Read the letters and see what you think.

This doctor hits the nail squarely on the head. Please meet Dr. Starner Jones from Jackson, Mississippi. [see photo below]. His short 2-paragraph letter to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis". Its worth a quick read:

Starner Jones,   MD                 Dear  Sirs:      "During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with an expensive shiny gold tooth, multiple elaborate expensive 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, M Jackson, MS You'll have to go here to read the follow-up letter.