| Author | Message | ||
     Pwnzor |
This is from a concerned health care professional: 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 pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, 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, ROGER STARNER JONES, MD | ||
| Wheelybueller |
Love It. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/starner.asp | ||
| Budgolf |
Yeah the letter may not be real, but the situation happens multiple times a day every day in hospitals all over the country. | ||
| Pwnzor |
Snopes may be a dubious source of information, but they have in fact confirmed the validity of this letter... Either way, my ex sees it all the time at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, CA. | ||
| Wheelybueller |
I agree,I posted the snopes link for their validation. | ||
| Buellerandy |
I like the follow-up letter as well. | ||
| Reepicheep |
It was a good letter. It points out the whole moral quandary I have with socialized health care. I don't feel comfortable taking a gun and telling person A that they have to give up their property for person B, even if person B is in fairly desperate straits. I also don't feel comfortable telling a person what they can and can't do, and how they should live their lives. Nor do I think it would do much good if I tried anyway. But I also don't feel comfortable when *I* get the bill for their stupid decisions and 90% avoidable circumstances. I also wouldn't let a friend starve to death or go without medical care they really needed if I had means to prevent it. But even then, I would want it to be my choice and to be personally involved in that persons life, not staring at somebody with a gun telling me what to do. So like capitalism itself, I don't think it's perfect, but I can't figure out a less worse approach. | ||
| Pwnzor |
I can't figure out a less worse approach. I can. It's called "natural selection". The weak or stupid die, while the strong or smart live. Honestly, I don't see any problem with letting nature take it's course. I've personally had a DNR order in my medical record since I turned 18. | ||
| Big_red_79 |
+1 on the natural selection, that's the same as seeing someone ride without proper gear, its common sense, when you fly off the bike and slide into a curb, the curb will not usually give, but your head will. | ||
| Rainman |
We should spend our gold-tooth money on medical insurance. We should stop smoking and live healthier and spend our money on our health. We should stop spending money on, and doing those things that can result in harm, things like horseback riding and skydiving and, of course motorcycling, and use the money to pay for health insurance. That's the message I got. Sounds like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has a back up in the emergency room. | ||
| Reepicheep |
If you can't afford health insurance, and you are going to force me to pick up the tab when you get injured, then absolutely, you should not be horseback riding, skydiving, *OR* motorcycling. You also shouldn't own a car, a TV, a cell phone, have cable, have air conditioning, or have heat above 65 degrees in the winter. If you are taking responsibility for your own actions and aren't going to stick me with the bill for the outcomes of your decisions, then knock yourself out in whatever interesting way you see fit. And make sure you put it on youtube so I can get a good laugh out of it, I'll try and do the same.  | ||
| Buellerandy |
Reep, I thought leading by example was frowned upon these days  +1 btw | ||
| Buelltours |
shouldn't there also be better education for the masses? | ||
| Pwnzor |
We should spend our gold-tooth money on medical insurance. We should stop smoking and live healthier and spend our money on our health. We should stop spending money on, and doing those things that can result in harm, things like horseback riding and skydiving and, of course motorcycling, and use the money to pay for health insurance. That's the message I got. Sounds like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has a back up in the emergency room. Basic health insurance can be had quite cheaply. If you can afford to skydive, ride motorcycles, smoke cigarettes, etc., then you can afford $25 to $150 a month. That's the point here. Sticking ME with YOUR bills is in no way justified. My heart isn't bleeding. I don't really care if someone else bashes their head in, or develops lung cancer from their stinking, disgusting habits. People die all the time, it's a fact. Death is hardly ever fast and painless. I blame hippies. For everything. | ||
| Hootowl |
These days if you can afford to smoke a pack a day, you can afford to buy a new car. | ||
| Gunut75 |
I quit smoking, and still put the money away like I still smoked. Thats a new bike every 3 years!  | ||
| Pwnzor |
$5 a day is a lot of cash to spend for the privilege of pissing off everybody around you and making all your possessions stink like burnt excrement. | ||
| Tpoppa |
How about random drug testing to qualify for Medicaid or public welfare? The drug testing could be funded by the the savings to Medicaid and welfare payments. | ||
| Hootowl |
Random? Make a it a prerequisite. If you can afford drugs, you don't need to be on the dole. I include cigarettes and alcohol in that. | ||
| Court |
Hahahaha . . . I knew it. You guys are starting to sound like me. I've long been an advocate that motorcycle insurance should be predicated on wearing an approved full face helmet. I grow weary of reading of deaths and serious injuries when folks grapefruit their noggins on jersey barriers and light poles. | ||
| Buellkowski |
Petition to lower the Medicaid eligibility threshold if you think "undeserving" folks are receiving benefits. For that matter, why not bolster means testing for SocSec retirement benefit recipients? I can think of quite a few people who don't "need" the money. Do those retirees suffer from a "crisis of culture" as well? | ||
| Court |
Social Security is an interesting thing. I know PRECISELY what I have put in over the years. If I start drawing out at 62 and get the maximum amount . . . I'll cheerfully recover about 24% of what I will have paid in. If I had simply invested the money at a rate of return of 4% my month take, at retirement, would be about 5 times as much. Let's be honest . . social security is a means of redistributing income. | ||
| Hootowl |
The problem with that is the folks who don't "need" the money were still forced to pay into the system their entire working lives, and they rightfully expect to get something for the money they invested. And when I say "invested", I mean "had extorted from them." There are two issues with SS. 1. We're all forced to contribute to the pool. 2. Congress has stolen all the money we put in there. If a private company did that, there'd be some folks sitting jail right now, and a bunch of politicians parading around extolling the virtues of additional regulation to prevent something like this from happening again. Hypocrites. | ||
| Blake |
>>> 1. We're all forced to contribute to the pool. Unless you're a government employee. Explain how that makes ANY sense. You and me both Court. Having to pay $16K into social security and medicaid/medicare is nothing short of theft. | ||
| Hootowl |
"Explain how that makes ANY sense. " I do not have the intellectual capacity for such an undertaking. Perhaps if I had been indoctrinated at a liberal arts college... | ||
| Cityxslicker |
I went to a liberal arts college... and studied and majored in Marxist/Soviet economy and government (to know what the enemy was up to;... it was a great career path until the wall fell) I never thought I would be seeing the play book from Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gueverra, Trotskuu here domestically. You think it is bad now... wait til the Checka get up and running. The IRS is the new NKVD | ||
| Buellkowski |
Court, I'll bet you'll get more if you retire later and live longer. And of course, we all want to see you live to an irresponsibly ripe old age.  Blake, gov't employees have their own pension fund. They can't draw SocSec if they didn't pay into it. Hoot, SocSec liabilities don't go away simply because the money isn't in a vault. As you know, it isn't an IRA fund; it's more like insurance. Pay your monthly "premium" and you'll earn the right to make a claim if you need it. Do you think insurance companies keep the entire cash value of the policies they issue in a bank account? Of course they don't. Back on topic, would those of you who decry the "excesses" of the poor be willing to change places with them? I wouldn't. I also don't look forward to shanty towns in my backyard.  | ||
| Hootowl |
"Hoot, SocSec liabilities don't go away simply because the money isn't in a vault. As you know, it isn't an IRA fund; it's more like insurance." That is incorrect. The social security trust fund was set up specifically to fund social security from its inception. That trust fund has been raided. It is NOT insurance. The government can not MAKE you buy insurance right? (yes that was a dig at obamacare) | ||
| Hootowl |
"would those of you who decry the "excesses" of the poor be willing to change places with them" Nope. But if I were on food stamps and welfare I would have the decency to not blow the money on tooth bling and drugs and then complain that I need more government cheese. | ||
| Hootowl |
"Hoot, SocSec liabilities don't go away simply because the money isn't in a vault" Oh, I know. That's the problem. The money is nearly gone, but the liability is not. This is one of the reasons we have monstrously huge projected deficits. Congress has already spent the money. You raid a private pension fund and you go to jail. Congress does it and we reelect them. |
