KEEPING IT BALANCED (A Physician's Complaint re. the Welfare & Medicaid Systems)

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 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

(My Response to the good doctor)

Dear Dr. Jones

I agree there are people who take advantage of "the system" and who could work, and cover their own medical, housing and nutritional needs. (As a marriage and family counselor, I have done a significant amount of pro bono work on behalf of the 'poor'.) At the same time, there are deserving people out there who Providence has not blessed, (as it obviously has you) who don't abuse this system, and who desperately need Medicaid and welfare assistance.

My daughter is Schizophrenic and borderline retarded and has lived in a group home for a quarter century, and whose only insurance is Medicaid, and whose only monetary assistance flows from the federal government. Had I been forced to care for my almost 50 year old daughter's medical, housing and monetary needs since she was a young adult, and these needs have been significant, (she spent two years in mental facilities) I might be living in a canvas tent by a river by now.

My mother also depended on Medicaid and public assistance the last two years of her life, as she lived in a skilled nursing facility; having been required to exhaust her income; before state and federal benefits were available to her.

There is a great deal of abuse in our welfare system, but at the same time there are millions of deserving people out there, the disabled and elderly, who depend on public assistance and socialized medicine. I can tell you that when John McCain cast his gutsy, negative vote recently, which prevented a total revamp of the Medicaid system, and more of the financial burden being relegated to the states, I breathed a temporary sigh of relief.

Sincerely,


William McDonald, PhD