This is suppossedly a letter written by a M.D. to the White House. I can't verify this, so I'm leaving his name off of it. At any rate, it's a good read.
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 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?
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"We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all."-- Theodore Roosevelt
A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left. Ecclesiasties 10:2
The last four letters in American..........I Can
The last four letters in Republican........I Can
The last four letters in Democrats.........Rats
A number of years ago I built a very nice German Yeager for a customer from New England. Upon meeting him again a couple of years later, I noticed that he had a finger missing. When questioning Him on this, he told me he had made a very bad error in judgement when he had gone hunting with the rifle. He said that he was in a hurry for a second shot and had primed the pan and then proceeded to load it. Well, the day didn't turn out well for him. The thing is, he took responsibility for his poor judgement.
"Culture Crisis" is a good description of the problem. There is some sort of official attitude that people on public assistance should be entitled to live just like people who have jobs and go to work everyday. There is also this attitude that people somehow cannot resist the urge to have sex and reproduce before they are capable of caring for them. There is some sort of attitude that rules are somehow wrong. Something as simple as a school imposing a dress code can result in absurd protests and even lawsuits.
Contributing to this crisis is the fact that 70-80% of the kids born in some areas are illegitimate. Don't get me wrong. I'm not down on public assistance nor am I condemning people who have an illegitimate child. I've posted before that my mom was 15 when I was born. She was not married and we were on public assistance for a while until she started working and we even got some help after that. We got food stamps, subsidized housing, and subsidized day care. As soon as she turned 18 she got a job as a waitress/bartender in a bar and our family income shot up. (tips) (You can't drink until 21 here, but you can serve alcohol at 18.) We had no more need for assistance after that.
What's the difference? Well my mom never planned on having more illegitimate children and making a career of welfare. She planned on working from the very beginning. She worked six days a week from 6PM until about 2AM. She also made it clear to me that I was not going to have a series of illegitimate kids and make a career of welfare. I was never with a man until my husband. People criticize the idea of abstinence, but, believe me, it's possible and it works.
I don't believe that, as a society, we can afford this cultural trend. We have many, many, unproductive people for whom we have assumed responsibility as a society. We have a drug culture resulting in open warfare in some neighborhoods where the lives of innocent people are at risk. We regard unplanned pregnancies as inconveniences and kill the babies before they're born. We desperately need to revive and reimpose some cultural values.
__________________
Proud parents of our own "Daddy's Little Girls"
I heard Jesus He drank wine and I bet we'd get along just fine.
You're right DLG. We have a lot of people around here who are on SSI. They spend the money on drugs, booze, and smokes and then go around to all the local churches begging for handouts to get them through. Sad tale.
There are people on this board who feel that letter is wrong. After all, we have 80 million uninsured people here in America. Their uninsurance isn't by choice. I've been told it's because doctors get paid too much. When you really dig into it, the gal is where she needs to be and with the insurance she needs. Medicaid is an excellent way to deliver medical treatment. They keep the cost down by refusing to pay (after the service is required by law) those high fees the hospital and doctors charge you and I. I think we should take this model to GM. Drive off the lot with your new Vette and tell them your reducing your payments because the government prices were too high.
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
I agree with the idea in the letter and it is a stone-cold fact that the rate of children born to unwed mothers is inordinately high among blacks. That is a serious problem and I cannot believe it is so persistent.
I would point out that it is NOT just cigarettes and booze or drugs that constitute a burden on the American taxpayer or the health care machine. Few people in America actually get the exercise they need to remain even reasonably healthy. Many, if not most Americans have a lousy diet and eat way too much fat and sugar on a daily basis.
While welfare recipients might be an easy target, most people reading this are probably a minimum of 20 pounds overweight and do next to no physical exercise in the quantity needed to remain fit and vital.
Lastly, while the letter is a great read, its probably and internet scam and I salute LBR for adding a caveat to it inferring as much.
Culture Crisis
