culture crisis
 

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 ring tone. 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

I checked with snopes.com and confirmed the story.

Re: culture crisis
 

How RASIST of you!

Booooooo! Hisssssss!





Oh ya, and:clap

Re: culture crisis
 

It sure has a ring of truth to it. I worked in the medical field for a number of years and saw the exact thing. Aggravating at best.:girlytantrum

Re: culture crisis
 

just our tax dollars at work

Re: culture crisis
 

My wife works at a store located in a very low income area and sees the exact same thing. People on food stamps who also don't pay a cent for their drugs yet walk out with their daily booze, cigs, and all manner of junk food. They were all high fiveing in the store (literally) the day after messiah-obama was elected.

Re: culture crisis
 

20-25 dollars on beer a week for a 24-30 pack. Probably about the same for smokes (assuming 2 packs a day). That's maybe 50 dollars a week. (Of course you can probably get by cheaper on both.) The "new" cell phone doesn't say much. There's cheap new cell phones and expensive new cell phones. Either way, the one time cost of the cell phone isn't what's important it's the monthly fee which can be as cheap as 30 dollars for unlimited minutes (smarttalk from walmart i think is the name). As far as the tattoes? Maybe she saved up for them all. As far as the clothes... maybe she bought them from the goodwill or a yardsale or maybe Ross.

Anyways, the bottom line is this: Republicans act like if anyone has a few nice things or things they want or even a few vices that a finger shouldn't be lifted to help those people.

Re: culture crisis
 

Nice follow up letter in that same newspaper:

On 6 September 2009, the Clarion Ledger published a follow-up letter from another reader under the title "Health Care Reform Is Not 'Us vs. Them'":


I've been stewing about an Aug. 23 letter to the editor ("Why pay for the care of the careless?") in which Dr. Starner Jones questioned the worth of a patient to receive Medicaid because of her gold tooth, tattoos, R&B ring tone on a new cell phone, cigarette-smoking and beer-drinking.

This kind of personal attack is nothing new with the hateful rhetoric of late. But it's a real slippery slope when one questions whether another human merits support for health care because of appearances and choices. There are a lot of folks in this state who make less-than-perfect choices about finances and health. We are the poorest, fattest state, after all.

We need to turn off our TVs and radios and do our own research on health care reform. All the Fox-fed and MSNBC-led masses are out spewing the same language the pundits are using.

Look at entities who, bottom line, want to raise their ratings and celebrity, not facilitate a meaningful or productive discourse.

This country deserves more. Read the health care reform bill. And learn the real issues of our entire community. We're all Americans.

This is no "us vs. them" issue. We are all in this together.

Jennifer Sigrest

Clinton

Re: culture crisis
 

When my sister in law did house visits, they also had huge wide screen teevees.

Libs love welfare.

So do the oil companies.

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Re: culture crisis
 

Exxon Mobil collected and remitted 100 billion dollars last year in various taxes. That helps the Dems who go on drunken spending binges.

100 billion in income taxes?

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Hey coadie where are you? How many $ in income tax?

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Re: culture crisis
 

There have always been and will always be some that "work" the system. Doesn't matter who's in office.

Re: culture crisis
 

I could be wrong but it seem to me all these people that are screaming to high heavens about abusing the system never posted about it when Bush was in office.

Re: culture crisis
 

bump

Re: culture crisis
 

I can remember one or two. People think the President can do anything he wants, any time he wants. But all of them have to walk a fine line.

Calling all cars, calling all cars, find coadie. He's on the run.

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Re: culture crisis
 

That number excludes royalites for offshore drilling.

Think about that number. I realize you do not understand corporate annual reports.

Re: culture crisis
 

You claim to be such a brilliant intellectual. Why of course i don't need to remind you how to look at corporate annual reports which are on line and the SEC 10K filings. How about footnotes to financial statements.

Radical left wingers strive to get the vulgar left wing talkers to pronounce financials. They don't know a 10K filing from a 5K race.

When you used the liberal expression corporate welfare, it told me your attitude over rules actual annual reports.

Deomcrats are very greedy and want to drain every dime from oil companies.

Class warfare. You ask them why their Soros doesn't pay any taxes, the dems get livid.
While you google, tell me what you show for income in the US. Not foreign income.

You know coadie you are so full of it it's embarrassing. It doesn't matter republican or democrats they need to pay income tax just like the middle class.
How much income tax did Exon-Mobil pay in 2009?

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Re: culture crisis
 

You know what I don't understand? People like Ed, my aunt's former husband, apply for and receive SS Disability with no problem at all. The reason? Alcoholism. While at the same time, his son-in-law who is 45 years old and had a virus attack his heart, leaving him not only totally unable to work, but most of the time even unable to walk from his bedroom to his living room without needing a nap, but he has been denied disability over and over and over and over.

What kind of a system do we have anyway????

Re: culture crisis
 

Try to muster some pity for Big Oil. ExxonMobil ( XOM - news - people ) in its 2009 annual report to the SEC, recorded a larger income tax expense than any other U.S. company last year, some $17.6 billion, or 47% of pretax earnings.

Pay attention light

I don't use reports from your leftist vulgar news sources
Exxon doesn't lie to the SEC
The tax return for 2010 is not due until March 15
Don't get all huffy when I show you where and how i find actual reports.
Uneducated people don't know that if Exxon loses money in america and makes money elswhere, the income in america is taxed in America. The Arabs do nkot tax on american income.

GE the darling of the Libs got 65 billion in subsidies from GE Credit.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-...e-taxes_2.html
Forbes can explain some of it but it is far over your head. Exxon and Mobil have separately been clients of my company since 1981.

Re: culture crisis
 

Broken!:foottap

Re: culture crisis
 

Are you saying the Democrats think no matter how much wealth is acquired by an individual the state should still pay their bills?

Re: culture crisis
 

Are you comparing apple to apples here?

Are you saying the oil companies are getting free medical services while having big screen TV's?

Re: culture crisis
 

Good Lord woman you moan and groan about individuals yet you are fine with corporate welfare. Give me a break. Why don't you post about the wealthy who are getting a free ride.

Re: culture crisis
 

The wealthy get a free ride? They have to pay taxes too

BTW a corporation should not be squeezed for money IMO. Those taxes are just passed onto the consumer. We should do what we can to help companies hire more people, keep the jobs inside our borders and export goods

Re: culture crisis
 

:thumbsup

Re: culture crisis
 

:thumbsup

Re: culture crisis
 

Corporate welfare??? Explain, give me an example.

The wealthy pay more taxes than anyone, who is getting a free ride? You believe the media and dems lies?

Re: culture crisis
 

:thumbsup:thumbsup