The Health Care Crisis Crisis

So, I saw an interesting post of facebook. So credible, I know. So, I Snopes-ed it. (Yes, I just made up a word. Yes, that's how I roll.) Apparently, it is legitimate, assuming Snopes is legitimate, but that's always up for discussion... The post is a letter to the editor or something similar that a doctor sent to a local paper in Mississippi. I can't find the original, but here is Snopes' quote:

"During my last shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tatoos (sic) and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B tune for a ring tone.

"Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.

"She smokes a costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.

"And our president 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.

"Life is really not that hard. Most of us reap what we sow.

"Starner Jones, MD

"Jackson"

Now, if that don't just about sum it up, I don't know what does. And, to those who read and agree with the response on Snopes that was apparently sent in to the paper regarding Jones' letter, I must say I beg to differ. There is an Us and a Them. The Us pay for lazy turd-cutters to sit on their growing asses. The Them take advantage of the system and are perfectly capable of getting off their lazy asses and supporting themselves. Now, I realize and agree that there is a slippery slope in determining who can and cannot get government support, but let's be real, we already do that--otherwise we would all be getting government support and none of us would be working. (Could you imagine the deficit? On second thought, could it really be much worse than it is now?) So, that argument is null and void in my book. We need more realistic and accurate ways of measuring qualifications for government assistance. Because, I for one know that my husband and I have nothing to drink in our refrigerator right now but water--and it isn't bottled but from the tap and is just in a pitcher in the frig to be cold. What I mean to say is, we can't afford groceries most weeks, so we don't even have milk right now. And, we don't qualify for food stamps. So, yes, I do get a little fucking irritated at the fat cunt in line buying $400 worth of meat when I can't even buy milk because she has food stamps and I don't, and I'll be damned if she doesn't look awfully capable of pushing that really heavy meat cart around. Can't she get a job doing that?