Culture Crisis - Uh, OK

There has been a post making its way around Facebook. I have seen several friends and acquaintances repost it, and applaud the message which is not very subtle. You don't have to really read between the lines - it's out there in red, white and blue ink for all to read:

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

And boy, did people respond.

"This man speaks for me!"

"You are absolutely right! There is no health crisis! It's a culture crisis! So obvious!"

"Does the President realize this? It's not a health crisis! It's a culture crisis! Get Obama ON THIS!"

I am always one to take things with a grain of salt. You know - like how did he know how expensive her phone was or her clothes? Did he ever stop to ask? When he saw what her diet consisted of, did he pull over one of those wheely stools, hold her hand, and look her in the eye and talk to her about what she could be doing to herself? I don't know . .. he didn't really mention that.

I don't know that girl in the waiting room. But I do know a few others.

I know of families who have lost everything they have once cancer seeps into the seams of their lives. These families have insurance, but there is nothing to prepare them for the awful wake this disease leaves not just on the victims and the families, but the finances - which often results in bankruptcy and loss of a family home.

I know of blue collar laborers who don't have insurance. They work hard, they toil every day for their work. If they are injured, they have nothing - their families have nothing.

I have seen children who obviously needed medical assistance. Children who did not have trendy phones or trendy clothes - they just needed help. And they could not get it.

I don't presume to know what the answer is to the current health crisis that we have in America. I can latch on to an image and a persona like the man on the Facebook post did and blame it on culture.

But I won't.

According to the CDC, approximately 46 million people did not have health insurance in the United States in 2009. I highly doubt that their individual stories, struggles and pains should be reduced to this one man's ER experience.

Very few things in life are that easy.

XOXO,
Kiran