Please meet Dr Starner Jones from Jackson , Mississippi.
This is his short 2-paragraph letter to the White House.
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From: Starner Jones, MD
To: The White House, USA
I am a seventh generation Mississippian and wanted to come back here after going somewhere else for college and medical school. My extracurricular interests are golf, hunting, fishing and college football.
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 R&B 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?
STARNER JONES, MD
Jackson, MS
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What an @ss whole.
It's horrifying to me that this fool treated an ER patient then stabbed her in the back by writing this kind of letter. He has no idea what he is talking about, AFAIAC he is a drooling fool.
BTW, his own hospital clientele only rate him 2 out of 4 stars
(1 star = 'poor'). Should we guess why????
What follows is my response to his ill-advised letter-
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I think we should give our pal starner about 30 more years to grow up and fall out of love with himself, and by then he should be singing a different tune (probably solo).
He had no business writing a letter like that, which could potentially affect many thousands of lives of disabled folk, in addition to the life of his incompetently-judged patient. It's clear that he doesn't even have enough sense to be embarrassed of himself.
I wouldn't be patting him on the back. I'd be slapping his face to wake him up.
The real crisis is that people like this self-important bozo can't see what's wrong with what he wrote. He actually had the time to lick a stamp and still didn't catch it, for God's sake.
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Now, do you want me to tell you how I *really* feel?
You obviously don't work ER. I have been an ER nurse for almost 20 years and can not tell you the amount of abuse that I have seen. Last night, a patient informed me that he did not take his seizure medication because he could not afford it. Then he admitted to smoking at least one pack of cigarettes and drinking a 12pk of beer daily (a habit that I surely could not afford). Of course he was on disability for his "bad back" but certainly seemed to have no problems strolling about the ED. I have seen ambulance rides for ingrown toenails and sore throats while elderly patients with heart trouble drive themselves in with chest pain because they are worried about the EMS bill. Then there are the women that seem to be in a race to see who can produce the greatest number of state supported children. Believe me, thanks to their networking, they know exactly what to say to DFACS to get the assistance. They are usually dressed in the highest fashion and drive a car much nicer than mine. I have heard them brag about their "free insurance" and how it doesn't cost anything. I am usually pretty quick to inform them that just because they don't pay for it, it's not free. Just look at my pay stub.
I understand Ernurse, and that represents one group of state-supported disabled.
I have posted because I am more familiar with another group that you clearly haven't been aware of.
A)The now elderly woman who has worked hard all her life and raised several children from babies to adults with no assistance whatsoever from anyone, including the dangerous fool whom she divorced for those children's safety. Now she finally has subsistence via SSI.
B)The 25 year hardworking professional who spent too many years trying to survive after no longer being able to remain employed while getting progressively sicker, with no assistance whatsoever from anyone, who has now been away from the workplace too long by time s/he finally applied for assistance to be reckoned for social security, and so now at last has only subsistence via SSI until s/he is at least 62 yo, when the SocSec s/he worked and paid into all those 25 years can presumably kick in.
These are people who, out of self-respect, stayed away from "the system", yet due to age/illness were forced to swallow their pride and ask, after going through years of the very demeaning process it required. Years where people who thought the only ones out there were the ones you have recalled in your post.
People who "look too good", yet are in high degrees of physical pain and disablement.
I could tell you stories, Ernurse, that would curl your hair, stories of people who aren't plugged into a network of welfare knowledgeable advisors.
I am not criticizing you Ernurse, because I understand what you have seen, however, when someone writes a letter as this low-rated md has done, the people whom he intended to read it are those who make decisions that affect many many more than the poor example he jumped to conclusions about, and who became the subject of his ill advised letter. Named or unnamed makes no difference.
He was an arrogant, sarcastic snot. Read it agin, please.
Now, does he know that the only thin they can't take away from you is your jewelry? Probably not. Does he know that the only way to keep it from being stolen is to carry it on your person? He's never had to think about that, probably. Did he ask if she had a friend who does tattoo and needed some practice at it? If he did, I didn't see it. HTH does he know who is buying//drinking beer? Were they doing it in the ER? It was an assumption on his part.
And even if he were right about that one person, I know many, many folks like the ones *I* told you about. People who grit their teeth every day because they hate receiving assistance, but know that they can't get along without it.
The ones I know are people who would have nothing to do with a "filch network".
That's why I posted what I did.
There is much much more to the story than what Pretty Boy knows.
wow maybe 56617 should first spend a few hours in any metropolitan ER, he might judge the doc's comments a bit differently or perhaps he's feeling a little chapped due to his own guilt. By the way when did our government aquire the right to rob us of personal wealth and re-distribute at their pleasure? Personal responsibility, self reliance, oh my gosh how heartless of us!!! Perhaps our dissenting friend could not only visit an ER but open up his own personal check book and adopt someone for the purpose of taking care of their health care... and food... and clothing... and shelter... and.....
Home
Starner Jones, MD. What a Bozo..! 
