Recently, there was quite a reaction by some to the following post, allegedly by an emergency room physician...

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 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 wish people would get just as excited about billionaires on Wall Street, oil companies and hedge funds ripping off the American people to the tune of hundreds of billion of dollars in fraud and corrupt manipulation of the financial system every year instead of getting upset because someone buys popcorn with their EBT card. That is not to say that there is no fraud in public assistance...there is and it should be dealt with. However, there are many many people who are down on their luck in America, most of them for short periods of time who need a helping hand from their neighbors who have been a bit more fortunate. For every case of a person who takes advantage of the system, there are many many others who do not choose to be poor, who do not choose to lose their jobs, who do not choose to have a physical or mental healthcare crisis in their lives. Some day you or someone close to you may need assistance to get back on their feet. We should be concerned about the right things, even though fraudulent collateralized debt obligations are much more difficult to understand than a gold tooth.