Ask the doctor.

I know many doctors have a lot to do and don't feel inclined to join in the debate on what we need in health care. I found an article written at the end of August this year by a doctor in Jackson, MS. He hits an area of concern that the politicians do not want to address. Why? Because it highlights the irresponsibility of a large segment of the voting population. Those of us who have had the misfortune to need emergency room services have had our blood pressure raised by being triaged behind patients who obviously, through personal neglect and active abuse have ruined their health. Most claim an inability to pay and are therefore wards of the Federal Government in the area of health care. Read this article. It hits the nail on the head.

Add to this those who are not here legally, but who use the emergency room doctor as their personal health care provider, and you have a condition where those who have done their best to be responsible and provide for themselves can't find a seat. It's not that we are uncaring, but these issues have to be addressed. We must look at the big picture. Don't let your politicians gloss over some of the real salient issues that affect our quality of medical care in this country. We must exercise some tough love in order to straighten things out.

Dear Sirs:

"During my last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, pierced tongue, multiple elaborate 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 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 pleasures and 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

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
- Bill Watterson