Well, it's Two Cents Tuesday and I'm here to put in mine! I hope you've all found your way here during a pleasant day and you're ready to hear it;) I was reading through my emails knowing I wanted to talk about the hottest issue in Washington right now and came across the email below. My thoughts turned from health care alone to the 'culture crisis' we're definitely in. Whether it's a factual story or not, I don't know. It is, however, an all around reality of the way we've become as a country over the years. It's meant to read like a letter from a doctor. Read on...
-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 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.-
It does seem that as a whole, our country has a 'want it, gotta have it, buy it now, no matter the price' kind of attitude. I'm no exception. We've all bought things we insisted we needed right then even though there were bills to be paid or even just a savings account that could use padding....haven't we? Why? It's annoying, after the fact, but the machine that is commercialism, can suck us in and the next thing you know a trip to the store for batteries turns into 6 bag fulls of merchandise! Some of which you'll be surprised to pull out of the bags when you get home because it got there by 'mindless' shopping. The fact is, at that point we've been dooped. We've become another success of the highly strategic placement of merchandise, the intricate orchestration of commercials or the eye candy we call print advertisement. They might as well install canned laughter at the exits of all the stores!
The other fact is that we are NOT mindless, we make our own decisions! It just seems that making the easier decision is...well...easier! We need health insurance, but we also need to be able to choose it ourselves. Not choosing it is not decision, it's a lack of responsibility if you can afford it. I realize that if you cannot afford it, you have to do what you can. I really do understand that. However, if you spend as much each month frivolously as could be spent on an insurance plan and still choose to be uninsured, there IS a big problem. We're all responsible for ourselves.
This closely relates to the YouTube post I have at the bottom of the page. As adults in charge of raising future generations of Americans, we have a big responsibility! We need to instill the value of good work ethic, respect for others and especially elders, the necessity of good credit and always meaning what you say. They need values, faith, education, love, remorse for their actions, discipline....all these things and the long list that follows are OUR responsibility. We're in the predicament that we are, but do we want our children to be here in the decades to come or worse?? Let's take action! When our children look at us today and throw a fit saying "I NEED it and NOW!", think of those grown adults we know, including ourselves, who are still saying that today and stop them in their tracks! I'd like to describe my son when he becomes a man as smart, caring, successful, hard-working, talented, responsible, loving, frugal, etc ...and would be sad if that description turned out more like apathetic, lazy, rude, indulgent, directionless, irresponsible......wouldn't you?
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