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First name: J******
Last name: T********** MD
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I am enjoying your articles.
I just wanted to remark that the biggest
cost in Medicare/Medicaid is among those
who have never worked and never intend
to so do. As an ER doc we see all kinds
of folks slurping from the public trough
and taking methamphetamines and cocaine.
Even among the non-working smokers we
can see that their rate of aging and
affiliated health problems are much greater
than among those who lead productive
lives. Bottom line: limit benefits for
those who do not contribute. THere are
more people collecting disability in
their 20s than those in their 40s, despite
that there are more people in their 40s!!
Many parents raise their kids to get
on "disability" so that they
will be taken care of with out the stress
of having to work. These are the factors
which ar really destroying the health
care system. I also see that about 30%
of all high school kids have either diabetes
or hypertension! When I was in high school
in the 70s I went to a high school with
nearly 4000 kids and NO ONE had those
roblems. THe average high school kid
now is like a person in their 50s was
in the 1970s.
J******
Hi Dr. Wong-
In that same article
you mentioned American's "fear of
dying" and the
high cost incurred in the last six months
of life. One thing to keep in
mind is that if you look at the class
of patients who get BOTH Medicare
and Medicaid, the family members of the
particular sick patient have
ALOT of money to lose if the patient
dies. Naturally, they always want
"everything" done. This often
means placing a patient with terminal
lung cancer on a ventilator. The bottom
line is that the family members
are collecting the patient's government
check. The longer we keep the
patient alive, the longer the family
collects the check. Many of these
checks -- for people who have never worked
- are in excess of $2,000 a
month. (I have heard of checks as large
as $8,000 a month tax free!)
One of the strangest things I see as
an ER doctor is when I tell a
family after an unsuccessful code that
the patient has passed away is
that one of the family members will ask
me if they will be receiving
"the check" for the month.
The first and fairest
way to save the taxpayers money is to
take
everyone off government health programs
who use cocaine,
methamphetamines, or smoke. (You test
for cigarrette smoking by a blood
cotinine level.) In the ER we see that
about 80% of the people under age
SIXTY who get government checks are on
coke or meth and about 95% of
persons of all ages who get government
checks smoke. They shouldn't get
free heatlh care at the local ER either.
The way we see it is if they
have money to smoke and take recreational
drugs, then they have money
to pay health insurance.
Best regards, Dr. J....T....
Hi Again:
AMEN to your plan! I
agree with it completely!!! Now to convince
a political party to support it - that
will be impossible, they would lose too
many votes and be called heartless and
uncaring etc, etc, etc. Unfortunately
it will take some great upheaval or collapse
to change things round for the better.
There was a good term used in the 70's
for terrorists thats fits these folks
very well "oxygen wasters".
Be well and God bless,
Dr. Wong |
