So I ****really**** think this guy is an asshole....I found this on FB (just to warn you FB haters)

[LaydeeBug]

Wall Photos
Pictured is a young physician by the name of Dr. Roger Starner Jones. His short two-paragraph letter to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis"..

It's worth a quick read:


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 pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, 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.

Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD
If you agree...pass it on.

On edit: Instead of "agreeing and passing it on" I called this guy an asshole, because *I* think he is violating the hippocratic oath. I cannot tell you the shitstorm that started. I also cannot tell you how relieved I am to be rid of that rubbish. :)

[backscatter712]

1. I'll bet you that letter was really written by Karl Rove or his minions.

Still perpetuating the "Welfare Queen" meme...

Nope, no dogwhistle racism in that post, nosirree...

[LaydeeBug]

2. snopes say he checks out...

I can grab a link, but I promise...it does.

[warrior1]

3. can't copy and paste but the remarks after makes the correct point

about this racist.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/starner.asp

[Ron Green]

4. Meh.

Stereotypes, RW talking points, simplistic shit.

This stuff will always be all over the Internet.

[babylonsister]

5. I saw this on FB, too, via my sis. He IS an asshole. nt

[Erose999]

6. I made an OP in response thread to Dr. Jones. Link below:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9152607

So yeah, discuss.

[mistertrickster]

13. Excellent response. The thinking people are on our side . . . unfortunately, we need a majority. nt

[MadHound]

7. This is simply a rewriting of a bullshit email that's been going around for well over a year now

This probably didn't even happen to that particular person, he just took the email and tweaked it a little.

[Erose999]

9. It was originally a LTTE to a newspaper in Jackson, MS. Some FB posters have incorrectly attributed

it as a letter written from Jones to President Obama.

This letter is just trash. Jones makes his judgment of his patient based on nothing but appearances. And then theres the coded racism. Jones makes no mention of the conspicuous consumption of his Caucasian patients, he only recognizes traits associated with African American culture as "conspicuous".

And rather than giving this advice directly to his patient, he instead throws his patient in front of the Tea Party Express. He cares less about his patients than he does grandstanding to the teabaggers. Dr. Jones is a racist piece of shit.

[EstimatedProphet]

8. Translation: this country would be just fine if we didn't have them damn n*****s!

It literally says nothing else. It might as well be a picture of a burning cross.

[LaydeeBug]

24. yep. I can't believe these bigots think that as long as they don't SAY it

we can't SEE it.

[mistertrickster]

10. This guy should be fired for breaking patient confidentiality.

The reich-wing love anecdotal crap like this. I've seen it printed in our local paper's blog three times over the years.

Trouble is . . .

1. Gold teeth are not expensive. My gold crown was cheaper than porcelain on gold.

2. A cell phone and its 40-60 bucks a month charge is no where near the cost of medical care. I went to the emergency room a while back for an apparent gall stone which I thought might be a heart attack. They kept me overnight and gave me a stress test. Cost? 26 thousand dollars. Fortunately, I had insurance.

3. Ditto for tattoos.

4. Ditto for tennis shoes.

5. She smokes. Live with it, Doc. Your right-wing pals have kept it legal and unregulated as a drug for years . . . don't blame us, man.

[laureloak]

11. The real letter...then the revision

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Doctors-letter-goes-viral-on-Facebook-Health-care-crisis--or-crisis-of-culture-103148054.html

The link to the altered letter was posted to Sarah Palin's FB page and spread from there.

[bobburgster]

12. More of the same.

Stereotyping all poor/disadvantaged as slackers who just want everything for nothing. I remember when Reagan was doing the same....hasn't changed, just more refined.

[Erose999]

15. I wouldn't say that letter is "refined" at all. Below is a list of adjectives I'd use to describe

the letter:

crude
hamfisted
petulant
unsubstantial
uninformed
willfully ignorant

[bobburgster]

23. Oh, I agree with you...

refined wasn't the best choice...I just meant that they were getting better at selling hate of the poor/disadvantaged.

[Sinistrous]

14. The author of that screed is a mathematical genius!

He has figured out a way to extrapolate from a single point (one patient) to an entire trend line (the "culture").

History has been made! Let us all worship at the brilliance of this logical paragon.

[Warpy]

16. It's a troll

After all, no good suburban American likes anybody with tats, right? Throw in a gold tooth overlay and some designer sneaks, and it just screams "ghetto!" even better than a big butted welfare queen with six rabbity looking kids in tow.

Shit, you know this is a troll because of the economy we're in right now. Even if the story were a legitimate one, those tats could have been bought when the kid had a decent job, before he got injured on that job, before that job got shipped to Malaysia, before he got leukemia, whatever. People are falling into poverty and they're falling fast, even though the craphole apartment they moved into when the house got foreclosed still has that big screen TV in it and they are driving the Lexus they're still managing to keep to the supermarket to pay with food stamps.

In addition, the guy whose name is affixed to this is in Jackson MS, hardly a place you're going to see much big city drug dealer chic like tats, gold teeth, designer sneaks, and cellphone with a ring tone he doesn't like.

If he did write this, it's made up of whole cloth.

[Erose999]

18. Snopes attributed the letter to Dr. Jones but that doesn't mean that Dr. Jones himself isn't a troll

I have no doubt that Dr. Jones is a real person. The real debate is whether he's just a stupid lackey (like Palin) or a manipulative asshole (like Karl Rove).

[Warpy]

19. Read the post, not just the topic

[Erose999]

20. I did. Are you claiming that the patient in Dr. Jones' story does not exist?

I get what you're going for. I would say that Dr. Jones' "patient" is probably an amalgamation of several of his real patients with a heaping helping of conjecture and racist stereotypes to boot.

If there is a "real" Dr. Jones (and Snopes says there is) then I suppose he could have real "conviction" on his obviously wrong beliefs, or he could just be a partisan shill who doesn't believe his own rhetoric. I'm leaning toward the latter, of course.

[backscatter712]

22. Good point.

He's one of countless douchebags that flood newspapers with their letters to the editor and spam newspaper online forums and blogs with their garbage.

[Tesha]

17. ok, so a doctor writes a letter...

I'll bet that:
- it wasn't one patient that had all of these attributes
- they many of his patients may have just begun getting aid
- this doctor is tired of seeing people not taking care of themselves
- that its just as much his job as any others to teach people about the importance of good health care


- that some large portion of the people he sees vote Republican

[Capitalocracy]

21. How DARE they have enough left over for pretzels and beer?

Can't they find a way to get that beer money into the hands of the insurance companies and their billionaire executives where it belongs?

[BoneDaddy]

25. Not that I agree with this guy or don't think that his assumptions

are based upon anything other than racism, I do understand his frustration. After working in the social service field for over twenty years it is incredibly frustrating to see people intentionally live incredibly dysfunctional lives, expecting that they will always be taken care on. Watching people have money to spend on frivolous things but then expect the government to subsidize their insanity.

[LynneSin]

26. I hope someone forwards this on to his hospital admin to let them know a Racist works for them

And I suspect that the doctor probably never saw that 'patient' but made up something that sounded so vile that hopefully he would become another tea party hero.

[McCamy Taylor]

27. As a physician, I believe that this doctor's letter (if real) is unprofessional.

What will his patients think if they read it? Those with disabilities with suspect him of hating them. How can they trust his judgment?

Doctors must be advocates for their patients, the way that lawyers are advocates for their clients.

I know a few doctors (mostly very young) who talk like this but few of them would sign their name to something like this. As they get older and gain a little wisdom, they drop the holier than thou act. They have to. They see too much suffering.