Texas Doc Admonishes President To Fix Culture of Irresponsibility and Dependency

Dear Dr. Jones:
I completely agree with you that individuals on the public dole ought not to be spending their limited resources (our tax dollars) on "luxuries and vices." If you can come up with humane, cost-effective measures to monitor and control each individual's spending habits, I feel certain that President Obama will seriously consider your suggestions. Your contention, however, that eliminating the profligacy of a few Medicaid recipients will cure our nation's health care "difficulties" is naive at best, disingenuous and self-serving at worst.
No rational analyst would suggest, contrary to your implication, that our health care "crisis" is due to a shortage of providers. In fact, the opposite may be true--too many providers creating a perceived "need" for their own services. Let me remind you, Dr. Jones, that physicians, and only physicians, are responsible for the flagrant over-prescribing of drugs, the rampant over-utilization of diagnostic tests and prodedures, the too-frequent unnecessary hospitalizations and surgical operations--and for the myriad resultant untoward effects, including hundreds of thousands of deaths and the squandering of billions of dollars. Yes, there is waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid, but that amount is a pittance compared to the waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system, itself. We must focus at least as much attention on the behaviors of practitioners as you would have us focus on the behaviors of the indigent and uninsured.