Welfare Queens are Back

Facebook people have been commenting on this doctor's posting. He apparently sent a letter to The Clarion Ledger of Missippi (according to Snopes) explaining why healthcare is in trouble. This one seems to have been embellished, but only a tiny bit.

As well as being an arrogant bastard, he makes some invalid points and some amazingly judgmental comments about one of his patients. She is, according to him, making bad life decisions and that is why the country's going to hell.  Get rid of her and others like her and "all our health care difficulties will disappear."

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

He "happened to notice her payer status was listed as Medicaid." Okay, a doctor "happened" to notice? Bull. Doctors are all about the money. Try going to one without it. Don't act all innocent, Roger.

The patient had lifestyle choices that disapproved of. His obvious feeling is that she should be thrown off Medicaid because she can afford to have a gold tooth, tattoos, sneakers and a cellphone. She also smokes and eats fast food. "What a welfare queen," you can almost hear him saying. "Damn nigger" also comes through clearly -- though he never quite said that word -- but he made sure to mention the gold tooth, R&B ringtone.

Apparently gold teeth are bad - news to me. I have a gold tooth as well. It was cheaper and better than composite and my dentist recommended it. Should I be denied health care if my financial situation takes a turn for the worse?

Tattoos are stupid, in my opinion, but that's only my take on it. I really couldn't care less if your 18th birthday present to yourself is a tramp stamp. It lowers my opinion of you, but that's all. Likewise the pair of sneakers - yes, a TI-84 costs as much as AirJordans, but AirJordans are better for people on their feet all day than a calculator. The shoes could also have been one of Marbury's $25 shoes; I doubt this guy would know the difference. He also points out a new cellphone - as opposed to what in this day and age? If it was a replacement for a landline, it's actually cheaper and far more convenient. Lot's of people are doing that, including a $1 ringtone.

Then, in a veritable tsunami of evilness, she smokes and eats fast food. Like THAT is a reason to drop her from health care through Medicaid - she's in the category that MOST needs a doctor to counsel her instead of judging her. You would also need to make smoking and fast food illegal across the board for all poor people. All Jewish deli sandwiches, Polish kielbases and "Italian" pizza joints, McDonalds and Burger King, and Subway, and the sidewalk pretzel carts.  How does this smarmy little twerp care to judge the relative worth of all that?  I'm not so sure that we should be dictating personal dietary choices - isn't Bloomberg enough of a cautionary tale?

Finally, I think of all of my lower-income FRL students.  Do they deserve to be left without health care because some doctor disapproves of the choices their mother made?  The life of a single mother is difficult enough these days.  Grow up, Doc.

Letters to the Editor, vol1 i2: Certification and the Alternate Track

A Letter to WSJ complained about charter schools not being allowed to hire non-teachers to teach. He felt that people switching over from pretty much any career would be acceptable as teachers - retirees, engineers, scientists, artists.

I doubt that a long career designing automobile engine parts for Ford, for example, would be good training for an algebra teacher. Oh, that person would have lots of "real-world" knowledge but absolutely no idea of how to deal with a classroom full of teenagers. There has to be some training, some mentoring. There also has to be a vetting process, some way to determine whether the prospect is actually knowledgeable about the subject and able to teach it to kids and I'm not talking about a 30 minute interview with my principal.

If some wunderkind exists, he can get into teaching pretty easily. How? Every state has some form of "peer review" process in which a differently trained person with the desire to become a teacher can submit a portfolio demonstrating knowledge and ability in the various aspects of being a teacher. I did it this way - 100ish pages of descriptions, letters, transcripts, explanations and other evidence. Presto! Four weeks later, I had a license.

Some states are more difficult about it. Teach for America is much easier about it. Results vary, but there has to be some sort of hurdle, else you wind up with too many dilettante teachers who crap out in the first month and leave the students hanging. I've seen this kind of thing happen all too often in private schools (because they don't have to hire credentialed teachers) - incoming genius ready to save the world and show his incredible talents to the poor downtrodden students who had been, until his arrival, horribly confused and mistreated by the "lifers." The office pool was always won by Halloween.

Why do we allow liberals to waste such valuable talent? Because, by and large, it doesn't exist. There just aren't thousands of people willing and able to become teachers -- who haven't got the smarts to do "peer review." Skill in the computer design center working with adults all day and lots of autonomy (that word again!) doesn't carry over to solving the real problems handling a room full of teenagers who couldn't give less of a damn about fractions.

Bottom line: It's pretty damn easy to get a license -- if you've got the potential to be a good teacher. If you don't, then the hoops are useful in weeding you out.

As for the editorial - come on, people. Blaming the failures of charter schools on a perceived lack of autonomy in hiring teachers is pretty lame. Just because most charter schools can't do better than the public schools they steal from despite the selection and rejection of pupils ...


click the header to view the letter and the editorial, below the jump.

We Should Encourage The Talented to Teach
A WALL STREET JOURNAL Letter to the Editor, MAY 20, 2010

Your May 15 editorial "Hobbling Charter Schools" notes, "Teacher certification rules block charters from hiring mid-career changers, retirees, engineers, scientists, artists and other professionals who might best meet the needs of students but have not been officially licensed by the state." What a terrible waste of talent. In my day (the 1940s and '50s) I had a physics teacher in high school who was a physicist at a local company and was one of the best instructors I ever had. We had a retired stockbroker in college who was an outstanding instructor on personal finance.
Why do we allow liberals to waste such valuable talent?
Ralph Hallock
Hayden, Idaho

The editorial began:
"The promise of charter schools is that they'll improve student performance in return for exemptions from the staffing, curriculum and budget requirements of traditional public schools. The reality is often very different. According to a new study from the Fordham Institute, too many charter schools lack the operational autonomy they need to be effective."

Letters to the Editor - issue one

Just ranting. This might be my response if I were to write to the Gazette. (see original letter below) I won't because I don't live anywhere near there, but ...

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but letters like this one quoted below fill me with a sense of wonder and maybe a little despair -- wonder that the writer has so little knowledge of how the world works (or simply refuses to look beyond a talkinghead-type sound bite) and despair that we have a media with its echo chamber forums determined to perpetuate the false notions dreamed up in a fit of rage.

First, I wish that other states would include income sensitivity in their property-tax calculations to account for those who can't afford to pay. Here in the Socialist State of Vermont, property taxes are capped at 4.5% of household income. Its a fair compromise for a state that has little industry and most of its wealth tied up in property and it makes a lot of these complaints moot.

The wonder? The writer is essentially complaining that teachers (and their unions) are greedy bastards, "teaching students to pursue their own advantage regardless of the cost to their neighbor ... [snip] ... teachers’ unions are unwilling to forgo salary increases."

Click on the title for more

Why, exactly, should teachers give up a salary increase or accept a pay cut? I'm real sorry about the families who lost their source of income but I have a family, too. We both work and we make a good living. Why should I have to give back some of my wages just because someone else lost their job?

If one group of people loses a job, how does that mean that a second unrelated group must also lose their jobs or necessarily accept pay cuts? Can I simply look around and find those people who got a pay increase this year or who got jobs this year and demand a teacher increase based on them instead? Teacher pay and waitress pay should not be tied together. How about teacher pay and Bank Executives pay?

Why do people think like this? I think it's the disparity in public emotion between the loss and the gain of a job. People lash out without really thinking.

Unemployment is a big deal because of its affect on people, all at once. It's a particularly difficult and embarrassing time. Jobless people are in a definite crunch and attract understandable sympathy. I get that. (Some unemployed are more of a jerk about it - demanding a job as a right instead of looking for one or demanding that the new job pay as much as the old one.) What I don't get is why I should necessarily be the one who has to take a paycut to "pay" for it.

The other side of unemployment is much quieter. Getting a job is quiet celebration. All those folks get jobs at different times and they usually just go about their new job quietly with little fanfare, grateful that they can now be productive and fiercely protective of their job and paycheck.

Whence the despair? For me, it comes from considering that the media and the people of the community seem to be in an escalating competition to be more radical and unreasonable. The echo chamber of "teachers suck" letters gets a bit much. Forget the bad spelling and grammar, ignore the atrocious mathematical errors or the forgotten lessons of history. Forget that this is a fallacy of relevance (argumentum ad misericordiam).

Teachers are held responsible for all kinds of things - even those completely out of their control. Somehow, forcing a pay cut on them will cure those ills and inspire those teachers to do even more.

The same people who would (or have already)

1. do most anything to get a good-paying job at the plywood factory, or dealership
2. wonder why on Earth they should take a pay cut or voluntarily give up their job because unemployment is high in the community,
3. fight fiercely to keep that job, join a union and expect that union to negotiate on their behalf
4. look askance at an idea to make their own pay vary by as much as 25% and base that variation not on the quality of the work they do but on the quality of the materials they use or on the ability of workers they didn't choose and can't fire.
5. desire seniority rules to protect their own job and preventing the company from firing someone because a raw newbie is cheaper.
6. expect a raise every year regardless of any added value to the company

... would then ask teachers to accept layoffs and pay cuts because of unemployment in the community, complain that teachers have seniority rules and "tenure", complain about the teachers' union working for the benefit of its members and feel it appropriate to put their wage-scale decisions into the hands of diffident teenagers. And justify their complaint because teachers are "teaching the wrong lesson" to the children.

But, I teach logic. What do I know?

Greedy teachers setting an unhealthy example for their students

A Schenectady (NY) Daily Gazette Letter to the Editor
May 14, 2010

The most disturbing thing about our school budget process is that our educators, by their actions, are teaching students to pursue their own advantage regardless of the cost to their neighbor.

While many of us totter on the precipice of financial ruin, teachers’ unions are unwilling to forgo salary increases. School districts and most state legislators have turned a deaf ear to Gov. Paterson’s pleas for caps on school taxes despite New York state’s desperate financial situation, shrinking tax base and unstable economy.

Amidst all this avarice, I have seen no concern for the plight of the jobless and the vast majority whose incomes are shrinking. For example, at the Broadalbin-Perth school district budget hearing, one woman shared her heartbreaking story: She has been laid off from her job and, with only a trickle of income remaining, can barely make ends meet. The school board expressed no concern that she, and many others, will likely lose their homes if property taxes continue to increase.

Although I find the educator’s modeling of the “me, me” attitude disturbing, I find what the schools are teaching me more alarming. I have been a highly optimistic person. My zest for life has enabled me to prevail in my battle against two life-threatening diseases. I now find myself increasingly pessimistic. The determined gleam in my eyes is now only a flicker. If the Broadalbin-Perth school district’s budget is approved, my taxes, which have increased 400 percent in the past 10 years, will go up still another 14 percent. Even the contingency budget has a confounding tax increase of 9 percent.

If the citizens vote down the school budget, what will the students be told? In Broadalbin-Perth, I am afraid that they will hear that voters are selfishly denying them their sports programs. However, I hope that enlightened teachers will tell them the truth: Our taxes are too high; New Yorkers are leaving the state in record numbers and many who are jobless or retired cannot afford the 9 percent increase and may be forced to sell their homes.

Sherrie Giles
Broadalbin