Open letter to patients regarding health care coverage

Dr. Wes has an open letter to patients regarding health care coverage:

Dear Mr. and Ms. Patient,

It has come to my attention that in order for you to enjoy success as patients in the new era of health care reform, you must start working now to prevent illnesses that might befall you. Do not, under any circumstances, eat or drink too much. Fast food might as well be considered illegal. Exercise three, four, five times a day, even if it means take time off from work. It goes without saying that you should not smoke. The government has data that demonstrates how you have become fat, lazy, and a huge burden on our health care system. Your non-compliance threatens the very fiber of our economy. Even employers realize this, and are using calculators to figure your financial burden to them.

Now, in the unfortunate circumstance where you might become sick, you will need to develop symptoms that follow a few simple rules. Do not, under any circumstances, develop symptoms that fall outside federal protocols developed based on comparative effectiveness research data. If you do, your doctors will face pay cuts, litigation, limited resources due to lack of funding for cost-ineffective technologies, and the scourge of discharge planners. Does the term "leper colony" mean anything to you?

Read the rest here.