On Wednesday I went to see my dentist (and noted author of children’s books), Dr. Joe Lester in Conyers, Georgia to be evaluated for dental implants. While there, I also had two teeth extracted. It was while he was pulling my teeth that Dr. Lester (who is a huge Obama supporter) learned that I was the same Sandra Rose who owns the blog that he banned everyone in his office from reading.
Dr. Lester is for ObamaCare, and of course, I’m against it. Shout out to Lester Dental Group staffers KiKi, Kenyatta and Tanika, who bring their laptops to work daily so they can still read my blog despite the fact that Dr. Lester banned my blog!
Here’s a poignant letter that Dr. Lester wrote about his son-in-law, Mike (pictured below with his wife), who was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Lester doesn’t think Obama received the letter, so I decided to post it in the hopes that someone in Washington reads this letter from a doctor who is working in the trenches with patients who don’t have insurance.
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. I know that you are a very busy man so I’ll make this brief. I’d like to encourage you to keep up the good fight for universal health care coverage for the average citizen of this country. I am a healthcare provider who often hears from his patients how difficult it is for them to afford healthcare. I am also part of a family who is struggling with inadequate health care coverage. Last month, I lost a dear aunt to a two-year fight against breast cancer at age 52, and now my 42-year-old son-in-law is fighting lung cancer that has metastasized to his brain. The bill for his brain surgery alone, at Emory Hospital here in Atlanta, was well over $100,000. Over the last two years, his medical bills have quickly approached a half-million dollars.
He and my daughter are exactly the “middle-class” you and Vice President Biden are working hard to help. My son-in-law worked for Sprint before becoming medically disabled; my daughter, an assistant principal at a middle school here in Conyers, Georgia, now carries their medical coverage. Yet this young couple and their six-year-old son struggle even to survive in a country that’s supposed to have the best medical care in the world. I thank God they have health insurance. Yet even with insurance, the co pay on his surgery alone is more than she can pay on her salary. Chemo, radiation, and his monthly meds have about drained them financially.
But we are a close-knit family, and are pooling our resources to stay afloat in this tough economy. I am quite familiar with sacrifice, being one of a large family who grew up as children of a South Georgia sharecropper, but who all found success in our lives. (Our story is described in the included book.) Today I am a dentist, in private practice for 25 years, and although things are a bit tight, my income is a bit better than most. Even so, this year I had to drop health insurance for my staff because I could no longer afford to pay it for them; I know several other medical offices that have been forced to do the same thing. When medical care gets so expensive the doctor cannot offer it to their own staff, it should be obvious to most that our health insurance system is broken.
Like many Americans, I believe that saving lives through an effective healthcare system is just as important as protecting our citizens from threats foreign or domestic. Continue the good fight, Mr. President. You have a lot of people out here on your side, praying for that change you spoke so passionately about during your campaign. And I agree that a big part of the change we need so desperately is healthcare for every American.
With great admiration,
Joe N. Lester, DDS
Enc. Book, I Am Not Afraid to Dream
