Why is it that my friend, 89 years old, stays at a local hospital and is charged more than $1,100 per day when I can stay at a local motel for $75 per day? Not only, but the motel food is superior to that of the hospital, and I can vouch, the free aspirin at my motel tasted exactly the same as the $9.75 aspirin from the hospital’s “gourmet pharmacy.”

You say, “He must have a private room!” Right, he does with a little bed that goes up and down. My room, on the other hand, has a “king bed” free TV, room service and free limo service to local attractions.

Now, I suggest that you will opt to take the “shot” and advise me. “Your buddy would not get immediate medical attention in that motel, but he does so in that hospital,” Really? Maybe by a five-minute differential, max. Anyone out there, I ask, “think a price differential of $1,025 per day is worth five minutes?” I most certainly do not! Simply too many people (seniors and non-seniors) are being forced to choose between meds, food or rent. That is simply not right!

The old days of Dr. Omer Caron making home calls to our home when we were young (five siblings) to fix our problems without bankrupting mom and dad are over, I guess. The ole days of dentist Gerry Levesque performing ingenious dental work on me and my siblings (so commended years later by my military dental experts) are gone. Truly sad that not only seniors (which I am by a long shot) but all of us have to fear such things as a dental cavity requiring repair, or “God Forbid,” a root canal (no Medicare coverage for that stuff), a vision or hearing deficiency (on your own again) or any other medical problem with our simply fragile human bodies.

Democrat, Republican, Independent, all of us are in the same boat are we not? We, as a nation cannot afford to increase our national debt. Neither can we continue on this road to bankruptcy. We must, we truly must, help those who deeply and honestly need help through our tax dollars, but concurrently root out the fakes and the phonies, the liars and the lazy, the scammers and shysters and punish them to the ultimate allowable by law. Sad thing to say, but there will always be those who wish to take advantage of society’s generosity, and as a people of morals, we should seek them out and punish them for their sins against humanity!