110. Two (Proudly) Unpublished Letters to the Tampa Bay Times
- Dec 17, 2025
- 4 min read
Fixing United States Health Care - Letters to the File
Part I. The Hot Mess
Part II. The Solution
by
T Michael White MD FACP
The Realization of Universal Access to ABC-STEEEP
(Affordable, Basic, Compassionate - Safe, Timely, Efficient, Effective, Equitable/Just, Patient-Centered Care)
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110. Two (Proudly) Unpublished Letters to the Tampa Bay Times
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Mahatma Gandhi
The WhiteHouse on the Belleair Bluff
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Dr. Mike,
A letter to the file…
The fine general press that you read (The New York Times and The Tampa Bay Times) are beginning to catch up with your message ꟷ in this fine, virtuous country, our unplanned health care non-system has become a catastrophic, cataclysmic, chaotic hot mess. They just do not yet articulate clearly enough. To help them along, you responded (letters to the editor) to two relevant articles in the Tampa Bay Times. Neither has been published. Provided your gravitas, no one is more surprised than you. Nevertheless, let us capture, lest they be loss, your insightful, watertight thoughts here…
Tampa Bay Times Article: Florida Takes Steps on Vaccines (Saturday, December 13th )
Letter to Tampa Bay Times Editor:
Reasonable Expectations for Public Health Practitioners
For those in government who advocate endangering millions by eliminating vaccine
mandates, may we reasonably expect: 1) they explain their mandate (the what, the why, the who) to practice complex public health medicine; 2) they demonstrate their qualifications (their training and experience) to proffer complex public health medicine advice; 3) practicing medicine, they adhere to the basic tenet, primum non nocere --- first do no harm; 4) they require those opting out of vaccinations to take a course that graphically demonstrates how the preventable diseases in question may harm people; 5) they clearly articulate, for each preventable disease, the risk benefit ratio of being vaccinated versus contracting disease; 6) they provide all decision makers (many who do not have access to even basic care) access to medical experts who can assist with the making of informed decisions; and 7) they stand ready to take responsibility for harms (which surely will come) to the unvaccinated, to the immunocompromised and to the vaccinated elderly whose immunity has waned. TMWMD
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Tampa Bay Times Article (12/14/2025): Affordable Care Act Enrollees Say Expiring
Letter to Tampa Bay Times Editor:
Our Health Care Insurance Sham
Unless you are a member of Congress, in the millionaire/billionaire club or with
Medicare protected by significant personal wealth, all health insurance (not just Obamacare) is now unaffordable. Daily our citizens confront a callous health care sham: once significant exorbitant monthly premiums are paid, co-pays, co-insurance and deductibles make care unaffordable. Essentially all insured Americans now face a cruel health care paradox: sort of insured when healthy and essentially uninsured if accident or illness intervene. The plight of the millions of uninsured, is beyond imagining. Our health care circumstance is now a cataclysmic, chaotic crisis. The solution? Citizens, we must recognize it; call it out for what it is; and insist that this fine, decent, virtuous country provide universal access to affordable, basic, compassionate, safe, timely, efficient, effective, equitable/just patient-centered care (ABS-STEEEP) as infrastructure that preserves basic food, health and housing securities for individuals and fortifies hospital, community and national wellbeing.
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As a bonus, this unrequited letter submission process stimulates a correction in your
thinking. You have identified three fraught citizen health care syndromes: 1) a relaxed some perceive their care is just fine and is not in immediate jeopardy ꟷ the I got mine syndrome; 2) some, deeply alarmed and well aware that the health care sky is falling, are overcome by a sense of futility ꟷ the nothing can be done syndrome; and 3) some, brutally disillusioned by the realization that our decent, kind, virtuous country would treat its fine citizens this way, are overcome with sadness ꟷ the broken-hearted syndrome. There is in fact a fourth syndrome: 4) some (for the wellbeing of near and dear, trailing generations, community and country) are quixotically striving to right this sinking ship ꟷ the I’m not going to take it anymore syndrome.
Dr. Mike, as you carry the banner for syndrome #4, please keep on keeping on.
Respectfully submitted with fondest personal regards,
Dr. Mike
You may leave an anonymous comment without username and email ꟷ please do. Please share your wisdom, insights and perceptions (your reality) about what I have right, wrong and/or omitted. I will be delighted to hear from you as this draft and subsequent chapters will be significantly enhanced.
Dr. Mike
Letters to the File ꟷ Part II
101. Introduction to Part II ꟷ The Solution
102. The United States Health Care System ꟷ Enabling Legislation
103. The United States Health Care System ꟷ View From Space
104. My (Unique and Very Personal) United States Health Care ꟷ Getting Started
105. My Semi-annual Primary Care Team Visit
106. The United States Health Care System ꟷ My Contract
107. ‘Medicide’ ꟷ Failure to Make Whitefish Bay (A Fiction)
108A. P/CEO Charley Price’s Prologue ꟷ We Must Start Anew!
108B. The Enabling Cataclysm ꟷ A Fiction?
108C. Dr. Dana Kellis’ Epilogue ꟷ A Single Payer (not a single provider) System
109. United States Health Care ꟷ Hot Mess, Canary, Wolf and Solution
110. Two (Proudly) Unpublished Letters to the Tampa Bay Times
(more to follow)
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