Watch SiCKO and Call Your Congressman in the Morning
WASHINGTON—The rudimentary equation of the health insurance industry is that to make a profit, it must take in more money than it pays out in claims. This is why the public, as distinct from the political class, will intuitively understand and likely appreciate Michael Moore’s new film, “Sicko.”
There is nothing particularly startling about any of the stories Moore presents of average Americans who are bankrupted, or who grow sicker, or who desperately seek treatment abroad, or who die because health insurance bureaucrats denied or restricted the care they could receive. When Moore put out an invitation on the Internet for people to come forward with their “health care horror stories,” he got more than 3,700 responses in the first 24 hours—within a week, he had amassed more than 25,000 stories.
These affronts to common sense and human decency have a monotonous familiarity. There is the middle-aged couple who lose their home and are forced to move into a daughter’s basement because of financial catastrophe brought on by the co-payments and deductibles related to the husband’s treatment for three heart attacks—which were followed by the wife’s cancer diagnosis. There is the slender, 79-year-old man who works as a supermarket janitor to finance the out-of-pocket costs of his prescriptions.
We meet a 22-year-old single mother whose treatment for cervical cancer is denied because her insurer said she was “too young” to have been given such a diagnosis. And a couple told that their daughter, who at 9 months was becoming deaf, would get coverage for only one cochlear implant—not two—because the insurer considered the surgery experimental. But, the perplexed father asks, if the company had confidence that the implant would work to improve hearing in one ear, why would it be “experimental” in the other?
“I was told repeatedly that I was not denying care, I was simply denying payment,” Linda Peeno, a doctor and former managed-care medical claims officer, testifies in a video clip from a 1996 congressional hearing. Even this absurdity does not shock, because we have heard it so often, for so many years.
That is the real point of Moore’s film. We are guilty of national malpractice for allowing the profit motive to drive decisions about who gets health care, and of what sort. “Any payment for a claim is referred to as a medical loss,” Peeno says in the movie.
After Moore’s film opens nationally on Friday, loud and contentious political talk about it is sure to grow louder. Much of it, no doubt, will be aimed at discrediting the national medical systems of Canada, Britain, France—and yes, Cuba—that Moore holds up as models of compassionate efficiency. Much of it will consist of screeching broadsides aimed at Moore, who unnerves conservatives because he is not some pointy-headed liberal professor from Cambridge but a funny guy from Flint, Mich., who wears a baseball cap and did precisely what the right always preaches: He found something he was good at, and made a fortune doing it.
Much discussion also will be premised on the assumption that what Moore advocates—government-funded health care that would be available to everyone—is politically impossible in the United States because the American public recoils from it. Balderdash.
The public embraces Medicare, which is government-funded health care that is available to all elderly people. It has an enduring affection for Social Security, another government-funded, universal benefit.
As for government-funded health insurance, it would be enlightening if those who so reflexively assert that the public has already rejected it would just ask—well, the public. In a May CNN poll, 64 percent said they thought the government should “provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes.” In February, the New York Times/CBS poll found that 60 percent were willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone had insurance. In January, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll asked a similar question about paying more taxes for universal insurance and again a majority said yes.
So on health care, Moore is no left-wing extremist, as so many Republicans claim. Nor is he much of a provocative nuisance, as some Democrats gripe. He is far closer to people’s thinking than are politicians of either party. The reason they fear Moore isn’t so much his movie, but its potential to upset their complacent caution.
Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at symbol)washpost.com.
© 2007, Washington Post Writers Group
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-
MICHAEL MOORE for PRESIDENT!
What I like about Michael, is that like Gregg Palast, in the words of Bill Moyers-he upsets all the right people-no pun intended.
this article is misinforming. i haven’t seen the movie yet, but if moore is offering other countries’ examples as solutions to the US system, then he’s not proposing universal insurance, but universal coverage. At least i don’t think he’s proposing the empowerment of existing insurance to cover all americans, which would just extend their current problems to all americans as well.
also, this healthcare issue has revolutionary potential. there are many interlocking issues here (waste of resources & human life, enrichment of the few on the backs of the many, etc.), but perhaps the most important is the disinformation that will be spewed out over the coming weeks, exposing our media & gov’t for what is: the whore of big bizness.
Who needs congressmen? DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOW!
http://www.nationalinitiative.us/
http://www.gp.org/
Jedediah: What Moore is implying is single-payer healthcare for all, something like Medicare for everybody. All you would need to qualify for healthcare is to be within US territorial limits.
This has many advantages, not least being that healthcare costs will drop because preventative care will be readily available to everyone. It also will mean that a third of the national healthcare dollar will no longer be wasted feeding insurance and drug pigs.
But, of course, the US is Pig City right now–witness the Democrats’ craven surrender on the Iraq issue for fear that some korporatist fascist like Halliburton will have its stealing privileges curtailed–and that is why we won’t see a sane healthcare system here anytime soon.
A long time family friend, a retired surgeon, related this nugget to me.
“When I started my practice in the early 60’s, financially there was seldom more than one set of hands between the patient and myself. During the final years of my practice there were often as many as 8-10 sets. And they all had to be paid…and either the patient or I paid them. Usually, we both did!”
Sums the system up well doesn’t it!
Watch SiCKO and Call Your Congressman in the Morning–Marie Coco
Poet sez:
Then tape a sign on the inside of your rear window that says:
“The time for single-payer, government-run, universal coverage health care IS NOW!”
Drive in the slow lane as much as possible and get the word out.
Watch SiCKO and Call Your Congressman in the Morning–Marie Cocco
Poet sez:
Then tape a sign inside your rear window that says:
“The time for single-payer, government-run, universal coverage helth care IS NOW!”
Drive in the slow lane as much as possible and get the word out.
I can’t wait until I see Michael Moore’s new documentary “SICKO.” I am a life long Michael Moore fan. I have seen all his work. I always found it odd that the U.S. Government does not pay for medical care for all its citizens. That Cuba, of all countries, was willing to treat Americans who worked at “Ground Zero” (After all, they are human beings) and United States Government wouldn’t shows how cruel the U.S. Government is. Why support your Government Americans? I don’t understand! Forgive me…
…tape a sign inside your rear window that says:
“The time for single-payer, government-run, universal coverage helth care IS NOW!”
Drive in the slow lane as much as possible and get the word out.
I know this is off-topic, but you and many others need to gat away from his assuption that we all drive cars every day and and therefore convey out opinions through things attached to a car. Surely there are less polluting ways of expressing your opinions. Today’s the first day I’ve driven a car more than a week - a total of 10 miles, and might, at most, drive it once in the next week.
PJD sez–
Surely there are less polluting ways of expressing your opinions. Today’s the first day I’ve driven a car more than a week - a total of 10 miles, and might, at most, drive it once in the next week.
Hey, that’s okay–if it is once in a blue moon (I know someone who is smiling right now!) do it anyway. Don’t waste the captive audinece you have behind you or passing you in traffic. Every llittle bit helps. While it is sitting in your driveway it is also communicating.
Michael Moore is a poet and a prophet. All we have to do is follow his example—find one small thing you can do and do it with all your energy and recourses. Your government has betrayed you. Your country needs you.
Poet: Thank you for the smile. Nietzsche, I agree as per Moore.
A slovenly man approaches a sexy woman.
“Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?” he asks.
She gives him the once over, and answers: “Sure.”
“Great,” he says. “Now that we’ve established you’re a whore, let’s negotiate the price.”
Unless ALL big pharma money is refused - lobbyscum, donations, all of it - healthcare reform will remain doublespeak.
Did any of you notice earlier today when Maria Bartiromo, who is a stocks analyst for CNBC, interviewed Michael Moore outside the Stock Exchange building? On camera she made a flimsy excuse claiming that CNBC could not get permission in time for Moore to interview him inside the building, which immediately put him on edge. In fact, he pressed her on the issue, asking if anyone else ever has been denied entry into the buidling? He was visibly irritated. Tell any of your friends who watch CNBC stockmarket analysis to stop. The stonewalling already has begun at the MSM level!
You are missing something BIG. When government controls health care, the corporations are completely in charge. They will decide what health care will be reimbursed. There are dozens and dozens of treatments and cures which are not “approved”. It’s not because they’re not effective, just that profits cannot be made.
One of many examples: coming next, Vitamin D analogs. We now know that a large percentage of the population is deficient in Vitamin D and that Vitamin D status is related to cancer, MS, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc. What does the medical profession say? They’re waiting for the analogs (read prescription version).
While universal coverage is an admirable goal, this is the wrong way to start. It is a subsidy to the arrogant, greedy and semi-competent.
The first step in affordable health care should be freedom of choice. The standard for prosecuting (persecuting) physicians should be “harm”, not use of “unapproved” treatments. Otherwise, the system calcifies and the gate keepers are those with the most to lose from change.
You’d be surprised how quickly costs would come down. Then we could see who/what still needs coverage. Search “Bec5″ and “Avemar” or “Ave” if you don’t believe me.
I don’t want to sound like a moralist but, from a strictly practical perspective, if people do not exercise and eat whole foods there will not be enough money in the whole planet to treat them. Who pays when 50% of the population receives Social Security and Disability? Medicare pays for things that would never be covered in the countries that have universal coverage.
JSC observes:
You are missing something BIG. When government controls health care, the corporations are completely in charge. They will decide what health care will be reimbursed. There are dozens and dozens of treatments and cures which are not “approved”. It’s not because they’re not effective, just that profits cannot be made.
******************
JSC–
In Canada, Britain, France, and even Cuba government runs and controls the health care and what you are saying is not the case. As for your example of needing a perscription for vitamins, since perscriptions as well as medical treatment would be covered so what?
The big change is that greedy business men would not be choosing between granting life-saving treatment and an increased quarterly stock dividend.
I don’t wish to sound alarmist, but your analysis seems to be fascistic in nature since they (the fascists) are the ones who conflate corporatism with government.
crivera’s comments on Cuba’s immigration policy are diversionary from the key question: are you really suggesting that the reason that America has the healthcare system that it does is due to its immigration policy? Or Canada? Of course not.
The philosophical question is this: is the health of a country’s citizens sufficiently important that you develop policies and practices that ensure that all their citizens can get healthcare?
The #1 cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. is having to pay medical bills, often by people who have medical insurance (which then doesn’t cover their situation). There is something terribly wrong with this picture!
As a Canadian who didn’t have to worry about how to pay for melanoma-related surgery that saved my life, I deeply resent jsc’s comment that universal healthcare is “a subsidy to the arrogant, greedy and semi-competent”. I even exercise and eat whole foods. I also got melanoma even though I NEVER sunbathe. Shit happens and I was glad that my country understands that I am better able to support myself and others and contribute to the economy and well-being of my country if I am healthy. Is our system imperfect? Absolutely. Would I exchange it for yours? Not on your life!
JSC: YOU are missing something BIG. When the government pays for health care, suddenly it becomes efficient to keep people healthy, instead of only dealing with them when they get sick. Suddenly, it’s in the government’s *financial* interest to reduce smoking, improve diets, and encourage exercise.
In the current situation in the US, when someone gets sick, many people make money, and those earnings are taxed. The government makes more money from sick people than from healthy people.
I had my first complete physical exam in over a decade since moving to Canada. And it was free. With typical policies and deductibles, you don’t get free physicals in the US.
Canada has a thriving alternative health care system. I can go to a traditional doctor, a naturopath, or an acupuncturist — all living on the same 70 square mile island of 9,500 residents. I don’t think you’ll find such choice within 70 square miles of a community of 9,500 in the US.
I saw Moore’s movie SiCKO. It brought tears to my eyes to see that children were allowed to die because their mothers did not bring them to the “right” hospital, fathers denied life saving bone marrow transfusions who do not live to see their children grow up…etc, etc. without end. It was very sad to see and hear the movie’s stories.
As Bren states, our system is far from perfect, but trust me that no Canadian child would be turned away from a hospital and proper treatment because she was not at an approved hospital, nor would a bone marrow transplant be refused if a donor match is found. All hospitals are approved and you choose your own doctor. They do their best to make you better if they cannot cure you.
When I needed to go to an eye specialist, I did not like the one in the town I lived in and chose to see one in another town that required a ferry ride (BC ferries are not cheap) the government paid for that plus, of course my chosen doctor.
When my late brother was not responding to his cancer related amputation, the single payer medical service covered the cost of his being airlifted to a Vancouver hospital no preapproval necessary for that nor for his ambulance rides.
Yeah, our Canadian system is not as good as it could be in many ways, and we have all heard our own horror stories. I still think that it must be better by far than what we see of yours.
It also makes me somewhat proud to know that some of my tax dollars helped someone live to see their children grow up or to know that many children are alive because of our system who would not have been in some other countries.
I already saw sicko weeks ago, and it is going to be very effective, I’m sure. The insurance industry is, like the student loan industry, a terribly corrupt scam. You pay the insurance company money every month, and when you get sick, they find every single way possible to refuse coverage, even if it leaves you disabled for the rest of your life or dead. We need single-payer, nonprofit healthcare.
H.R.676
Title: To provide for comprehensive health insurance coverage for all United States residents, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/24/2007) Cosponsors (63)
Latest Major Action: 1/30/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.
________________________________________
COSPONSORS(63), ALPHABETICAL [followed by Cosponsors withdrawn]: as of 4/2/2007
Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Brady, Robert A. [PA-1] - 2/27/2007
Rep Carson, Julia [IN-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Christensen, Donna M. [VI] - 1/24/2007
Rep Clarke, Yvette D. [NY-11] - 2/16/2007
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] - 1/24/2007
Rep Cohen, Steve [TN-9] - 2/7/2007
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [MD-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Delahunt, William D. [MA-10] - 2/12/2007
Rep Doyle, Michael F. [PA-14] - 3/21/2007
Rep Ellison, Keith [MN-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 1/24/2007
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 1/24/2007
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] - 3/7/2007
Rep Green, Al [TX-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [FL-23] - 1/29/2007
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] - 1/24/2007
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] - 1/24/2007
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX-30] - 1/24/2007
Rep Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [GA-4] - 2/13/2007
Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] - 2/12/2007
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. [MI-13] - 1/24/2007
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Loebsack, David [IA-2] - 1/24/2007
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14] - 1/29/2007
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21] - 1/24/2007
Rep Meehan, Martin T. [MA-5] - 1/24/2007
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] - 1/24/2007
Rep Moore, Gwen [WI-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] - 1/29/2007
Rep Napolitano, Grace F. [CA-38] - 2/27/2007
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] - 3/21/2007
Rep Olver, John W. [MA-1] - 2/16/2007
Rep Pastor, Ed [AZ-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] - 1/24/2007
Rep Roybal-Allard, Lucille [CA-34] - 1/24/2007
Rep Rush, Bobby L. [IL-1] - 2/6/2007
Rep Scott, Robert C. [VA-3] - 1/24/2007
Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] - 2/7/2007
Rep Solis, Hilda L. [CA-32] - 2/12/2007
Rep Sutton, Betty [OH-13] - 3/27/2007
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] - 1/24/2007
Rep Udall, Tom [NM-3] - 2/27/2007
Rep Waters, Maxine [CA-35] - 1/29/2007
Rep Watson, Diane E. [CA-33] - 1/24/2007
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] - 1/24/2007
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 1/24/2007
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] - 1/24/2007
Rep Wynn, Albert Russell [MD-4] - 1/24/2007
Rep Yarmuth, John A. [KY-3] - 2/27/2007
There are actually more cosponsors than those listed above. Through our lobbying efforts, we helped get Reps. Sutton and Ryan on board. They are two good congress people. Here is our endorsement from last year to get single payer in Ohio, and our backing of H.R. 676/ PDA os being effective. Join us in our efforts.
Ohio’s PDA Chapters Endorse SPAN’s Ohio Single Payer Health Care Initiative
The Ohio chapters of the Progressive Democrats of America unanimously endorse the Single-Payer Action Network Ohio (SPAN Ohio) plan to bring every resident of the Buckeye State fully guaranteed and comprehensive health care coverage. When adopted, every resident will be covered with a full range of medical services: hospitalization, prescriptions, vision and dental care, home care, long-term care, mental health care, and medically necessary care for all injuries and illnesses. www.spanohio.org . Obtaining good health care will no longer be a matter of where one falls on the economic spectrum, but will be something in which all can fully participate.
PDA, a proponent of single-payer at the national level for all Americans, knows that historically it is through seminal state initiatives bubbling up at the grassroots level where change begins. The SPAN initiative, sometimes referred to as a single-payer universal health care, would guarantee comprehensive medical coverage as a right for all Ohio residents.
Single Payer would free the burden of individuals, small businesses, and corporations the onerous costs associated with medical coverage, eliminate the waste of monies that now are siphoned off through unnecessary paperwork and insurance costs, and give the 1.3 million uninsured Ohioans coverage, and begin providing sensible, early preventative intervention opportunities to increase overall health and the high costs of late stage illness.
Those interests who oppose Americans seeking common solutions for the common good have circulated many myths regarding single-payer health care, and one can be well assured that those profiting from the labyrinth that is our present health care system will fight Ohioans working together for positive and sensible change.
PDA’s Ohio chapters will endeavor to help SPAN in whatever way possible to effectively bring their educational and petition drive campaign to as many Ohioans as possible in the coming months to make sensible, comprehensive health care coverage a reality for all Ohioans.
Only by all Ohioans working together for the welfare of one another will we make the changes necessary to see that each of us, regardless of economic level or the vicissitudes of life, have an equal opportunity to live healthier lives, better care for our family and loved ones, and promote a more equitable society that serves the common good.
To see what you can or your organization can do to help in this effort and to familiarize yourself with the finer points and the facts about single payer health care, please visit SPAN at their site: www.spanohio.org We call on all Ohio activists organizations to join SPAN in this noble endeavor to bring a better and more dignified quality of life to the people of Ohio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicko#Controversy
check that out. Read through the whole thing, seriously take 5 mins…. SOLID PROOF that the insurance industry has it’s propoganda team at work… they’re already editing propoganda onto wikipedia. They even cite a right wing bloggers post.
Moreover, the “controversy” article is longer than the main article itself. The insurance companies are getting belligerent and frightened. Keep up the discussion and good work Michael Moore
crivera
I think you are missing the point. The Cuban healthcare system is a remarkable achievement in the face of their limited resources and history of US hostility (ie the embargo). I don’t think commenting on this achievement qualifies as romanticizing. The United States on the other hand has plenty of resources however for many Americans health care coverage is not affordable or available.
Also contrary to what you seem to believe immigrants have little if anything to do with the rising health care costs or affordability of health care coverage in the United States.
I don’t have to call my Congresswoman, she is on the list above and already knows of our very strong support.
jsc
“You are missing something BIG. When government controls health care, the corporations are completely in charge. They will decide what health care will be reimbursed. There are dozens and dozens of treatments and cures which are not “approved”. It’s not because they’re not effective, just that profits cannot be made.”
It seems to work fine in other nations. The United States spends the most on health care however has a relatively low health care usage in comparison to other nations. Yes governments do decide what treatments are covered. However this has nothing to do with profit but instead the effectiveness of the treatment. For example a treatment that uses a lot of resources but only provides minimal gains in health.
Single payer systems give the state a tremendous amount of market power in negotiating prices with health care providers. One of the problems in the United States is that there is a very powerful and consolidated market power on the seller’s side (providers) with a very fragmented and weak buyer’s side. Therefore providers have a huge say over prices.
“The first step in affordable health care should be freedom of choice. The standard for prosecuting (persecuting) physicians should be “harm”, not use of “unapproved” treatments. Otherwise, the system calcifies and the gate keepers are those with the most to lose from change.”
I have yet to encounter a health economist that takes the claims that malpractice cases are somehow the driving force behind rising health care costs in the United States seriously.
crivera June 28th, 2007 7:50 pm wrote:
“How can Moore romanticize Cuba’s health care system without discussing Cuba’s strict immigration policy. Why isn’t Cuba welcoming all the poor Haitians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, etc?”
Um, because training one doctor from Haiti with the expectation that she will return home to practice (and train others) there helps far more Haitians than does “welcoming” Haitians who have the means to emigrate, which is to say those Haitians Haiti can least afford to relinquish.
It is immoral for a country as wealthy as ours to have 45 million people with no health coverage, and tens of millions more with inadequate coverage and/or excessive rates. It also makes no economic sense; despite spending twice as much as other industrialized nations on healthcare, our system performs poorly - because the private U.S. insurance bureaucracy soaks up nearly one-third of all healthcare money in waste, profits, paperwork, and advertising. Poor health and poor healthcare are drags on the economy and productivity; up to half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by healthcare crises and the costs it has imposed.
Progressive Democrats of America (www.pdamerica.org) supports Rep. John Conyers bill, H.R. 676, which establishes streamlined, nonprofit national health insurance - enhanced Medicare for All - which would negotiate drug and treatment costs. By replacinng private insurers and recouping administrative savings of up to $300 BILLION per year this single-payer approach provides topnotch healthcare to everyone. Care would be privately-delivered by healers and hospitals, but publicly financed — with no bills, co-pays, deductibles, denials or medically-induced bankruptcies. PDA also supports healthcare initiatives at the state and local level that move us toward a nonprofit single-payer system.
Michael Moore asks in “SICKO” - “What kind of people are we?” Call your congressional representative now and ask them to support H.R. 676 . . . that’s the kind of people we are!
Information about Progressive Democrats of America can be found at www.pdamerica.org
As long as medical care focuses on drugs and surgeries we’re going to keep having problems, regardless of how they are paid for. Until the public starts asking questions like “what are my choices” and “do I really need this” with the freedom to consider options that aren’t financed by the drug and insurance industries we’re going to keep having the problems we’ve been having.
The money Bush has wasted in Iraq would have provided healthcare for every American citizen and few who aren’t. It’s really sad we have a administration that prefers killing people to saving them. Thus his pro-life sance is a insult to our intelligence! Clinton tried to get coverage for all American’s. The outcry from the Republican side was deafening. So don’t look for it to happen anytime soon. We have the money to make war even if we have to morgage our childrens future. But, we don’t have the money to take care of our own. I watched C Span the other day and the Republican’s are on another budget kick after 6 years of squandering. They were complaining about a bill that had money in it to clean up toxic waste in Youngtown Ohio. But, as I stated before the war in Iraq continues to drain us of resources that could be used here at home for healthcare and toxic waste. And the Republican’s wonder why they are losing ground?
“The money…wasted in Iraq would have provided health care…”
Maybe if it wasn’t borrowed from China who will, you can be sure, eventually extract their pound of flesh. If they treat us as we have treated “debtor” nations they will demand we stop paying for health care and education in order to repay them. If we’re lucky though, they’ll demand the dismantling of our military. Or maybe they’ll just take our grain and demand military bases to “protect their food supply”.
Medicare, which takes around 3% of total payroll in this country is and has been running in the red. They pay for mastectomies for 98 year old blind, bedriidden, demented women, they pay for multiple open heart surgeries for people in their eighties and $50-$100/hour for therapists to feed (not evaluate, feed) folks nearly gone from a stroke. Medicaid pays over $1 million each to save 2 and 3 pound babies, some (many?) of whom require as much long term care as our traumatized and damaged vets. Think how much health care we could afford if we weren’t spending like this. I don’t know if other systems cover expenses like this? Something tells me no. Let’s get some stories about other countries that look at the negatives as well as the positives. They eliminate “treatments that use a lot of resources, with minimal benefit” as noted above. It’s triage. Me, I prefer those others even with the negatives but I remeber that Oregon, in the 90’s tried to change Medicaid and were going to deny liver transplants to alcoholics. People started screaming, oblivious to the implicaitons of unlimited health care spending.
To those who’ve had successful treatments for melanoma, etc why would you think I’d think that was wrong? What’s wrong is mandating a system that limits personal health care choices and at the same time spends as if the sky’s the limit.
We are now spending $400 billion a year (That’s 4 years of Iraq!) on interest on the national debt.
bluestater is correct to say that until we consider options not financed by the drug and insurance companies the problems will remain.
Poet–It is not fascistic to say that corporations are running our government, it is a fact. The only way LBJ could get Medicare passed was by allowing hospital and medical associations to write the rules. (sound familiar? Prescription Drug benefit anyone?) And thus medical costs began to escalate. Why would anyone think this would be any different? And as for needing a prescription to get vitamins and supplements, why should anyone have to pay a doctor to “approve” medical care. What if I think I need certain treatment and the doctor disagrees? And the attitude that someone else is paying so who cares is partly why we have a big mess today.
crooked7: prosecuting physicians has nothing to do with malpractice. It has to do with medical societies taking away licenses of physicians who don’t “conform” to standard medical practices even when their patients testify to the benefits received, thus intimidating many, many others.
“Canada has a thriving alternative health care system” I’m envious, but here we need legislation that protects physicians and other practitioners before that will happen.
jsc
“It has to do with medical societies taking away licenses of physicians who don’t “conform” to standard medical practices even when their patients testify to the benefits received, thus intimidating many, many others.”
You really aren’t making much of a case of how this affects prices. Mind elaborating? Are you saying that these practices reduce the supply of physicians and therefore increase prices? The financial incentives are still so great that I doubt this has a significant impact on the supply of physicians, let alone prices.
Your explanation doesn’t make a whole lot of sense where exactly is your source of this information?
Sicko is an enlightening and thought provoking film, in which Moore does a brilliant job of exposing the shortcomings and downright failures of our system…
As MichaelPDA points out, the Bill now in the House that proposes a solution is called HR676: National Health Insurance Act, and 70+ Reps have already signed on to it!
Go here: http://hr676.theunderrepresented.com/ to ask your rep to support this revolutionary legislation.
HR676 may not be the ultimate final answer to this massive problem, but we need to push Congress to continue the dialogue on this issue now!
ISA
Instant Spontaneous Applause.
I don’t remember being in a movie theater before when the entire audience bust into applause at the last line of the movie, but it happened with SICKO.
We all know people that hate Michael Moore. My sister is one of them. But my sister also thinks Ann Coulter is a “reasonable” person. My sister is an idiot. But I can’t even imagine Ann Coulter going to this movie and not at least give it a “thumbs-up”.
And how simple. I mean really, what more does Michael do than walk around with a camera? No sets, actors, maybe a prop or two and Za-zam! here we are! Of course it’s harder than that and Michael has talent for making it look easier than is most likely really is, but mostly that’s us in those lenses. Candid camera on steroids in the a man of Michael’s talent.
Seeing ourselves up on that screen brings it home. Those aren’t actors, those are us and hence I can understand why some people hate Mr. Moore. If you worked for the corporate health care industry in this country, you might not want to go see this movie, the quilt you’ll feel on the way home might force you to do the right thing or drive your car off a cliff. (Make sure your policy is paid - not that it would help, as you already know.)
This is a “break though” film. I think it’s going to be real hard for Michael to do any more films like this himself. What politician, (other than the few un-corrupted or the stupid), corporate employee, certainly not any managers or CEO’s would allow Mr. Moore to show them as they really are? I think Michael’s going to have to use shills, other talented candid-camera investigative journalism types to continue in this way. If indeed that is what he wishes to do.
I have always enjoyed Mike’s work, and unlike my idiot sister (after all what award has Ann Coulter ever won?) feel good for him and hope he continues to shed light on us. Warts and all.
Ah, ahem, hey Mike, I hear you have some questions about 9/11 …?