Sicko: Beyond the ‘Health Care Horror Stories’
Last weekend in a sneak preview I watched Michael Moore’s new documentary, “Sicko.” I was prepared to see a bunch of nightmare stories about people getting cut off insurance and people suffering and even dying because of bad decisions profit-driven corporate insurers made, and that is what I saw. I was ready for Moore to use these stories to make a call for universal health care, and this is what he does, and he does a fabulous job.
Moore has reached out to YouTube, Oprah and other outlets to spur Americans to air their own “horror stories” to raise awareness of the unethical actions of insurers acting for profit. But these outlets aren’t going to capture a big part of the story of “universal” health care.
What matters so much about a universal system is not just that it covers huge costs of life-saving treatments; what matters most is that it levels the playing field and gives basic care to everyone. This is why other countries call it “universal,” not “single-payer.” And basic care includes not just dramatic or expensive treatments that look great on Oprah; it also includes preventive care and treatment for mundane problems that can and do happen to everyone-the stuff that maybe doesn’t give good film, but which is truly “universal.”
Here’s what a universal health care system means to me: It means anywhere you go-any hospital, any doctor-you can get care for your baby when he starts to spit up uncontrollably. That’s what happened when we moved to London when our son was three months old. My husband was teaching a semester abroad; I was a new mother; Jonathan developed gastric reflux. I knew the NHS would treat him and pay for the treatment. What I didn’t know about was their attitude toward treating us. The field is level: British doctors don’t look down on patients who can’t pay, because British doctors never raise the issue of money.
Taking money out of the health-care equation also removes anxiety from health care. You get to feel that you deserve the care, not because you can or cannot pay, but because you’re a human being living in society, and in society human beings take care of each other. It’s no coincidence that the words “hospital” and “hospitality” share the same Old French linguistic root, meaning to receive travelers and strangers with liberality and goodwill. The idea and the impetus has been around for centuries.
If I were going to tell Oprah a story, it would be this (it’s not a horror story, but it further exemplifies “universal” health care): Two days before we flew back to the States, my London doctor gave me an IUD. This relieved a nagging problem I hadn’t a clue how to solve. My American midwife had urged me to choose a birth-control method before I left. My insurer would cover any hormonal or surgical method, but at 33 I wasn’t ready for sterility, and estrogen was no-go because it aggravates my migraines and mood-swings. I needed an effective, low-cost reversible birth-control method; research says that is the IUD. But my health-plan wasn’t interested in this medical problem; they just wouldn’t pay. My best option would cost $500.
This scenario is neither Oprah-sexy nor YouTube-worthy. But preventing unwanted pregnancy is an ongoing, recurrent problem that causes a great deal of conflict and stress for women. Which is why, the day the British GP inserted my IUD, I walked out of her office on light feet: the system had solved my problem. For the next nine years, if I chose, I would not have to give one thought or one dollar to birth control. My gratitude felt boundless.
Moore says his film is about the 250 million Americans with health insurance. Mostly, it was about insured Americans who have faced terrible health problems and unethical, even lethal decisions from their insurers. There are many more Americans who face a multitude of daily, commonplace hassles-co-pay and premium increases, medication formulary changes, prior authorization requirements, time limits on doctor visits, and on and on. As Moore says, the World Health Organization rates the U.S. as having the 38th best health care system in the world, just above Slovenia. We live with substandard health care every day because of the tenuousness of insurance coverage in this country. How safe and strong and healthy can our society be, if so many people are so fearful about a need as basic as health care?
“First of all,” one blogger wrote about “Sicko,” “there is no right to health care. None!” Corporate insurers and the politicians they lobby have nearly succeded in completely erasing from American consciousness the belief that health care is a social right. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows the leading causes of death in our society-the use of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs; diet and activity habits; and firearms, sexual behavior, and motor vehicles-are all factors amenable to preventive and public health interventions. Preventing the illnesses these factors cause is far less expensive in the long run than treating those problems in full bloom. And as far as the taxes required to fund a universal system, the polls are clear: a May CNN poll found 64 percent of Americans want to pay higher taxes to get a government-run national health insurance program; New York Times/CBS and NBC/Wall Street Journal polls came up with similar numbers.
If you watch “Sicko” and you want to be part of the dialogue but have no horror story to file with YouTube or Oprah, write or film your ordinary story anyway. These outlets need to know the entire spectrum of problems. Health care is about basic care for regular folks: the dramatic, life-and-death stories aren’t the beginning and end of the universal health-care debate.
Jennifer Matesa is a freelance writer with a focus on families, birthing and health care. Her first book, Navel-Gazing: The Days and Nights of a Mother in the Making, won a community-service award from Lamaze.
People need to know that the US Health Care crisis is about more than just those uninsured, and Sicko seems to be somewhat pointing that out. You can have ‘good’ insurance and be put at danger by this. How so? It is because the hospitals and doctors will begin to treat your payment plan instead of you. That, too, is dangerous to your health.
When they have a ‘good’ patient with ‘good’ insurance, doctors and hospitals will run every costly test in the world on you. Instead of the cold shoulder that those without insurance coverage receive, you will get and inordinate amount of attention. Doctors and hospitals will want to do everything in the world they can, by examining every system in your body to try to find something they can ‘treat’ and get paid for.
In short, the health care we have awards over treatment to those with ‘good’ coverage, and under treatment to those without. With over treatment, you may be offered surgeries that might best be left alone. You might get long stays in the hospital to do costly diagnostics on you in a fishing expedition to find a reason to continue ‘treating’ you (or your payment plan). Diagnostics and long unnecessary stays in hospitals can actually worsen your health.
Each cold you go see the doctor about can get you into the hospital for diagnostic workups, that in and of themselves are not quite unbenign. In fact, some can become deadly in their own right.
All suffer when payment (Or lack of it) determines ‘care’ given. Over treatment can sometimes be almost as bad for you as under treatment. How many of the elderly have died from having a ton of pills for every condition prescribed? One doctor gives one thing, another doctor gives another, without any two ever seeming to coordinate what they are doing together.
We need a universal system of health care, though that alone will not solve everything no more than pulling troops out of Iraq will solve the problem of having the whole military-industrial complex in gear. The problems go much deeper than many of the solutions currently timidly being proposed.
Make the sign:
“The time for single-payer, government-run, universal coverage health care IS NOW!
Put it on the inside of the rear window of your vehicle. Spread the word!
just do what I do… don’t pay.
I had to get two blood tests, to check for something with my liver (which as you said was nothing at all). anyhow, I walked into the testing station, took a number, on the way out i just left.
second time in I was sure they’d give me some sort of invoice, but nope. And once again, I walked right out after the second test without paying.
I suggest everyone resist paying.
Most Doctors hate the insurance companies, and want a national plan. it protects and helps them too. Moreover, people within the Health industry (not the insurance indusrtry) know that the insurers are fleecing us.
I liken the corrupt health insurance industry to the inherantly corrupt nature of automobile/car repair industry. Nothing will be wrong with you’re car. Little wear and tear maybe, which is pretty typical… ultimately your car is doing very well. But a corrupt and greedy mechanic, like an insurance admin, will always find more reasons for you to put more money into your car, even with nothing wrong. it’s like in Seinfeld, “You don’t know, they could tell you anything they want… Hey, your car needs a new ‘Johnson Rod!’” The “improvements” are no real improvements at all.
then, when something is actually wrong, you have to pay 10 fold because suddenly, the insurance company you’ve been paying for 20+ years decides it’s not going to cover you
It’s a small thing, and my insurance has more or less been pretty good over the years. But several times I’ve gotten a bill from a doctor or hospital that I was sure should be paid. Once it was because the insurance company had sent me a letter asking me for at least the 10th time if my husband had other insurance and I either had not gotten the form or didn’t realize what it was. Ive had to resubmit this form every year, even though neither of us has had other insurance for the past 14 years.
In another case, the insurance company refused payment because they said I’d used my old card with my social security number and it wasn’t being accepted. I did manage to get someone who let me know that this was not the case, that somehow the claim had been made wrong and I was not responsible for the payment. However, it I were not diligent or well-educated, I could easily have been stuck with a large bill.
Even with relatively good insurance, efforts are constantly being made by the companies to shirk responsibility for payment. Over the years, I have paid far more into my insurance than I will ever get out. And once I retire, I will have to use up all my left over personal days in exchange for insurance - days that would add to my pension income - until Medicare kicks in. Even then, I’ll need to pay for whatever Medicare doesn’t cover.
We need universal health coverage!
Mastershake, with all due respect, you’re a bit of an a-hole. You’re stiffing the people who are already being stiffed by the insurance companies. You walk into a lab and they provide you with a service, and because you don’t like the insurance company, you don’t pay for the service you received in good faith?! Wow; I feel sorry for the loved ones in your life….
mastershake, you poor, sick bastard! now, can you tell me how to do that w/my credit card debt & student loans? and if you want to be a bit of an a**hole about it, i don’t care.
and remember this line:
Weaseling out of stuff is important. it’s what separates us from the animals. except the weasel.-Homer Simpson.
on the healthcare thing, americans’ health will not substantially improve b/c we have better access to healthcare. healthy food/water/air, leisure time, and stress reduction thru job security are just as important.
see:http://www.counterpunch.com/rosenthal06272007.html
not that i’m against better healthcare. far from it. but it alone is not the silver bullet for overall better health for the country.
De Verenigde Staten zijn enkel in een kleine minderheid van naties waarin zijn burgers betalen moeten een dokter te zien of naar een ziekenhuis te gaan. De gezondheidszorg is volledig vrij in de overgrote meerderheid van naties in de wereld. Gegunde de burgers betalen hoge belastingen zoals hier in Nederland of in Canada, maar nog steeds iedere burger zal een dokter voor vrij misschien zien. In de Verenigde Staten is het niet regerings betaalde gezondheidszorg en Amerikanen die tegen het zijn, zouden zeggen dat zij hogere belastingen zouden betalen indien hun natie een universeel gezondheidszorg beleid heeft. Mijn reactie zou zijn dat de Amerikanen betalen veel meer geld in het einde gaan afhandelen dan bijvoorbeeld Canadezen zouden. Ik geloof standvastig dat ziekteverzekering in de Verenigde Staten zou moeten weggedaan worden. Na iedereen zou er geen nood aan verzekering zijn indien de Verenigde Staten wat medelijden voor alle hun burgers door zijn Regering voor de gezondheidszorg van zijn burgers toonden. Klaarblijkelijk gelooft de Verenigde Staten Regering dat zijn burgers gelijk toegang tot dokters niet verdienen.
I am looking forward to seeking Sicko, but situated as I am in the midwest, there will be a wait.
My thoughts on the health care crisis are this:
1) The system is already in deep crisis and people who think the American system works well willfully ignore the people who can only get emergency care. These folks miss out on tons of preventive care and opportunities for early diagnosis of treatable problems.
2) The health of families is often tied to the health of the major wage earner. When heads of families become ill, it harms the family’s income and survival potential and puts the family in crisis.
3) It is pure wishful thinking that underinsured people can afford any kind of decent preventive and acute care relying on Health Savings Accounts. Mr. Bush and others hide behind this idea. I defy our congressional reps to budget health savings on some low income and middle income salaries.
4) I am afraid (but as I say, haven’t seen the movie yet) that Michael Moore’s movie would have you believe that the main problems in health care is the need for an even distribution of health care resources. However, the problem is even more grave. We have the capacity to provide more health care than we can afford. The future challenge is to equitably distribute a limited resource, that of health care.
5) Health care mal-distribution harms the whole population. The easiest application of this idea is seen in vaccines. We vaccinate all people in America, regardless of the their ability to pay, because we know that herd immunity (immunity of the greatest majority of the population) protects the un-immunized and the vulnerable (such as immunocompromised people). Likewise control of chronic and acute health concerns means that we have healthier workforce, capable of generativity. In countries where health care is in the poorest state, the opposite is often true.
6) Even if we get our wish and get Universal health care, there will still be hard decisions to make about: Who gets what therapies and until when? What constitutes basic health care? What therapies should not be offered to people at a certain age or time in their life. In short, truly difficult decisions would remain to be made.
7) I heard MM talk about physicians receiving incentives to provide care to patients _when_ their patients have better outcomes. Outcomes are often measured for diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, post-op wound infections to name a few. There needs to be recognition that incentives such as these simultaneously create incentives to dump or move on patients that are less compliant. Good diabetic and hypertension outcomes are created by well-taught clients who ultimately elect to follow the doctor’s recommendations. In spite of the good care, not all clients will elect to do this. These are the same patients that may be overweight, sedentary and higher surgical risks. Medical incentives should not be so rigid that they function as a dis-incentive to take care of high-risk or non-compliant patients or patients that may have obstacles to being compliant such as drug or alcohol addiction, chronic mental illness or cognitive impairments.
There needs to be recognition that this difficult problem has not been tackled because it is hard, hard, hard to tackle and the system maintains financial incentives for many for the status quo.
Here is my health care horror story:
I have employer provided health care, so I am one of the lucky ones. However, due to our rapidly aging staff and our subsequent higher use of our health care, our employer was forced to change our plan to a high deductible/high co-pay PPO, meaning we’re stuck with far higher out-of-pocket expenses despite paying higher premiums for our health care.
I have had complications from an old car accident decades ago that now force me into regular physical therapy, but I am only allowed a certain number of visits. This past time the physical therapist insisted on stopping my PT after only 10 visits, in case I need later surgery and post-surgical PT, because I am only allowed a certain number of PT visits per year. Each visit costs me $20 in co-pays, so the 30 visits I had last year for several injuries ended up costing me $600 and the 10 visits I had recently cost me $200.
Because of this recurring injury, my orthopaedist insisted on an MRI so he could get a better look at what’s been going on with the knee. Doing so gave him a far better picture of what’s up and what treatment options to seek, but now I am responsible for paying $895 for the MRI and $58.06 for the radiology bill. I also recently paid nearly $50 for blood work done while my rosacea was being diagnosed and I still owe my orthotist $110 for a lift for my left shoe despite choosing a preferred provider listed on my insurance web site.
So as you can see, I’ve been drowning in medical bills for about the last year or so. I got rid of my ancient beater car that was eating me alive in repair bills and now I have medical bills that are eating my finances alive as well, but I can’t trade my body in for a newer model like I did my car. I’m stuck with this aging 50 year old body that’s been riddled with injury the past year or so. Nothing much I can do about growing older but try to take as good care of myself as my finances allow.
What with rapidly escalating health care costs, that’s getting harder and harder to do of late, sad to say. There are necessary medical exams and tests that I haven’t had done because frankly, I just can’t afford them. Even WITH insurance! And that’s just plain out wrong in this, the richest country in the world.
TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE! TELL YOUR CONGRESSMAN OR WOMAN TO SUPPORT H.R. 676 TODAY!
its not a complicated paradigm, if our leaders cared, we could just follow the pack - health care for all citizens, because we are not a society based on clawing each other to death to get ahead, we actually care for each other. please.
You do not want a “universal” healthcare system. If you use that term, corporate America will gladly give you a “universal” healthcare system that you will not like. One way would be to have congress pass a law that simply states that you must buy health insurance from a for-profit, corporate HMO. Corporations will be empowered to deduct money before it even makes it to your paycheck. Then the corporations and the doctors they will control because the corporations will still have the money will gladly give you all the “universal” health care that they say you need. The m$m has already started to say that Michael Moore is advocating “universal” health care as a way to divert attention to the fact that he is advocating a healthcare system that does not produce a profit for corporations; a single-payer system where the payer is the government, the insurer is the government, a Medicaid for all. Michael Moore is very specific in the way he describes the healthcare system that will give the desired results. He emphasizes that America has non-profit fire departments and non-profit police departments that do not charge you when you need their help. Corporations, politicians in the pocket of corporations, and m$m already have a different definition for “universal” than progressives. Witness Massachusetts.
@ Molly J.:
It is not a complicated system. Single payer (the government) means that everyone is covered for her/his lifetime regardless of what medical diagnosis. We do not send old people to be turned into protein wafers (a la Soylent Green) when they have too many ailments. We just continue to treat them.
If a person is too far into his/her disease to be considered as a recipient of an organ transplant, well, that person is made to be as comfortable as possible in the waning days. Otherwise, there is not a real decision to be made. All available medical technology is to be used to assist the person towards health, and if not total health, a tolerably liveable circumstance.
Do not believe everything negative that you hear about single payer universal coverage. While not absolutely rant worthy as it stands, it is better than going bankrupt or being denied your basic right to treatment because it will save your insurance company. It is not a pinko commie device to brainwash your country.
The most important post here has been John F Butterfield’s. He is ABSOLUTELY correct, the term “universal,” contrary to this article’s author’s opinion, is not the term that should be used. I’m a bit perplexed that she, as a health writer specialist, is not clued in to this. Moore himself has cautioned about this. Insurance companies would like nothing better than to enact legislation enforcing “universal” coverage. Continued use of that term is a prescription for disaster, if you will. Say “Single Payer.” It’s the phrase that puts cold shivers down the spine of the industry. There is far less chance they can pervert the meaning of that.
As a matter of fact the terms “government run” and “socialized” are also misleading, as single payer can be neither of those. It is simply an efficient system for reimbursement that implies the dissolution of health insurance corporations and the relentless harm they cause. I IMPLORE people concerned about this issue to investigate and know all the implicit and explicit meanings for these word/phrases. Whether this thing will be won or lost is dependent on it.
thiswoman–
Thanks for your positive comments. And I totally agree with you.
Do I assume you are Canadian or perhaps from another country that has single payer, univeral care?
What you are talking about is what I call the difference between care versus cure and I believe all people, no matter what their circumstance, deserve care. However, it is not terribly unusual in America to see high tech medicine (cure oriented) being employed on all sorts of people. In America, we would need to see some moderation of that practice because side by side you see the uninsured woman who doesn’t get an annual pap smear or breast exam; who’s health care problems become large and unmanageable before they are found. Some of those people are wage earners and heads of families.
Discussion of the above scenario tends to ramp up the right-to-lifers.
Believe me, I am totally for universal health care with a single payer. I am tired to death of looking in little kids mouths and seeing decay and knowing there is no way their parents are going to access a dentist. I hate knowing that when I say to an uninusred parent, “Your kid needs to see a doctor” that I’m blitzing the grocery budget for this month and some to come.
But the reality is that under this present system some people get unlimited amounts of care and some get none. As we re-distribute the “wealth” we would need to ask questions about what is a good use of a limited resource and these are hard questions to ask and to answer. For those people who have had unlimited access to care, they will not let go of that easily.
And, again, the challenge here is to manage a limited resource NOT an unlimited resource.
Universal health care will never happen in this country. Too much money in the system corrupting too many politicians.
Face it. This country isn’t a republic or a democracy anymore. It’s a mega-corporation masquerading as a government. The people of this country are too coward-ed and misinformed to do anything about it. As one of the statements in SICKO says, in France the government is afraid of the people. In America the people are afraid of their government. I don’t know how this country can justify taking over half the money we earn and not give us health care when, as the movie points out, in Cuba, with all their third worldliness and poverty can give better health care than we give our citizens. When you think about it, all this money from taxes and we still are borrowing billions from other countries, and just what do we get for it? Where the hell is all this money going? It’s certainly not being used for our welfare.
I’m seriously considering moving to a saner country to live in because this one is totally shot.
It’s sad to see Michael Moore’s fine filmic essays listed under “Entertainment” in the press.
Please! I am a Registered Nurse and have a SiCKO scrub to wear to the opening of Michael Moore’s movie. I am printing out handout informationn flyers, with some added information on the back I wrote out. John Butterfield and lpenek are correct. The insurance industry has coopted the term UNIVERSAL so we are not talking about that. Single payer, or as Dennis Kucinich has coined it, Medicare For All.
The disinformation we are about to be hit with will be unbelievable and overwhelming. Just for warm up, Hillary and Obama have received respectively over $800,000 and $600,000 from the healthcare insurance industry for their Presidential campaigns so far.
MollyJ, there have been studies (some governmental) showing that with the money pouring into the current system we can provide care to all Americans at very little additional expense. Over 30% of payments to the insurance industry goes to overhead as opposed to 2-3% to Medicare. This does not include all the out of pocket payments people make with copays, deductibles and denials of care. In additon, doctors spend 20% of what they are paid to interact (haggle) with the insurance industry. Sound insane? It is. And it’s getting worse. Insurance overhead used to be 25%. Greed is increasing.
And that word Universal is a very dangerous word. Masachusetts is a horror story and a dream come true for the insurance industry. They would LOVE for the law to mandate everyone to have to buy their overprice undervalued product.
Any Presidential candidate promoting “Universal” healthcare is not on our side, but on the side of the insurance industry. And as a matter of fact, on the side of corporations in general. Even Edwards, with his hybrid plan, is on their side. In the first debate, Dennisw Kucinich showed how Edwards’ plan stacks the deck for the insurance industry. So don’t be fooled.
Rule of thumb when trying to figure out what you’re being told: follow the money.
So please, get on board, MEDICARE FOR ALL. Put a bumper sticker on your car, talk to people, go to www.guaranteedhealthcare.org and see what you can do to help. Call your Representatives and urge them to sign on to HR676, go to www.Ni4D.us and help become citizen legislators. We have a lot of work to do to talke our country back and this healthcare fight will be the battle of the century. I talk with young people and they are more involved than I’ve ever seen since the Vietnam War. But I think they suspect a draft might be an upcoming possibility as well as global warming. They’ve got lots to worry about, thanks to us.
We did not inherit the world from our parents, we are borrowing it from our children.
Everyone needs healthcare for Everyone’s sake! Perhaps it is a problem that some Americans have fixed by living in gated communities and never taking public transportation. For the rest of us we are sharing door knobs and equipment at the playground with all the coughs , rashes, and snotty, untreated noses. Our country is a public health hazard. Especially a country where so many people arrive from every corner of the earth. We are exposed to everything and it is Darwinian roulette.
I saw Sicko and one thing that struck me is how unhealthy Americans looked compared to the countries with health care for Everyone.
Kathyodat, I too am a nurse and basically agree with all you say and I am fascinated by the way “code words” create fuzzy discussions. I think the people who are hammering the difference between universal insurance and single payor insurance are right on.
I also believe that the reducing the administrative costs of a multitude of insurors would help get more care to patients with less time and dollars spent quibbling over who will pay for what.
But I am interested–doesn’t the notion of mal-distribution of care resonate for you at all? That notion that often the greatest expenditure of health care comes in the last 6 months of an elderly person’s life? Haven’t you seen people put through lots of procedures in the name of curing something when what they really needed was compassionate and supportive (nursing) care?
And, because of a number of experiences, I still stand by my contention that even with cost savings of eliminating multi-payer insurances, we would have to thoughtfully approach the problem of distributing a limited resource, first to our nation, then ultimately to the globe.
Barksnotbites, and everyone here, consider reading Laurie Garrett’s Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of GLobal Public Health.
She reiterates the impacts of collapse of health care all over and her chapters on countries that have ignored their public health do see economic impacts because of the lack of health in their work force.
Molly J states, “That notion that often the greatest expenditure of health care comes in the last 6 months of an elderly person’s life? Haven’t you seen people put through lots of procedures in the name of curing something when what they really needed was compassionate and supportive (nursing) care?” THIS is very true, Molly. I was the primary family caretaker in the last month’s of my father’s life. He had the luxury of living to be 86, and finally accepted his biological fate and HOSPICE assisted our family so that he could die gracefully at home. However, the months leading up to this included trips often to FOUR different specialists every day, 7 days a week, with some treatments done on Christmas as well as New Year’s. I do NOT like orthodox medicine and saw the inanity of it, that his last day’s were an endless merry-go-round, but for many people the FEAR of death is inordinate, and doctors milk it the way the pusherman provides the fix to the junkie. My father fell down and had a slight wound on his head. He had weeks to live but was sent to a “wound specialist.” South Florida is a mecca of medical firms that cater to this type of thing. I talked at length with several people in medical waiting rooms to learn that one tried to show the hospital where it had made billing errors, but it preferred to just pass the costs onto medicare, rather than do anything to stop the hemorrhaging of money. Because there are limited funds & resources to pass around, this does stop the flow of procedures for those with a probable longer life expectancy. In a perfect world nothing in the way of cost or availability would matter; not so on this one.
– “First of all,” one blogger wrote about “Sicko,” “there is no right to health care. None!”
Arguments like this are possible because of this silly idea that rights are these things that just exist in themselves, granted to humanity by god or whatever. This blogger is half correct - there are not “rights”, in this sense, of any kind at all. It’s all about how we choose to live, and how we choose to treat each other.
The insurance company apologists compare requiring people to buy this over-priced and dangerously faulty product to requiring auto liability insurance. A few point out that one may choose not to drive a car, while having a body is not optional. I would further point out that auto insurance is appropriate. You *might* have an accident, which would probably result in a lot of expensive damage. Everyone needs (and deserves) regular health care. We might as well require grocery “insurance.” That would require calculating your monthly grocery bill, then paying a multi-billion dollar company twice that amount every month so you could take your grocery card to the market, be told what food you were allowed to have, and then get your food after a $15 co-pay (but that would only be after you had met your $2000 deductible for the year).
Siouxrose, I am sorry to hear your tale and you are right–it is an all-too-familiar tale. ANd I do agree that there are businesses that are set up to take advantage of this. But there is a cultural denial of death too, that often keeps docs doing things they know are essentially pointless. One of my sayings is that, “Once you climb on the (medical) technology train, it’s hard to (put the brakes on or) get off.
For a global view on the issue of universal healthcare, http://www.saludthefilm.net
It’s a truly wonderful documentary.
Galenw says, “We might as well require grocery “insurance.” You know, when you think of Mad Cow disease, contaminated spinach, toothpaste laced with anti-freeze, God-knows-what in pet food imported from China, this idea may not be far off! The only snag would be then the medical insurance people would have to compete with the grocery insurance people as to who is to blame (and thus be held liable) when people become ill from these compromised (hello, NAFTA, “free” trade) products. Sounds like a good scene for a comedy where the backroom reps of each company argue their case against accountability…
Molly J: Thanks for the compassion. My father was a very conservative man, so leave it to FATE to have his most metaphysically oriented daughter his caretaker in the “final days.” Since he was lying in the hospital bed contemplating the inevitability of his own death, it was a strategic time to remind him that quite a higher percentage of the world’s people DO believe in reincarnation. I joked with him if he’d send me a sign from the other side, and since like many men, he identified with sports, I read him the SCORE of how long all the other male relatives in our family had lived… to show he had pretty much arrived at the winning score/number (86). As was shown to me in my own “birth blueprint,” with an ostensible door opening as another closed, his death coincided with the birth of my first grandson, and I was sorely needed to assist there, too. When I returned to my father’s home several months later I FELT (this is a totally intuitive intimation) his presence saying, “Susan, you were right.” (My father hardly conceded in any argument, although he began to read THE NATION in his later days, and conceded he had made a mistake voting for Bush the first.) I felt him “ask” me to “work on” my step mom… the FEAR of crossing over, the realization of our own mortality is a tough thing for many to face. The Buddhists live with the knowledge that life is impermanent, that ANY one of us can blink out at any moment. Don Juan taught Carlos Casteneda to realize he was always being stalked by death. The BEAUTY of this is that it asks us to HONOR our lives, to make the most of the gift inherent to the human experience, even in times as painful and poignant as these. Amid the greatest darkness is found the seed of light, that is what the circular symbol wherein Yin embraces Yang illustrates. Peace.
I just saw “Sicko” this afternoon. I must warn you of some things before you see this motion picture.
There are no spectacular fight scenes.
There are no elaborate special effects.
No shower scenes.
You will see a Frenchman’s hairy ass.
The first few minutes includes a man stitching up his own cut…
…because he has no health insurance.
I’ve seen two other films by Mike, “Bowling For Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11″ which I caught at the late lamented Denis in Mt. Lebanon. I saw “The Rescuers” there when I was three. I think it’s the first movie I can ever recall seeing.
Anyway, “Sicko” is easily the best movie I have seen all year. It was worth the trip to Homestead (it’s not being shown in too many theaters here.
Mike doesn’t incessantly bash America. He doesn’t blow his nose in Old Glory.
What he does is show you what’s wrong with this country, what’s right with other countries, and that it’s possible to change things for the better.
Mike shows you middle-class people, wealthy people, people who were once wealthy who had the tablecloth pulled out from under their Christmas dinner, poor people, black people, white people, young folks, the elderly, people from all walks of life, people you may even have prejudices against for whatever reason, people sans insurance, and even people who have it. But these people all have two things in common.
They’re all Americans.
And they all basically got the shaft.
Some of them even died. Because they either didn’t have health insurance, or their health insurance gave them the middle finger and told them to get lost.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Personal responsibilty. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
My hairy American ass.
In the course of this documentary you are taken from Middle America and Skid Row to England, France, and even…gulp…Cuba! This journey teaches us something, a lesson which I think is the real point of the movie.
The U.S. government bullies its people.
In the France, Cuba, and Britannia, the people punk out the goverment.
As a result, in France, it is the law, even if you are a part-time worker, to be given five weeks vacation a year,
I think it took me a year to get one week. Now I get two. Along with two personal days. Yippie ky yea!!
No wonder people are flocking to Europe. As for me, nah. I’ll stay here. Our oligarchy doesn’t deserve that luxury. The fatcats need to feel as if they’re in a room full of walking chairs. It’s bathtime kitties.
This week, leave your inner child at home, and drop it with the 80’s nostalgia. Yeah, I like the fabulous FF too, but I’d rather re-read my Lee-Kirby comics than watch a poorly cast joke of a film. As for the Transformers, the toys were cool, but the comic and cartoon sucked.
Go with something more nutritious. Get Sick, as in Sick and Tired of health care in this country being a privilege as opposed to a right.
I’m a Sicko and proud of it.
And if it makes me a socialist, then hey, I will wear that pair of jeans. I mean, it works for everyone else doesn’t it?
Michael Moore has not made a cynical diatribe of a film. What he has done is give us hope. I have never come out of a theater more refreshed than I have after seeing “Sicko”. It truly is a movie for all Americans. If ever there was a movie that needed to be made for the lowest-common denominator, this is it.
Go out of your way to see this movie. Don’t wait for it to come out on DVD. Just go see it, and take a cranky conservative with ya.
Make sure it’s your treat too, since we all know how stingy they can be, although they’ll hopefully change after seeing “Sicko”.
I pay more for health insurance and copays than I do in federal and state income taxes and social security. I don’t believe the money’s not there for this, even if it comes in the form of higher taxes on individuals and corporations.
It is there. We will have to fight tooth and nail to wrestle health insurance away from the megacorporations, but it can be done and we can do it together. We can.
Excuse me, could I interupt for just a second here. If we want Universal Healthcare, then who is our Presidential Candidate? There is only one candidate that not only has been proposing this since his 2004 campaign, but has a bill, Conyers-Kucinich bill, HR 676, in front of Congress. This is Dennis Kucinich. Yeah, the one the media won’t cover, it seems even on Common Dreams!