I saw "Sicko" last night, and found it a powerful film. It is so much so that it might result in monumental changes to our healthcare system.
Interestingly, it doesn't address the problems of the 50 M uninsured. It covers the problems (horror stories) sustained by those who are insured in this country. Further, it covers somewhat the systems employed in Canada, Cuba, the UK, and France, and speaks to the care given prisoners at Gitmo.
It covers in some detail the greed of the insurance companies, HMOs, the AMA, et al.
I wonder whether the right will even deign to see the film. I think it is a MUST-SEE film.
Advocate, If the right's support of Bush is any indication of intelligence, there's no hope they'll learn anything from "Sicko."
The underlying message of "Sicko" is a health plan is much more preferable to a no health plan, but that's too difficult a concept for conservatives to understand. They'd rather spend 2.7 billion every week in Iraq.
Iraq is like what a boat owner often has to say about his craft -- it's a hole in the water surround by fiberglass into which you dispose of money. Or, good money after bad. Dreadful idea to consider saving lives in the actual homeland of the U.S., but taking lives on both sides to prove the idiotic notion that one can inject democracy into any country with a dull syringe containing air. A lot of hot air at that.
^7/9/07: Health Care Terror
By PAUL KRUGMAN
These days terrorism is the first refuge of scoundrels. So when British
authorities announced that a ring of Muslim doctors working for the
National Health Service was behind the recent failed bomb plot, we
should have known what was coming.
"National healthcare: Breeding ground for terror?" read the on-screen
headline, as the Fox News host Neil Cavuto and the commentator Jerry
Bowyer solemnly discussed how universal health care promotes terrorism.
While this was crass even by the standards of Bush-era political
discourse, Fox was following in a long tradition. For more than 60
years, the medical-industrial complex and its political allies have used
scare tactics to prevent America from following its conscience and
making access to health care a right for all its citizens.
I say conscience, because the health care issue is, most of all, about
morality.
That's what we learn from the overwhelming response to Michael Moore's
"Sicko." Health care reformers should, by all means, address the
anxieties of middle-class Americans, their growing and justified fear of
finding themselves uninsured or having their insurers deny coverage when
they need it most. But reformers shouldn't focus only on self-interest.
They should also appeal to Americans' sense of decency and humanity.
What outrages people who see "Sicko" is the sheer cruelty and injustice
of the American health care system -- sick people who can't pay their
hospital bills literally dumped on the sidewalk, a child who dies
because an emergency room that isn't a participant in her mother's
health plan won't treat her, hard-working Americans driven into
humiliating poverty by medical bills.
"Sicko" is a powerful call to action -- but don't count the defenders of
the status quo out. History shows that they're very good at fending off
reform by finding new ways to scare us.
These scare tactics have often included over-the-top claims about the
dangers of government insurance. "Sicko" plays part of a recording
Ronald Reagan once made for the American Medical Association, warning
that a proposed program of health insurance for the elderly -- the
program now known as Medicare -- would lead to totalitarianism.
Right now, by the way, Medicare -- which did enormous good, without
leading to a dictatorship -- is being undermined by privatization.
Mainly, though, the big-money interests with a stake in the present
system want you to believe that universal health care would lead to a
crushing tax burden and lousy medical care.
Now, every wealthy country except the United States already has some
form of universal care. Citizens of these countries pay extra taxes as a
result -- but they make up for that through savings on insurance premiums
and out-of-pocket medical costs. The overall cost of health care in
countries with universal coverage is much lower than it is here.
Meanwhile, every available indicator says that in terms of quality,
access to needed care and health outcomes, the U.S. health care system
does worse, not better, than other advanced countries -- even Britain,
which spends only about 40 percent as much per person as we do.
Yes, Canadians wait longer than insured Americans for elective surgery.
But over all, the average Canadian's access to health care is as good as
that of the average insured American -- and much better than that of
uninsured Americans, many of whom never receive needed care at all.
And the French manage to provide arguably the best health care in the
world, without significant waiting lists of any kind. There's a scene in
"Sicko" in which expatriate Americans in Paris praise the French system.
According to the hard data they're not romanticizing. It really is that
good.
All of which raises the question Mr. Moore asks at the beginning of
"Sicko": who are we?
"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we
know now that it is bad economics." So declared F.D.R. in 1937, in words
that apply perfectly to health care today. This isn't one of those cases
where we face painful tradeoffs -- here, doing the right thing is also
cost-efficient. Universal health care would save thousands of American
lives each year, while actually saving money.
So this is a test. The only things standing in the way of universal
health care are the fear-mongering and influence-buying of interest
groups. If we can't overcome those forces here, there's not much hope
for America's future.
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Universal health care breeds terrorism? That they represent the media in the US is not only shameful, but a crime to humanity. They're dangerous!
If obama had a "cure" for health care, they wouldn't be so backward in the State of Illinois and would have had Universal Health Care, a long time ago.
Obama needs to tend to his own graden before trying to plow someone else's.
Miller wrote:If obama had a "cure" for health care, they wouldn't be so backward in the State of Illinois and would have had Universal Health Care, a long time ago.
Obama needs to tend to his own graden before trying to plow someone else's.
So federal senators now set state policy?
maporsche wrote:Miller wrote:If obama had a "cure" for health care, they wouldn't be so backward in the State of Illinois and would have had Universal Health Care, a long time ago.
Obama needs to tend to his own graden before trying to plow someone else's.
So federal senators now set state policy?
He had eight years in the Illinois State Senate, didn't he?
Bush won't even let the Surgeon General speak freely. I'm convinced Bush doesn't understand the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Why is he our president when he doesn't even belong here as a citizen?
Ex-surgeon general says he was silencedPresident Bush's most recent surgeon general accused the administration Tuesday of muzzling him for political reasons on hot-button health issues such as emergency contraception and abstinence-only education.Dr. Richard Carmona, the nation's 17th surgeon general, told lawmakers that all surgeons general have had to deal with politics but none more so than he.
For example, he said he wasn't allowed to make a speech at the Special Olympics because it was viewed as benefiting a political opponent. However, he said was asked to speak at events designed to benefit Republican lawmakers.
"The reality is that the nation's doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas," said Carmona, who served from 2002 to 2006.
Responding, the White House said Carmona was given the authority and had the obligation to be the leading voice for the health of all Americans.
Yeah, who do you believe? The white house or Carmona? Subpoena anyone?
Carmona. Perhaps he and Powell can have a spitting contest with George Bush as the bullseye.
It doesn't matter. Bush is the Teflon president, so nothing sticks.
That's true; teflon president after all these years of lies and incompetence has not phased him one iota, because the congress and supreme court are too dumb or scared to act.
The biggest problem is that we have a fiercely oblivious public. I was speaking yesterday to my chiropractor, and intelligent guy, who said he neither reads nor watches the news. This is probably not uncommon. I guess we are condemned to get the government we deserve.
1 in 5 Americans still believe the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Lightwizard wrote:1 in 5 Americans still believe the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Um, did you mean that the other way?
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:Lightwizard wrote:1 in 5 Americans still believe the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Um, did you mean that the other way?
Cycloptichorn
Yep -- trying to multi-task here and got that turned around.
It was better the first way -- "only one in five..." That means that the other four believes the opposite.
Yes, but misleading -- it likely was a Freudian slip that according to my estimation of the IQ of the clients I deal with, I'm not sure if it wouldn't be the right ratio. But 1 out of 5 Americans still believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.
