To “Sicko” or Not to “Sicko”: That is the question!!
If you have not seen “Sicko,” the new Michael Moore movie, then you will most likely harbor a prediction of its value from your opinion of his previous films. I invite you to set aside any opinion and just look at the topic from the standpoint of your own experience as a patient, your skills as a professionals, and the maize of events that must occur for patients and the healthcare community to meet each other. I was moved by the movie and, if only to consider the issues presented, it is worth many discussions both at work and at home. My suggestion that you might take a chance on seeing it, spending both money and time, is based on how urgent the issues are and how marginalized patients have become in the discussion. As far as I know and other than current sexy hospital series, not since the movie “The Doctor” confronted medicine, has another movie taken on the inside of healthcare.
Feudalism has returned to civilization through the portal of employer based health insurance. Employees are indentured to employers for their insurance; then, the next layer, employers are burdened and obligated to the insurance companies to provide coverage; insurance companies are put in the position of seducing companies into contracts that they are hoping not to have to act on. In fact, they are selling a product that they do not want utilized. The ultimate conflict of interest.
You and I don’t have to debate the broken system. If you did not agree, you would not be reading this. However, the solution will only come forth through the door of values and priorities. Once we as a culture, nation, and community decide that we are all damaged by the current system, that the health of the community holds our own security within in, then solutions will evolve. Money? There is enough in the system if just taken the CEO bonuses, the redundancy between companies, and the added costs to providers for the paper work. That alone would cover most of the uninsured.
Medicare is the most successful universal healthcare system developed in the US. Why we don’t expand this, add the taxes, reduce the costs, and eliminate the slavery caused by the current system?
Michael Moore took on the healthcare system from the point of the insured, the working, the good Americans who contribute to their communities and take care of their kids.
Try it out. THe let me know your thoughts on why Medicare cannot work for all of us…
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 am
I haven’t seen this movie yet. After reading your article, I think I cannot wait anymore because I care about the broken system as well. I still remember that 3 years ago my baby boy’s short 3 day stay at a hospital, due to a common cold virus, brought me a bill of $10,000. Even though my insurance carried the majority of the burden, I had to take $800 out of my own pocket. Every time I think about this, I would wonder how broken the system has been and how it could be fixed. Now the movie might give me a clue.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
I did go see Sicko harboring prejudices from his previous film, Farenheit 911, which I thought was overly manipulative of the audience and disrepectful of his subjects. (Even if s/he despises his subjects, a filmmaker must show respect toward them). I was pleasantly suprised by Sicko and congratulate Moore for weaving through the minefield of the healthcare debate. I was also suprised that the film was much broader than healthcare–it took on the cultural values of America that produces such a sick(o) healthcare system. The only criticism I had was that he was overly laudatory of the European and Candaia systems. They certainly have their drawbacks as well–but they do provide care for free or nearly free for their citizens. This cannot be criticized.
What is the fundamental problem? I wouldn’t go so far as to call it feudal, but certainly 19th century laissez faire eonomics, where ordinary citizens can be taken advantage of by those with the means to do so, and no government regulation to prevent it.
What we lost with the end of the cold war was a legitimate opposition to unbridled capitalism and free-market eonomics. Cuba has certainly shown us another way. They do have the best healthcare system in Latin America.
America has inspired the world because we have been the champion of individual initiative. But we have lost something in the process–caring for those who are not in the fast lane and those who do not contribute (in a big way) to our bottom line.
If America is going to continue to be a great nation, we must turn our might toward feeding the human soul. Not in a religious sense but in the fundamental sense of caring for the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of its citizens–healthcare included.