Sicko
Posted on Saturday, 01DECEMBER2007
Lady in news conference: "I work three jobs."
George W. Bush: "You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn't it, I mean that is fantastic."
On a documentary I saw a few years ago, the obscure film maker of this other film compared the advancement in medical care to Napoleon and a homeless man, by that statement he meant that a homeless man in 2007 receives better health care than the leader of France did in 1807 due to the medical advances over the last 200 years. While the film maker was making the point over advancement in science and technology, he did miss a large grasp in politics and greed.
It's been a movie kind of weekend, tonight's viewing was a DVD from Michael Moore called Sicko. a documentary that focused on health care in the United States. It covered in some detail of how bad many of us Americans go everyday without any health coverage whatsoever. However, the main focus was on the majority of us who pay an extraordinary amount of our income to health care benefits only to have claims denied that could have made their quality of life much better or in many cases, saved their lives altogether.
He compared our health care system to those of Canada, The United Kingdom, and France and we came out not looking very well at all, it was eye opening and deeply embarrassing actually as an American. In fact, with all of Michael Moore's over inflated methods of making a point, he does a good job at making the the absurd look very real and very sad.
One of the most moving scenes in the film was after making the point that the prisoners at Guantanamo receive better health care than most Americans do, he took some rescue volunteers from 9/11 to Guantanamo to see if he could get them the same care. Unsuccessful of course, he took them into Havana to a Pharmacy where one of the American women who had been paying $120 a month for breathing inhaler medicine, could get the very same here for the equivalent of .5 cents. The woman was moved to tears when she saw this. The Hospital was modern and well run in Havana where various medical tests were performed on them even though they were not citizens of the country. The doctor said several times this was the same care any Cuban citizen was given.
Moore's film is more thorough than most of his others in the past. He gives many facts in very real reported statistical numbers. America is failing in the health care system unless you are incredibly rich or can never get sick.
About a year after I moved to New York City, I started having bad allergy reactions. My asthma was worse than it had ever been and the allergy attacks were causing conjunctivitis (pink eye) inflammations and swelling in the brow and bridge. After seeing several doctors, I was given a variety of medications. My out of pocket expenses come to about $120 a month, if not for insurance, the bill would come to $780 a month. You should see the list of side effects that come with these medications too. Luckily my allergies have lessened somewhat and I have been able to dial back on the amount of them I take.
The insurance company I had at the time however, seemed to have a standard policy to deny every single claim that came across it's review the first time, only to have to be called, bullied and brow beat many times into finally agreeing to pay a very simply policy for a very simple office visit. Imagine having something critical to deal with and then go through the stress of having to get your insurance company to play fair?
When my son was born we had very limited income. I was just out of university, I worked a night shift job at a prepress lab and my company provided insurance didn't cover pregnancy. Nathan's birth was uninsured and even with some state assistance, we had a take home bill of about $4,000 when it was all done.
The part that kills me the most is, we let them do this to us and make us think we are getting a good deal. Sure we have some the most advanced medical facilities in the world but it doen't matter when a great deal of us wont get access to it.
"Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic - see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them.
An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern."
