Sicko

[adias]

Anyone get a chance to see Michael Moore’s latest movie "sicko”? Everyone who worries about health insurance should definitely see it. Sure its one sided and a classic Michael Moore movie, but sure makes a person look at the Healthcare issue in a different light.

Personally, I like the concept of Universal Health Care, run as a non-profit entity with health care available to all, similar to Canada or England. The obvious question is if the Government can’t get the Public School system right, what will they do with a Universal Health care system? I don’t know the answer; I do know that the current state of health care in the US is morally wrong.

Both republicans and democrats are talking big about changing the system, but both sides are taking big donations from lobbyists.


good reviews...

"Sicko is incredibly informing and well put-together. Moore always manages to pack a powerful punch into his documentaries, something all documentary directors have worked years to do. Regardless of your political stance or conflicting opinions on his other films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, this film is as important as Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

The audience applauded in approval at the end of this film."



http://www.google.com/movies/reviews?cid=bfe4c49413a83a4b&fq=sicko&sa=X&oi=showtimes&ct=reviews&cd=1




Edited by - adias on 07/09/2007 22:04:55

[robguz]

I thought it was excellent. A large part of it was about how HMOs try not to treat people to save money. My father's experience at Kaiser (CA, not HI) was such that he was misdiagnosed in 6 interactions with their physicians in two weeks after having a minor stroke. They told him he had vertigo and gave him anti-nausea meds when they could have given him a treatment that had 90% success and preventing another brain stem stroke. Then he had a massive one and died 2 years later after being horribly disabled in the meantime. I agree that it is morally wrong to actively try to keep people from getting care to maximize profits. Care becomes the main priority in non-profit health systems in other countries. The movie will make you ashmaed that we have all let this go on for so long while every other country in Western Europe addressed these problems years ago.

Go see it if you can.

[HiloHaole]

From a link:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007...moore.html

"...countrymen with the money to do so either use the services of a booming industry of illegal private clinics, or come to America to take advantage of the health care that Moore denounces."

"Government-run health care in Canada inevitably resolves into a dehumanizing system of triage, where the weak and the elderly are hastened to their fates by actuarial calculation. Having fought the Canadian health care bureaucracy on behalf of my ailing mother just two years ago - she was too old, and too sick, to merit the highest quality care in the government's eyes ...."

"In 2006, the average wait time from seeing a primary care doctor to getting treatment by a specialist was more than four months. Out of a population of 32 million, there are about 3.2 million Canadians trying to get a primary care doctor. Today, according to the OECD, Canada ranks 24th out of 28 major industrialized countries in doctors per thousand people."

"Moore ignores the fact that 85% of hospital beds in the U.S. are in nonprofit hospitals, and almost half of us with private plans get our insurance from nonprofit providers. Moreover, Kaiser Permanente, which Moore demonizes, is also a nonprofit."

[G. Leis]

Re the author of the NY Daily News article cited above and her "impartial" organization (courtesy of sourcewatch.org):

The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) or officially the 'Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy', is a think tank founded in 1979 whose stated vision is the promotion of "the principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility. The Institute believes these principles are best encouraged through policies that emphasize a free economy, private initiative, and limited government." The Pacific Research Institute has associated with other think-tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.

PRI head Sally Pipes, a Canadian residing in the United States, frequently speaks and writes against universal health care. Her bio lists as healthcare topics she had addressed "the false promise of a single-payer system as exists in Canada, pharmaceutical pricing, solving the problem of the uninsured, and strategies for consumer-driven health care." She also authored a 2004 book titled, "Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer."

On the FOX News show "The O'Reilly Factor" on January 10, 2007, Pipes spoke against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to provide all state residents with healthcare. She warned that, "[I]f we provide health insurance, just like we provide welfare and education for illegal aliens, think about people that are illegal in other states. We're going to get a huge influx of illegal immigrants into California. And that's going to make it even more expensive [than the current system]."

More right-wingnut pigslop, in other words.

aloha,
Gene

_______________________

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

Edited by - G. Leis on 07/10/2007 12:31:00

[robguz]

Kaiser is not truly a non-profit. Parts of it are, and indeed, the overall system is a for profit business.
via Wikipedia:
"Kaiser Permanente is an integrated managed care organization, based in Oakland, California, founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney R. Garfield. Kaiser Permanente is a consortium of three distinct groups of entities: the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and its regional operating organizations, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, and the Permanente Medical Groups.

As of 2006, Kaiser Permanente operates in nine states and Washington, D.C., and is the largest not-for-profit managed care organization in the United States. Kaiser Permanente has 8.5 million health plan members, 148,884 employees, 12,879 physicians, 37 medical centers, 400 medical offices, and $31.1 billion in annual operating revenues. The Health Plan and Hospitals operate under state and federal not-for-profit tax status, while the Medical Groups operate as for-profit partnerships or professional corporations in their respective regions."

I imagine it's similar for other HMOS.

As far as averages as regards to other countries, if you figure in that 46 million Americans don't have health insurance and therefore wait an eternity to see a specialist, that makes US averages vs. other countries where everyone has coverage an apples and oranges comparison.

Fortunately Hawaii has it better than most states, with employers of a certain size having to cover those who work over 20 hours per week.

Also see this link to see how much profit they are making:
http://www.kaiserpapershawaii.org/kaiserwatch.htm

Edited by - robguz on 07/10/2007 12:49:20

[Bob Orts]

quote:

---

"Moore ignores the fact that 85% of hospital beds in the U.S. are in nonprofit hospitals, and almost half of us with private plans get our insurance from nonprofit providers. Moreover, Kaiser Permanente, which Moore demonizes, is also a nonprofit."

---

Point of clarification:

1. Non-Profit does not mean they are a charity. They can make $0 or billion$. Several "non-profit" health care systems are some of the cash richest corporations in the US. So their tax status is no indication of their gross profit generating ability.

2. Every State in the U.S. provides a hospital with a built in non-profit compliance mechanism since they require by law that a hospital accept patients without regard to class or ability to pay. Thus a hospital can satisfy federal non-profit community giving by simply following state law while not paying taxes.

3. Some of the remaining 15% are not necessarily available to anyone in the public anyway. Some very large cities operate fully accredited hospitals, but they may be part of a prison system, or criminal mental health center, closed to the public. Those beds, although counted as gross hospital beds, are not available to you or I.

[Daniel]

A question for everyone:

So how can we reform our health care system without ending up like Canada? Is the answer in the insurance industry?

And, where did you see sicko? on the mainland?


Daniel R Diamond

[Big_Island]

I watched it here
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/show.do/9/4667

[loffelkopffl]

universal health care works for congress, the warmonger in chief and the armed services, so why not the rest of us? the people who use scare tactics(oh bad canada!!!)must be getting paid off or ignorant

[Rob Tucker]

The only time I was hospitalized and had surgery was in a socialized medicine environment in Europe.

First class hospital, first class care, first class food, state of the art medicine - no charge. When I got home to the US my doctor wanted to show all his colleagues my case....said that they rarely got to see work that good.

This is first hand fact.