"Sicko" will make you more than a little sicko. Michael Moore more than adequately shows that the USA has a far less than second class health care system. If you have any serious medical problems, move to France, Canada, England or even lowly Cuba.Your care will be faster and free. The American health care system enriches drug companies and health insurance companies and especially their ceo's.
In the meantime, he exposes an American public controlled by poverty and fear. A motion picture well worth seeing. Moore is at his best.
4 comments:
While I can not comment on the movie as I have not seen it and I agree that the health system in this country has its share of faults, lumping everyone in the same pile of crap does harm for those who are trying to do good. Also, as a reminder, that two very close relatives happen to work for insurance companies.
M
I have mixed feelings about American health care. Having worked at OHSU, I think it is a mistake to blame only drug and insurance companies. OHSU, when you look behind the curtain, is a very very screwed up place and the blame rests solely on the hospital administration. They are greedy egomaniacs.
That being said, J just told me about one of the workers at our local grocery who just returned back to work. He had an arm that was non-functional, so he decided to have it amputated and get a prostetic. After the operation he learnds that his insurance company would pay for the amputation, but then declined the prostetic that he thought they would pay for.
I have surprisingly good health insurance, and I'm making the most of it.
good points. I think the real culperts are hmos.
There is plenty of blame to go around and insurance companies (and HMO's) get more than their fair share of it.
The problem is systemic and comes down to the question of "what are you trying to maximize"?
Is it patient health? That means making people do things they would rather not do.
N
Is it patient satisfaction? That often means providing services that are risky and non-beneficial.
Is it the health of the community as a whole? That means some patients are going to lose out for the 'greater good' (however you define it). It also means that 'boutique' procedures should be the exception, not the norm.
Is it profit? Moore's point is that our system, top to bottom, is designed to maximize profit often at the expense of every other factor.
Hospitals would much rather provide expensive elective surgery and cut emergency room or indigent care. Doctor's basically take bribes to push certain drugs or procedures. Big Pharma is much more interested in erections than curing AIDS. Patients can barely keep up with all of the changes to the system and are bombarded with false and misleading information designed to whet their appetites for things they do not need.
The laundry list goes on and on. However, the basic issue is that patient care and wellbeing is not even near the top of the list of priorities throughout the industry.
Until the system focuses on something other than profit it will remain broken.
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