posted July 09, 2007 08:41 PM         

I am so saddend that no body except lala and myself have bothered to reply to this one....

posted July 10, 2007 02:59 AM         

I have seen Farenheit 911 a few times now. I saw the movie Michael Moore did about the NRA where he asked Charleton Heston how he felt about the death of the 5 year old in Flint,Michigan at the hands of a classmate who brought his daddy's gun to school.

Even though I haven't had time to watch this movie I have known about the mess of the medical insurance problems in this country for years now, along with many, many other Americans, and I have signed petitions and sent letters to my representatives about it as I am sure many other Americans have done also. Movies are not the only means of information in this country and most Americans are definitely aware of the health insurance and medical insurance problems in this country. There are millions of children alone who do not have medical insurance in America. We are Third World now when it comes to that.

One can't presume that just because people didn't reply to GG's post that they are unaware of the medical insurance crisis in America. We are all effected by it. It's nothing new. It has been an ongoing thing since Bush took office in his first term. In fact we have discussed this many times in GU here at LL.

I still would like to see SICKO though. I am sure it is a very informative movie. I have a growing list of movies I would like to see but do not have the time to watch.

When Michael Moore made a speech recently he stated that he hates that he has become mainstream now. LOL Which means that even he knows that the majority of Americans now think as he does about the medical insurance problems in America, the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.

We aren't as dumb as we look, hippiechick.

posted July 10, 2007 03:14 AM         

July 10, 2007

Wolf Blitzer is not my favorite TV journalist. Do you remember when he was interviewed by Jon Stewart? He was asked why the media?including him- promoted the war.

"Was it government censorship or mental retardation," was the question. Blitzer, in one of the more honest moments on television opted for the latter explanation. He was right, and I can say that as one time CNN employee.

It is often retarded, and so predictable. Back on Comedy Central, Blitzer also admitted TV journalists were not critical enough, an admission he did not repeat when Moore demanded an apology for CNN's promotion of the war.This is of course an issue that I and Mediachannl have been raising for years.

Finally, last night, three years after his last CNN performance, Blitzer finally had Michael Moore back on allegdly to discuss his film Sicko. Michael does not suffer for a lack of publicity but what happened was so, hmm, CNN ish. First, before he had a chance to say one word, the audience was instructed on the alleged flaws in the "facts" in his film in a set-up piece. Never mind that a real factchecker would tear much of CNN's reporting apart on a daily basis

The exercise was superficial, sloppy and skewed, using scenes from Sicko as B roll for a critique by CNN's Dr Sanjay Guota, a good heath communicator but hardly an expert on health care policy. He had ten minutes to go after Moore's argument which he poked at but did not really refute. I saw a similar attack on Fox arguing about health care expenses in other countries with higher taxes. No mention of the points Moore raised about 47 million uninsured Americans or for that matter about the tax giveaways to the rich by this Administration. When asked about Socialized Medicine later, he said matter of factly that that is waht we have with Medicare etc.

The whole exercise ****** Moore off and he was on fire going after Blitzer for this report and a similar trash job on Fahreneit 911 years ago. There will be more of the confrontation on tomorrow night.

There was no knockout but I would score this round for Moore. He promised that he will refute Gupta's report on his website as if CNN really cared about the issue, and Blitzer, in a vain attempt to reestablish credibility, said they would report any corrections although Gupta will be on live tonight to respond to Moore who will have been taped.

posted July 10, 2007 10:11 AM         

I support self responsibility...as I just stated in my other post, we have to take responsibility for ourselves and not sit back and let someone do it for us.

This is a cage I choose to rattle and if the birds squak then let them squak!!!

I educate my patients all of the time to run the show where their healthcare is concerned. Be proactive, know what you are dealing with, diagnoses wise and insurance wise. Fire docs if they suck, hire ones that will work with them, etc.

Some folks on this fourm choose to get upset about things of their choosing, this is one that I am passionate about and LL is not the only place this quiet fish jumps out of the water to yell about healthcare issues in America about...not even!!!

Blessings

posted July 10, 2007 12:07 PM         

Very well stated from what I was able to read at this time and very true about the way things have been in the U.S. for some time now.

Uh, " we are not as dumb as we look" is just an expression, hippiechick. I was being facetious. My way of saying that even though we did not reply to the post about SICKO does not necessarily mean that we are uninterested in being informed about the medical insurance crisis in this country or that we aren't already aware of it.

Your post was worded in a confrontational way whether you meant it that way or not. It kind of puts the reader on the defensive from the start as you can see from the replies here.

Although I agree to an extent that you do have a point. There are many Americans who choose not to get involved and choose not to keep up and be informed on what is taking place due to government policies. Then complain when it finally trickles down and effects their lives. But not necessarily on this forum and not necessarily because we didn't reply to goatgirl's very good post. I also think that though it took them long enough to wake up the majority of Americans are now becoming more and more involved in what the government is doing and speaking out more about it.

On forums like LL people do not have the time to respond to all the posts here even if they did read it. In the case of GG's link to the movie it is more that they just did not have the time to sit and watch a movie. Even though it is great that GG posted that link for us to watch in our leisure. I for one definitely appreciate that and intend to watch it when I can.

Summer is a time when people usually spend less time on the computer as there is so much more to do in the summertime. Many people work and have children to attend to when they are home from work, not to mention errands to run and household chores that need to be addressed. People have busy lives and sometimes when they come to LL they come to escape the troubles of the day and just relax. Depends on our moods of the day and how much time we have which posts we may respond to and which ones we don't.

posted July 10, 2007 12:14 PM         

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN: "(Moore says) the United States slipped to number 37 in the world's health care systems. It's true. ... Moore brings a group of patients, including 9/11 workers, to Cuba and marvels at their free treatment and quality of care. But hold on - that WHO list puts Cuba's health care system even lower than the United States, coming in at #39."

THE TRUTH:

"But hold on?" 'SiCKO' clearly shows the WHO list, with the United States at number #37, and Cuba at #39. Right up on the screen in big five-foot letters. It's even in the trailer! CNN should have its reporter see his eye doctor. The movie isn't hiding from this fact. Just the opposite.
The fact that the healthcare system in an impoverished nation crippled by our decades-old blockade (including medical supplies and drugs) ranks so closely to ours is more an indictment of the American system than the Cuban system.
Although Cuba ranks lower overall than the United States, it still has a lower infant mortality rate and longer life span. (see below)
And unlike the United States, Cuba offers healthcare to absolutely everyone. In an independent Gallup poll conducted in Cuba, "a near unanimous 96 percent of respondents say that health care in Cuba is accessible to everyone." ("Cubans Show Little Satisfaction with Opportunities and Individual Freedom Rare Independent Survey Finds Large Majorities Are Still Proud of Island's Health Care and Education," January 10, 2007. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brlatinamericara/
300.php?nid=&id=&pnt=300&lb=brla)

CNN: "Moore asserts that the American health care system spends $7,000 per person on health. Cuba spends $25 dollars per person. Not true. But not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 per person, versus $229 per person in Cuba."

THE TRUTH:

According to our own government – the Department of Health and Human Services' National Health Expenditures Projections – the United States will spend $7,092 per capita on health in 2006 and $7,498 in 2007. (Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures, National Health Expenditures Projections 2006-2016. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/proj2006.pdf)
As for Cuba – Dr. Gupta and CNN need to watch 'SiCKO' first before commenting on it. 'SiCKO' says Cuba spends $251 per person on health care, not $25, as Gupta reports. And the BBC reports that Cuba's per capita health expenditure is… $251! (Keeping Cuba Healthy, BBC, Aug. 1 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5232628.stm )
As Gupta points out, the World Health Organization does calculate Cuba's per capita health expenditure at $229 per person – a lot closer to $251 than $25.

CNN: In fact, Americans live just a little bit longer than Cubans on average.

THE TRUTH:

Just the opposite. The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5 years. It is 77.6 years in Cuba. (Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf)

CNN: The United States ranks highest in patient satisfaction.

THE TRUTH:

True, but even when the WHO took patient satisfaction into account in its comprehensive review of the world's health systems, we still came in at #37. ("World Health Organization Assesses The World's Health Systems," Press Release, WHO/44, June 21, 2000. http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html ).
Patients may be satisfied in America, but not everyone gets to be a patient. 47 million are uninsured and are rarely patients - until it's too late. In the rest of the Western world, everyone and anyone can be a patient because everyone is covered. (And don't face exclusions for pre-existing conditions, co-pays, deductibles, and costly monthly premiums).
It's not that other countries are unhappy with their health care – for example, "70 to 80 percent of Canadians find their waiting times acceptable." ("Access to health care services in Canada, Waiting times for specialized services (January to December 2005)," Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-575-XIE/82-575-XIE2006002.htm )

CNN: Americans have shorter wait times than everyone but Germans when seeking non-emergency elective procedures, like hip replacement, cataract surgery, or knee repair.

THE TRUTH:

This isn't the whole truth. CNN pulled out a statistic about elective procedures. Of the six countries surveyed in that study (United States, Canada, New Zealand, UK, Germany, Australia) only Canada had longer waiting times than America for sick adults waiting to schedule a doctor's appointment for a medical problem. 81% of patients in New Zealand got a same or next-day appointment for a non-routine visit, 71% in Britain, 69% in Germany, 66% in Australia, 47% in the U.S., and 36% in Canada. (The Doc's in, but It'll be AWhile. Catherine Arnst, Business Week. June 22, 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/
tc20070621_716260_page_2.htm)
"Gerard Anderson, a Johns Hopkins health policy professor who has spent his career examining the world's healthcare, said there are delays, but not as many as conservatives state. In Canada, the United Kingdom and France, 'three percent of hospital discharges had delays in treatment,' Anderson told The Miami Herald. 'That's a relatively small number, and they're all elective surgeries, such as hip and knee replacement.' (John Dorschner, "'SiCKO' film is set to spark debate; Reformers are gearing up for 'Sicko,' the first major movie to examine America's often maligned healthcare system," Miami Herald, June 29, 2007.)
One way America is able to achieve decent waiting times is that it leaves 47 million people out of the health care system entirely, unlike any other Western country. When you remove 47 million people from the line, your wait should be shorter. So why is the U.S. second to last in wait times?
And there are even more Americans who keep themselves out of the system because of cost - in the United States, 24 percent of the population did not get medical care due to cost. That number is 5 percent in Canada, and 3 percent in the UK. (Inequities in Health Care: A Five-Country Survey. Robert Blendon et al, Health Affairs. Exhibit 5. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/182)

CNN: (PAUL KECKLEY-Deloitte Health Care Analyst): "The concept that care is free in France, in Canada, in Cuba - and it's not. Those citizens pay for health services out of taxes. As a proportion of their household income, it's a significant number … (GUPTA): It's true that the French pay higher taxes, and so does nearly every country ahead of the United States on that list."

THE TRUTH:

'SiCKO' never claims that health care is provided absolutely for free in other countries, without tax contributions from citizens. Former MP Tony Benn reads from the NHS founding pamphlet, which explicitly states that "this is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers." 'SiCKO' also acknowledges that the French are "drowning in taxes." Comparatively, many Americans are drowning in insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays and medical debt and the resulting threat of bankruptcy – half of all bankruptcies in the United States are triggered by medical bills. (Medical Bills Make up Half of Bankruptcies. Feb. 2005, MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/)

CNN: "But even higher taxes don't guarantee the coverage everyone wants … (KECKLEY): 15 to 20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government."

THE TRUTH:

It's not clear what country Keckley is referring to. In the United Kingdom, only 11.5 percent of the population has supplementary insurance, but it doesn't take the place of NHS insurance. Nobody in France buys insurance that replaces government insurance either, although a substantial amount buys some form of complimentary insurance. ( Private health insurance and access to health care in the European Union. Spring 2004. http://www.euro.who.int/document/Obs/EuroObserver6_1.pdf)

CNN: "But no matter how much Moore fudged the facts, and he did fudge some facts…"

This is libel. There is not a single fact that is "fudged" in the film. No one has proven a single fact in the film wrong. We expect CNN to correct their mistakes on the air and to apologize to their viewers.

posted July 10, 2007 12:30 PM         

People get the coverage that the corporation they work for offers which is becoming less and less coverage. They do not have the option of just simply changing doctors or going to another hospital as doctors can only do as much as is covered by the particular medical insurance their patients have. Any test that is not covered by the medical insurance has to be paid by the patient so our health and early detection is suffering and the hands of the doctors are tied.

Many companies today due to government policies under the Bush administration are not required to offer health care benefits for their workers and so they don't. Many workers do not make enough money to obtain and pay for their own medical insurance and also pay the mortgage, car payments, bills in general and feed themselves and their children.

For those reasons simply changing one's doctor does no good. The doctors and hospitals answer to the medical insurance companies as well as we all do.

Bottom line is that the medical insurance companies are out to make a profit like everyone else. So are hospitals. Hospitals do that by cutting staff just as corporations today do so that nurses today have way too heavy patient loads and they cannot provide their patients the care they would like to and became a nurse to do. The whole system is unfair to everyone involved but the companies that are making big bucks off of it.

Get the corporate lobbyists out of government and things will improve everywhere in this country and the world.

As it is now corporations are running governments by lining the pockets of politicians to get bills passed in their favor and corporations are running the world. We even are forced to fight wars that benefit no one but the corporations and politicians monetarily wise.

Government reform is the only way things are ever going to change. We are the peons who corporations see as being born into the world to serve them - the aristocracy -because they run the world. We are even supposed to die in wars they start so that they can make a profit off of it.

Nothing will change until there is an end to all the corruption in government and banning lobbying in Wash. D.C. is a good start to cleaning up the corruption in government. Also making campaigns more fair instead of the way it is where a candidate has to have millions, or billions of dollars in order to run for office. For that reason they have to owe a lot of corporations who buy those candidates.

posted July 10, 2007 01:20 PM         

I heartfully apologize if the energy I put out was "confrontational." I did not mean it to be...

Just trying to help my fellow humans be aware.

It has been my experience in this lifetime that we recieve what we put out...and if one experiences an interaction as confrontational it is likely that the individual was looking for confrontation..

Again....blessings

posted July 10, 2007 01:46 PM         

quote:

---

They do not have the option of just simply changing doctors or going to another hospital as doctors can only do as much as is covered by the particular medical insurance their patients have. Any test that is not covered by the medical insurance has to be paid by the patient so our health and early detection is suffering and the hands of the doctors are tied.

---

posted July 10, 2007 01:46 PM         

you've brought awareness to a lot of people.

posted July 10, 2007 06:53 PM         

Sicko: Commenting on commentaries

By James Clay Fuller / Twin Cities Daily Planet

The reviews of Michael Moore's “Sicko” have been fascinating, the editorial and op-ed commentaries on the film even more so.

Apparently there is a rule in corporate journalism that every mention of Moore and his films, or Moore without his films, must contain at least two snide observations about his biases, his ever so naughty attacks on rich and powerful but somehow –- in the eyes of the corporate journalists -- defenseless people such as the chairman of General Motors, and, if you can slide it in, Moore's physical appearance.

Four snide comments, two or three misrepresentations and an outright lie or two about Moore or the films is better, I gather.

(A quick digression: No, I don't know Moore, have never met him or corresponded with him.)

The “Sicko” reviews and commentary are running pretty much true to form, but, interestingly enough, after all the snideness is done, every writer I've come across has had to admit that it is a good film, and that, sonofagun, the United States health care “system” truly is a bloody awful mess, pretty much as Moore says.

Of course, I haven't read the comments in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries publications, though if I run across one I might. The level of unintentional humor should be high.

Speaking of humor: “Sicko” is full of laughs. They're mostly the kind that burst from you when confronted by a lie so outrageous and obvious that the absurdity is overwhelming, but they're real laughs. They get little or no mention in most of the reviews and op-ed pieces I've seen.

Moore knew we'd laugh at the obvious self-serving absurdities of the super rich guys, and I guess that's one of the ways his biases show in the eyes of the corporate press commentators. Perhaps they think he should have paraphrased their idiocies to make them look less foolish, rather than letting them speak for themselves.

A July 5 op-ed piece in the New York Times by Philip M. Boffey is quite representative of the 10 or 12 I've read, I think. He calls the new film “unashamedly one-sided, superficial, overstated and occasionally suspect in its details,” before admitting, in the same sentence, that on the “big picture” of the failure of our health care system “Mr. Moore is right.”

Boffey, who writes editorials on health care for the Times, does not elucidate on his claims that the case Moore builds against our health care “providers” is overstated or “suspect in its details.”

I'll give him this, however. “Sicko” is one sided. Moore doesn't spend any time defending our broken down health care system, which leaves 45 million Americans without health insurance, which is ranked is ranked 37th among nations in quality of care and which overcharges us – often to the point of bankruptcy – and makes deliberate decisions to deny health care to individuals and, as Moore clearly demonstrates, allows people to die needlessly for the sake of protecting overblown profits.

Oops. Was that one-sided, too?

As someone who spent about 45 years in newsrooms, I very strongly suspect Boffey is somebody who is too close to some of his sources. But again I digress.

He says it is “hard to know how true” are the stories Moore puts on film -– stories such as that of a young woman who was retroactively denied health care insurance because of a minor yeast infection that was cured years before she applied for and got the insurance that was taken away when she needed it.

Well, I'll tell him. There is not the slightest reason to doubt any of the individual stories Moore has used in the film.

First, the director is too smart to use a phony story, and risk getting caught, when there are, as he says, countless such stories. When he put out a request on his Web site for personal stories of being screwed by health insurers, Moore was inundated. Within days, he had more than 20,000 such stories.

Second, I can recount four or five such tales from the years I was the primary caregiver for my aged mother, and another dozen from among my acquaintances. This moment, I am deeply concerned about a friend who is in despair because of the years-long battle he has had to wage with his health insurer in order to get care he must have to live, and the debt that has piled up as a result.

Anyone who hasn't experienced such a situation, or doesn't at least know someone who has had to fight for his or her life in such a way, must live in another country.

My favorite criticism of Moore, however, is one employed by at least half the commentaries I've read: That the director didn't give the insurance and pharmaceutical industries time in his film to tell their side of the story.

That, folks, is grandly absurd.

Moore is laying out facts. The industries that profit so hugely from our illnesses spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, public relations and lobbying to “tell their side of the story.” One month's expenditure by the insurance industry for those activities substantially exceeds the cost of making “Sicko.” And Moore doesn't own a single member of Congress; they've bought dozens. (The insurance industry's almost $400,000 in contributions to Hillary Clinton's campaign purse alone would have covered a substantial portion of the cost of making the film.)

Let them tell their lies on their own dime.

Boffey, like almost all of the others whose “Sicko” commentaries I've read, also complains that Moore is to unfailingly kind to the health care systems of other countries. (The film has episodes shot in England, Canada, France, Italy and Cuba.)

What makes Boffey and one or two of the others most annoyed is that Moore doesn't mention “the months-long waits to see specialists in Canada and Britain...”

Well, actually, it does come up in the Canadian interviews, and the Canadians snort in disbelief when the claim is made, though they admit that there sometimes is a wait of a few weeks to see a specialist for an elective or entirely non-threatening treatment or condition.

And the critics fail to note that under our system of money-vacuuming HMOs and profit-building insurance companies, the waits to see specialists in this country often are every bit as long, and longer, than those the defenders of our system claim are the rule in other countries.

The very large network of clinics through which I get my health care and which has close ties to the HMO that provides my health coverage, has made a deliberate decision to limit the number of specialists of several types in its network in order to maximize its nonprofits. (Some specialties, such as cardiology are big revenue producers and so not tightly limited.) When I've complained about long waits to see a specialist, several people within the organization, including four doctors, have confirmed my suspicion on that issue.

Because of a couple of chronic conditions – not life threatening, at least for now, though they have that potential – I must occasionally see specialists in three different areas of medicine. The last two times I had such a need, it took three to four months from the time I placed the first call seeking an appointment until I actually got into the doc's offices. In another case, it was almost five months.

I am not alone in that, despite all the phony denials the HMOs and clinics might produce. Give me 24 hours and I assure you I can provide the names of at least 20 others who have had the same experience. (And it could be 100 others or more if I put the word out on the Net.)

All of the pieces I've read about “Sicko,” have what I find to be a glaring omission.

Not one mentions the comments by Tony Benn, a former member of Britain's Parliament. Yet Benn's statements probably are the most profound element of the film.

He notes, as other good people often do, that “if we have the money to kill (in war), we've got the money to help people.”

But, more importantly, Benn tells Moore, that all of Europe and many other places have good health care systems while the United States lacks such a basic service because in Europe and elsewhere, “the politicians are afraid of the people” when the people get angry and demand some action. In the United States, he observes, “the people are afraid of those in power” because they fear losing their jobs, fear being cut off from health care or other services if they speak up and make demands.

“How do you control people?” Benn asks, and he answers: “Through fear and debt.”

His point is that in the United States we have a great overabundance of both.

Having ignored Benn's succinct analysis, some of the writers, and especially Boffey, state as fact that Americans would reject out of hand any attempt to create a government-run universal health care system. They produce no facts to support the claim, so apparently they just “know” it.

If someone conducted a poll today, asking a section of Americans if they want “socialized medicine,” the results might seem to support the claim of Boffey and others.

But if the gutless Democrats went out and explained, clearly and often, how a government run single payer system actually works, and what it really costs, and what the people of Canada, France, Britain, Germany and other countries really think of their health care systems, the ignorance-rooted suspicion could be reversed in a matter of months. And I believe that is true even assuming the inevitable all-out ad and PR campaign by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to protect their enormous profits.

(Does it occur to anyone that the profits they suck from our system, while we struggle for and often are refused decent health care, are truly enormous if the industries are willing and able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to protect those profits?)

Every American I know is fed up with our present health care mess, and more and more are deeply angry.

Go see “Sicko.” It's a marvelous film, it's full of laughs and, yes, it will give an edge to your anger. Then do something useful with that anger. Members of Congress and state legislatures are just a phone call, a letter or an email away.

posted July 10, 2007 11:42 PM         

Of course a company is going to bid for the least expensive HMO to contract health care for their employees. Smaller companies simply cannot pay 100% of the premiums.

Insurance companies (HMO's) are a racket. They contract with hospitals and doctors for the lowest price to perform a procedure. If that procedure grows to 3 times more than the bid price, too bad, that is all that hospital or doc will get. So they carry the costs down the line to the people without insurance that pay outright.. YET if you ask many providers what their cash price is, you will see it is almost always 30% less than what they charge someone carrying insurance.

Hospitals are dying out, at least in areas where we see a large population of lower income people being treated such as in AZ with the vast number of illegals that are provided treatment no matter what. In Cochise County, where over 120,000 people are spread over 6,000 square miles, there is only ONE hospital that can birth a child. The rest have closed down that part of their operations because the simply could not afford the growing costs and lack of reimbursement funds from Medicare and Medicaid.

Yes, there needs to be a reform, but it goes beyond just the HMO's and government. People need to take a responsibility and stop fraud on all levels.

------------------
Welcome back from the Sandbox Bear...I love you...Forever and a Day....

www.IMWITHFRED.com

posted July 11, 2007 02:08 AM         

Issue date: 3/31/06 Section: News

Newt Gingrich speaks at Harvard Thursday on the possibility of a universal healthcare system.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke to more than 100 students and faculty members at Harvard University's Carl W. Walter Amphitheater Thursday about the need for America to develop an efficient healthcare model for the 21st century.

As part of the Tosteson Lecture Series -- Harvard's ongoing health policy seminars -- Gingrich cited policies from his 2004 book Saving Lives, Saving Money: Transforming Health and Healthcare in the 21st Century, including a call for universal health care that would focus on disease prevention and maintaining high health standards rather than treatment of preventable diseases, such as childhood obesity and diabetes.

posted July 11, 2007 07:07 AM         

San Antonio, TX is the only level III trauma center between Dallas and Mexico City. So when someone in Mexico experiences trauma, ie: potential loss of life or limb, the individual is airlifed to San Antonio...who do you think pays for this???

posted July 11, 2007 06:55 PM         

The biggest complaint I've heard is that Moore focuses on the negative in the US and the positive in Europe. One of those 3 who recommended it to me is actually something of a Moore fan (though she's not blind to his faults), but she just came back from a vacation to the UK and France and said Moore painted an inaccurate picture of what it's like in Europe.

A few months ago I read Critical Condition about the health care problems in the US. It sounds like Sicko is a lot like that book. I ran the book by a few people, including a nurse that has worked throughout Canada and the USA and she said while the book was true as far as it went, it left a lot out, apparently to make it more dramatic and to sell more. Sounds like Sicko might be guilty of the same thing.

I really am curious about the health care in France. I don't think the health care of Canada or Scandinavia could work for the USA for multiple reasons, but France sounded workable for the USA. CC wouldn't go into it though. I hope Moore does, even if I know he turns a blind eye to the negative.

I'm also curious how it works in Thailand, too. They don't have any universal health care, and yet they're supposed to be really good. Americans that can afford it have been known to take care of their medical stuff there in Thailand than the USA. So I'm curious about them, too.

Btw, even if a workable universal health care thing gets ironed out in the USA, there will be problems. One thing I'm thinking of is malpractice and unnecessary surgery that causes even more problems (but also more payments for those in medical). One guy I know was misdiagnosed but couldn't get the surgery and was remanded to some welfare agency. But the next day the pain he suffered was gone. Had he had the money--or had there been some universal health care--he'd have the surgery that he did not need...and who knows what health problems would've arose from THAT.

Btw, I managed to escape an abusive hospital when I was a teen because Dad's insurance ran out and the place sent out a form letter to pick me up (when I was in the process of being broken, abused, and brainwashed in an isolated ward). I'm SO glad that my "care" wasn't paid for by the tax payers, because I (and many others) would've been totally screwed.