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Sicko: Commenting on commentaries
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.
And don’t be conned by the less-than-half measures proposed by the present gaggle of corporation-serving presidential candidates.
Comments
The Shot Heard Around the World
If this is a double post, I’m very sorry. I have an old Computer. I don’t want to waste too much space but as I looked at your article regarding SICKO, I can tell we agree and if I judge a man by what he says then, Mr. James Clay Fuller you seem to be good writer, maybe a good man too. I cried many times during the movie SICKO because it was too real for me. I hope we see some more of those 20,000 real stories that other people have sent in to Michael Moore because I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. SICKO revelation resurrects real Twilight Zone nightmares. I digress alot so let me say the rest of this my way.
My wife,who is 64, was real sick last Novermber 2006 Flu season. She wouldn’t eat, vomited, had a fever and aches and pains, and was bed ridden for 2 straight days. I gave her asprine and juices for the only cure I knew but she was getting worse. She humbly asks me on the 3rd day to race her by ambulance to our local hospitol, The Tampa General Hospitol, Tampa-FL. Instead I drive her myself at noon time to the Emergency Room. Good Grief, the place seemed to be a pig sty but I wasn’t there to judge, so I handed over my wife’s Blue Cross card to the receptionist and filled out the intake form quick questions for my wife. The receptionist told me to take my wife in to the emergency waiting area and put her in a seat and someone will get to her as soon as possible. I took my wife in to the crowded, packed area where we found the last seat available. I couldn’t help but wonder where was the next person coming in going to wait at- on the floor? My wife said she was in twice the pain now because she was sitting up. I felt very sorry for her. I looked at my watch and realized I had to get to work. I hesitated but it seemed okay to think about work now. I told my wife listen honey, I’m going to work. They will take much better care of you than I can here. Here is your cell phone. When they finish with you whether its 2 minutes after I leave or 2 hours, don’t worry. Call me at work and I can leave and bring you right back home immediately. Do you understand me? My wife nodded yes and took her cell phone. Then I went and I worked my whole 8 hour shift but my wife never called me. I called her up when my shift ended. After many rings, I can barely hear my wife’s voice in the weakest tone I ever heard her speak in, “hello?” she says. ‘Hi baby, where are you at home?’, I ask. “no. I’m still here waiting for them to see me.” wife says. Then I say, “ What? you mean they need to see you again?” wife says, “no, they haven’t seen me at all.” I say, “NOT AT ALL? Who has taken your temperture and blood pressure then?” wife says, “no one. Please just come and take me back home if they’re not going to see me. It hurts to be seated. I want to lay back in bed.” I’m sadden and emotional now. I tell wife, ‘honey. I swear to God I’ll be there in 5 minutes!” I get there in 2 minutes probably, and it is just like my wife says, she is there practically alone now so there’s no way the stoic staff could not see her. I go to her and hear her tiny weeping as I look at her. I say to my wife, “Let’s take you home honey.” So with as much dignity as our condition allowed we quietly left just as we entered and the clueless staff never spoke to us the whole time we came and walked away. What savages. Now, we go back home and my wife feels she is going to die and now I start to believe it too. I give her juice and lay her down and wait to see what will happen next. Then I get mad and say enough is enough. I get us dressed and rush us to the airport and take the first moring flight from Tampa to Boston. 4 hours later we arrive in Boston and I rush my wife in to the New England Medical Center Emergency Room by noon time. The NEMC is immaculate by i’m not there to judge. There waiting room has barely anyone in it and I tell their receptionist my ordeal. Within minutes, MINUTES, they have my wife back in a private emergency room bed, there are doctors and nurses and medical staff all around hooking her up to IV’s and runnings tests for many hours. This time I don’t leave my wife’s side for a second.
ER Care
It is unfortunate that you had such a bad experience in the ER at Tampa. I am sure that they had the ability to treat your wife in an appropriate fashion. You should have demanded that they take her back for immediate care. All too often people try to get away with the least amount of effort that they can expend. If the nurses and doctors had been aware of her presence and condition they would have offered immediate care. It was probably due to the lack of proper attention by an underpaid clerical worker. You should definately call the administrator of the hospital and tell him of the service you received. If I can ever offer you some advice feel free to email me. I hope that your wife has recovered at this point.
Sincerely,
Duff
Thank you for the laugh
When I brought my husband of over 26 years into the Emergency Room for his final illness, he waited in one of their cubicles for 14 hours while they tried to find him a bed. I could probably count the visits in which they promptly brought me back, and gave me care that took fewer than 4 hours, on the hand of a leper.
Why bother to complain? I never had action by the hospital administration from the time I had a hysterectomy and they sent a wheelchair for me pushed by a guy who announced he was taking me upstairs for my dialysis.They ignored my complaints when I was recovering from surgery and they left me to do my own sponge bath, and I got stuck in a position I couldn’t get out of without popping stitches. I couldn’t reach the call button. I asked for help. No response. I started screaming. No response. I finally was able to inch my way towards the telephone and called someone to call the nurse’s station, just outside my room. That finally worked.
I’ve learned NEVER EVER leave a sick person alone in the Emergency Room. The only time I was nice and didn’t nag the administrative staff I ended up with a long wait, and they sheepishly admitted they forgot about me.
Must be nice to have a hospital that can respond to the people who ultimately pay their bills.
do we thank Mitt?
do we thank Mitt?
What else is new?
For all the hub-bub about Michael Moore “exposing” the lousy health care here in the land of the free, you’d think it was shocking news! Most Americans realize the health care system stinks. Moore is merely preaching to the converted. But where he stops short, is the larger picture. The health care system is simply a symptom of a larger disease.
Another symptom is the intrinsically fraudulent nature of Presidential “elections,” in which all the candidates with any chance of winning are backed by essentially the same corporate interests and the Presidency is simply sold to the highest bidder.
The country is ruled outright by the rich and powerful, toward their own interests. Most of the world outside these borders realizes this. Americans as a group may be slower than folks in the rest of the world, but there are signs, albeit only a few, that they’re starting to catch on.
Be sure to check out the Ground Zero Gift Shoppe! http://groundzerogifts.blogspot.com
(note to the webmaster: this is not a commercial enterprise, simply the name of a blog)
Michael Moore's "Sicko"
Thanks for publishing an accurate account of this film. I get so tired of reading the baloney that some “journalists” write that makes one wonder if they even saw the film or get their info from reading other peoples tripe.
Great food for though!
Yeah i agree, it was a great review and a very accurate account on the film. I saw the film, and, myself, liked it, i think the recipe for success was how much information it delivers and how uninformed we are on that subject. Really liked the article.
Gubmint
The same “Gubmint” whose failures at the Walter Reed hospital can’t take care of its own soldiers surely can’t take care of the nation as a whole. Government healthcare does NOT work well in Canada, Britain NOR Cuba, contrary what Michael Moore wants you to believe. Sure, its free. But wait two years to get a simple consultation, and see how “free” it really is, with skyhigh taxes. Canada has waiting lists to get on the waiting lists. People are dying while waiting.
Cuba has a two-tier healthcare system, one for the foreign “paying” customers, and one for the people. Not really that different from America. Go to Cuba and see for yourself. My wife, who is a foreign citizen has been there. She was shocked, because she had always heard Fidel was so great, etc. She saw the poverty that Communism spreads, as it wants everyone to be equal: equally poor, with the exception of a ruling oligarchy controlling the distribution of wealth, concentrating the power in the central government. The tourists to Cuba live like kings, while its people live like dogs, and it is really shocking that they have more rights than the citizens.
That is not to say that alot of these issues Moore points out are not real, they are, and they’re terrible. But the “gubmint” is only going to make them worse. I don’t want a massive inefficient bureaucracy machine taking care of my needs.
Michael Moore mixes truth and lies. What this is really about, in the end, is power. The Government’s ability to exercise power over every aspect of your life, and it is they, the new massive HMO, who decides who lives and dies. That is a dangerous precedent, and sets the stage for the Biblical prophecies to be fulfilled, before the awesome Day of Adonai that is coming soon.
Repent!
Ben
Ben, You're wrong. The
Ben,
You’re wrong. The Walter Reed scandal is simply another failure in a long list of failures of the Bush administration, and that system is overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of wounded coming out of Iraq (another in that long list of failures). Really what it shows is what happens when you put people in power whose entire philosophy of government is that government can’t work for people.
Furthermore, you complain about the inefficiency of government “bureaucracy” when private HMOs are far worse. HMOs waste 30% of their money in administrative costs, while Medicare has overhead of only around 1%. Why? Stop to think about it and its obvious. If everyone gets covered according to what medical care they NEED, you don’t need to spend billions of dollars trying to deny care to people in order to avoid taking care of them. Analyzing applications, conducting interview, attempting to deny care, paying lawyers, settling lawsuits… that’s the real waste. Get your facts right!
Do you think you wouldn't
Do you think you wouldn’t have the same problem with Socialized medicine? There would still be paper work, maybe more.
The problem with countries that have socialized med, is they can’t meet the demand and people are waiting in line to get specialized care. Developing countries are now going to tiered systems. As countries become more developed the citizens demand better care and are willing to pay for it.
Either some people
Either some people commenting here are paid by the insurance lobby to spread misinformation to confuse people or they are just really dumb and have no clue. Why don’t you just do your homework and get the facts and the stats.
The U.S. ranks 37th in health of its people according to the World Health Organization. SEE: http://www.who.int/whr/en/
People do die in this country from lack of insurance SEE: fact sheet from the highly regarded Institute of Medicine
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/17645.aspx
Finally, single payer reform is NOT socialized medicine. It’s socialized INSURANCE. Cuts out the middle man but the delivery system remains private and people can go to any doctor or hospital they want. Only they won’t have to worry about being hit with costs that render some homeless. And if you believe the rumors about those countries with national plans then you are falling for the insurance spin to keep you afraid of any change that would cut into their profits.
And some more
Yet more bizarre propaganda! More paperwork in socialized medicine?...you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about! There are no insurance application forms, no insurance information to be given to the provider, no forms to send to the insurance company each time you have a visit, no bureaucracy designed to deny claims, no appeals process, no small-claims-court battles (I’ve had to sue insurance companies—and won—twice in the US).
I found this on the www.pnhp.org site: “Administrative costs are far higher in the U.S. than in other countries’ systems. .... We spend at least twice more per person than any other country, and still find it necessary to deny health care.”
The US system is drowning in paperwork!
>>The problem with countries that have socialized med, is they can’t meet the demand and people are waiting in line to get specialized care.<<<
Again, the same old, tired, myth!
>>>As countries become more developed the citizens demand better care and are willing to pay for it.<<<
Historically, it’s the opposite. As countries become wealthier and more developed, they begin providing healthcare to all their citizens. Even India has now begun moving this direction recently. The one and only exception to this rule is the US.
again,>
American health care
So you think we DON’T have a tiered system? There are millions of Americans who have to choose between medical care and food. Also bogus is that most insurance won’t pay for preventative care or check ups, which in itself could save billions of dollars.
I can tell you first hand...
I currently live in Canada. I pay $88/month for a family coverage eqivalent of a US major medical insurance plan. My employer pays half of that as part of my benefits package. So, for $44/month out of my pocket, I’m covered.
I filled out one or two forms to sign up. That’s it. I do not receive any doctor bills when I go to the doctor. Not a one. I do not receive any hospital bills. My son had to go to the emergency room once and his wait was about 20 minutes. Once I went to the emergency room and had to wait about 1 hour. Not bad for govmint treatment as you call it.
And guess what? My property taxes are lower. My take home pay is the equivalent of what I took home in the US. The biggest difference I see is that gas costs more, (perhaps).
You guys are brainwashed, like I was, into thinking socialized medicine is bad. It is not. It is everything Sicko said it is and more
Signed
An American currently living in Canada and loving the health care system here!
saying something loudly, and over and over does not make it so
again: FACTS.
if the nations that have universal healthcare DID have the same expensive administrative systems as our private insurers (both for-profit and not-for-profit), they would be as expensive and ineffectual as ours. they do not, and they are not.
the evidence that universal health care CAN work here is that it DOES work there.
DUH.
spend some substantial time in another country before you pretend to know anything about how the world works.
I think you are
I think you are wrong
Countries with socialized medicine may not have the admin cost. They just don’t provide the care. Instead you have people waiting in line to get care because you don’t have the specialized care that we have in this country.
Yes HMO’s and insurance companies have to scrutinize care to keep costs down. In this country people are obsessed with going to the doctor and prescription medication.
socialized medicine
I am an American with experience using emergency care in England, Canada, and France. I had complaints ranging from illness, to broken orthodontia, to broken arms, and a ripped up knee. I have to say the care I received was immediate, with little or no waiting time and excellent. There was no paperwork. They did not care that I was not a citizen of that country and they did not accept my insurance card or my credit card. They just fixed me up, told me what to tell my own physicians when I eventually returned home and moved on to the next person. The docs and the nurses were matter-of-fact and happy. In some ways it was some of the easiest, most hassle free medical experiences of my life.
I’d love to have that here in this country. My sister in law who is Thai said that she will fly home to have her baby. Apparently the hospitals in her country are more enjoyable than the ones here, and they take care of their patients better. My brother-in-law has had long waits here to get his stage three cancer seen and multiple week waits for radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and to have a port removed when he developed blood clots. He could not even get a CAT scan about the pain around the area that later turned out to be a life threatening blood clot, why you ask? Because he had already had two appointments with his oncologist that week, and the doctor came down to the ER where my sister and brother-in-law were waiting for their test to say that “enough was enough”, “there are other patients who also need my time and you have already taken too much time as it is”. They had already had the CAT scan done at that point, having been in the ER for over twelve hours with their seven month old baby in tow. The oncologist was angry they were wasting everyone’s time and wanted to deny my brother-in-law access to the CAT scan. It was blood clots and he needed surgery. Noone was available, so he had to wait another two days. No one apologized. The oncologist did not admit he was wrong. He did not apologize for yelling at my sister for coming into the ER for her husband’s pain which had been severe for almost two weeks.
I could be worng, but the wait seems to be all us. I waited for three months to see a GI doc, and another 2 months for a colonoscopy. The wait to see the gyn without an active pregnancy is 6 months. The wait for my dermatologist (I have small skin cancers that have to be removed every once in a while) is at least six months. It’s a little crazy.
My experiences in foreign systems have been remarkable hassle free, and well done. All the procedures and visits were fairly straightforward, but that makes them no less efective.
No, Anonymous poster.
No, Anonymous poster. You’re wrong. I’m not a defender of the Bush Administration by any means, but to blame the ADMINISTRATION for the failures of Walter Reed is pure stupidity. The failures of Walter Reed have been in existence before this Bush became President in 2000. In fact, the whole military health care system has had failures as far back as I can remember. Some recent ones: the failures to recognize that chemical agents from the first Iraq war were causing Desert Storm troops to experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on a massive scale. That fact just came out recently.
To blame 1 administration for Walter Reed shows the stupidity and simple mindedness of the majority of ordinary people. GW Bush has many failures in his 2 presidencies and I won’t even waste time listing them. But posts and viewpoints like this reinforce that some people really don’t have a clue what’s going on in the world yet they want to have the exact same rights as everyone else. I got news for you… as much as we’ve tried to make it an even playing field, the honest truth is that it’s not. We all know that not everyone can be rich or smart or a virtuoso pianist, should we really expect any difference when it comes to things like getting the same quality health care? I think not. Like it or hate it, that’s the way it is and the way it will be. Even in a Socialist/Communist country, the ones with power and money will get superioir care than the ordinary folks. And that’s the simple truth.
health care
When someone says ‘republic not a democracy’ when describing the US or uses ‘gubmint’ to describe the nation, I realize that there is nothing one can say that will penetrate the head bone.
Socialized medicine is better than no medicine and no medicine is what 20 percent of the US suffers from.The only massive inefficient bureaucracy machine involved in the health industry is the health industry itself.
The failure at Walter Reed is a political failure. War mongers dont give a damn about the soldiers.
We spend four or five times as much money in our private system as any other nation and still have nothing to show for it. The rich get the best health care in the world. The poor get some but the middle class gets screwed. Medicare is socialized medicine, veterans care is socialized medicine….
And HMO? At one time, Kaiser Industries had the best health care for their employees in the US and it was part of the employee benefit package. Unfortunately, someone on the Board of Directors decided good health care for employees was a waste of assets and Kaiser Permanente is now one of the worst HMOs in the US.
And, oh yes, Ben, don’t rely on God. He doesn’t have a health care system , either. And praying doesn’t help. Ask the families of those whose loved ones have died because they didnt have insurance.
you have got to be
you have got to be kidding
The 20% percent you refer to are young people who don’t think they need health insurance or in temporary situations. They are still not denied health care. I know of two many cases of uninsured heart attack patients and bypasses done in hospitals. Ireally don’t believe you can find to many people that died because they didn’t have health insurance.
How many people died in Canada because they couldn’t get treatment for colon cancer, necessary cat scans in time for brain surgery, etc
Medicare is socialized medicine, however the gov’t is raising deductibles and trying to move more people to a private pay, (medicare advantage) The government can’t afford to provide care for an aging population.
Their is no reason why anyone should not pay for health insurance. It is a matter of priorities.
18,000 deaths per year
18,000 deaths per year directly attributable to lack of health insurance.
People in England, France, Canada, etc, live 3 years longer than we do.
Those are the facts.
England, France, Canada live 3 yrs longer
This is probably because they do not eat as badly as Americans do, and get more exercise.
Lack of food must be
Lack of food must be allowing Cubans to live longer than you as well?
Look, you aren’t even using the term “socialized medicine” properly in the first place … at least in terms of Canada.
Canada has a mostly private delivery system. The insurance system is a single payer system (socialized if you wish,) with the government being that “single payer”.
Our “paperwork” consists of showing your health card to the receptionist … the receptionist sends a bill off to the provincial health care office … the office sends them the money … sometimes (I’ve had one in my life time and I’m 50) the office calls a patient to confirm that you received the care you were billed for.
Wait times are another issues that seems to be used incorrectly.
When I want to make an appointment with my doctor, there is basically no such thing as waiting.
If I want to make a regular non emergency appointment, I call my doctor and book an appointment … if I’m “in a rush” I can get one the next day usually … if I’m suffering and need to see a doctor right away, but still not an emergency (maybe I have a bad cold that I want to get some prescription medicine because the over the counter stuff isn’t doing the job) I can take a trip down to the nearest public clinic.
At a public clinic, it is the same process as at a family doctor. Show the health card, get served. Public health clinics sometimes don’t take “appointments”, so during the flue season you may have to wait an hour before you see a doctor.
In a real emergency, you go to the hospital where a triage nurse/doctor will check you over and see how serious your situation is, and if it is a real emergency, then you will see a doctor immediatly.
Emergency rooms though do have large wait times ... IF you go there for a condition that could have better been handled at your family doctor or at a walk in clinic, then you are setting yourself up for a wait of several hours.
As for seeing specialists, and having tests done … I’ve never had to wait for any kind of test ever … between myself and my wife, we’ve had every imaginable kind of test possible … an MRI, if you are not considered in immediate danger, is scheduled, and can take months, but if you are in immediate need you get it done within days (sooner if you’re critical.)
Cost: We pay our health insurance (which is all that our health care plan really is after all) through our taxes … the US pays through private insurance companies.
Our total costs, including our government health insurance (taxes) and any money we pay through private means, either directly or via supplemental private insurance, still comes in a lot less expensive than the US model.
Our outcomes are better. We live longer, have a better quality of life, have a better infant mortality rate, and don’t go bankrupt due to medical expenses.
The worst thing about the Canadian system is that we are so close to the USA that idiots who either can’t think straight, or believe they can get rich on the suffering of others, are constantly lying to Canadians about how much better off we would be if we just allowed our system to become more “Americanized”.
Usually it’s the argument that by allowing US medical corporations into Canada we can save tax money … sure, but only at the cost of paying the same amount, plus profits, plus graft, plus corruption, to private companies … not to mention that whenever we go to the doctor we will have to fight some paper pusher into accepting that we really are sick.
Somehow US citizens have been brainwashed into believing that citizens (themselves) should not be trusted to work together to do anything for themselves as a group, yet think nothing of allowing a corporation to do anything they want, and corporations after all are just people coming together to cooperate, albeit unlike government, they are only responsible to the bottom line, whereas government is responsible to the welfare of the people (or should be.)
There is an “American myth” that plays up how a real successful person does things on their own, that the real power of the USA is “rugged individualism” ... the US has never got anything done with “rugged individualism”, it has always been though far less rugged “cooperation” that made the USA great … but somehow the myth is so ingrained that many people can’t even grasp the concept of another way of doing something other than the “American way”.
The rest of the world is laughing at you.
As one of those "20%" a few years ago...
I assure you it wasn’t prioritization. As an hourly worker, I had a choice: I could have a mortgage (2 br house on 50×75 property, nothing extravagant I assure you) or I could have health insurance. I chose the house. When I lost my job we were two months’ savings away from losing the house.
Should I really have forked out half a mortgage payment every month for health insurance?
Some people choose not to be insured as a “lifestyle choice.” Others just don’t have the funds to be insured.
zero
“How many people died in Canada because they couldn’t get treatment for colon cancer, necessary cat scans in time for brain surgery, etc..”
Zero.
That’s right. We’re not dying up here. In fact our life expectancy is higher than in the US.
Why do you believe you can afford to wage a war costing hundreds of billions of dollars, but you can’t afford a universal health care system?
your info is wrong, the healthcare here IS horrible
as a Canadian who has been living in the US for about 11 years now, I can tell you that health care in Canada is a million, no make that a billion times better than here! I have been screwed over by the medical system here in more ways than one.
First of all, I was always a very healthy person and didn’t have much need for treatment…until an American doctor screwed me so he can make some kickbacks by prescribing me extremely dangerous and addictive drugs without giving me any warning (he gave me anti-anxiety medication for some pain from a hockey injury!) Of course I hit tolerance and physiological dependence on his stupid drug within a month and didn’t know what was going on. His solution was for me to take even more, so I went back to Canada to see my family’s doctor there. He told me what was happening (and also told me in Canada those drugs are not prescribed for more than 5 days and only in the case of extreme anxiety).
Anyway, to cut a story short I went through HELL as i went through withdrawal, and to top all that the private health insurance company my work uses refused to cover me because they got their own doctor to review my case and he deemed me ineligible. I would have rather been in a full body cast than go through the torment I went through yet they still wouldn’t cover me.
On top of all this, every visit to doctors, hospitals etc in the US would cost me a ton of cash, even with my supposed cream of the crop Aetna insurance coverage. Back in Canada, I had a cat scan done which got scheduled within a week and it cost me $43 CDN with NO INSURANCE. So where do you get your stories of people waiting for cat scans?
I could go on forever about more of my experience and other experiences…it’s plain and simple: Canada’s medical system is FAR superior, and the system isn’t built in such a way that the more people they refuse and the more drugs they hand out, the more money the doctors and insurance companies make. Doctors in Canada genuinely care for their patients and don’t try to get them out the door as quickly as possible like every doctor i have seen here does (with a ton of unnecessary prescriptions too).
So it’s easy for you to ramble off untrue info since you clearly don’t know what it’s like in Canada, and also haven’t seen and been through the corruption and crap that this country’s medical system is…i hope you never have to either.
peace.
EU non-working healthsystems
Go ask the people in EU countries about their since 50 years or more “non-working” government health care systems.
They will tell you why they do NOT need a US privatized health care.
Before I lived in the USA [since 1999] I have lived in England, France, Germany and Spain where I never experienced problems contrary to my mishaps in this country since entrydate. As I am 65 years old I could gather enough information about different approaches to “heal people” over the years in different places of the world.
I can only “snort” at your ignorance-rooted comment.
Reply to Ben re "Gubmint"
Ben, you’re just spouting off the talking points of the American oligarchy, taking them for truth without bothering to question the facts at all. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you think Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.
The bottom line with regard to having a massive bureaucracy running our health care is that I think we would be much better off if complaining about (and working on fixing) such a bureaucracy were that the only problem we had with our health care system. As it is we CURRENTLY have many massive bureaucracies (in the form of HMO’s and other insurance carriers) ALREADY making a mess of our health care. And you can talk all you want about how terribly our government handles public services but I don’t see any massive problems with the US Mail, or with the US Army, or with the Federal Highway system. Sure you read about waste and other issues in each of these, but it’s not as if that characterizes these systems. Where you read the most about inefficiencies is in relation to so-called entitlement program administration. And are we surprised? Social Security, welfare programs, Head Start, and others are always on the chopping block so pork can be funded, and the taxes of the wealthy can be cut. There is no consistent, dependable public trust funding them, and so their staffing ebbs and flows. So let’s not be coy about this.
I am sick and tired of the criminals who have taken over this country and who have taken over the minds of the uneducated who in turn dutifully spout out dependable renditions of the latest (and meanest) talking points of the extreme right. If it weren’t so tragic and downright frightening, it would be hilarious: Millions of people getting screwed, lauding the efforts of those screwing them – and their children. Wake up Ben. Wake up all you dupes and open your minds.
I’m moving to England as soon as I can. I love America. I love what we are supposed to stand for. But we don’t any more. I’m not sure we ever will again. We don’t seem to have the will as a people to throw off this yoke. And this yoke is many times worse than King George’s ever was. Oddly enough, the British have actually done a better job of throwing off that yoke than we ultimately have. That may not be fair to us. We’ve been about it longer than have the Brits. Still, I for one want to enjoy the remainder of my life in a country that CURRENTLY embodies the principles ours used to embody.
Healthcare in America
I work in healthcare and see the overinflated cost of care as well as the overinflated prices of the medications that we dispense. I seems rediculous to me that you can go to Mexico or Canada and get the same medications for half the cost. I agree that the system needs drastic change and that there should be a limit to the profits that one makes for any services or products. I also believe that our country should fix itself before it goes around the world trying to fix everybody else. I believe a lot in what Yar has stated about the people in this country getting screwed and yet lauding the efforts of those who are doing the screwing. The people of this country better wake up and smell the roses or I believe that in a matter of time only huge corporations will exist in leu of smaller businesses that have either been bought out or run out. A few of the corporations that should survive will be the Pharmiceutical, Insurance, Oil, Power and the largest Banks. If we were to examine all their assets we would surely be surprised to fine out all the companies that they also own and the number is growing each year as they have to reinvest their money. Since it takes lots of money to be elected to positions of power only the rich will run and usually for the reason to get richer by getting inside information for investments or by corporate donations (which they are expected to do something in return). As I see it things will only get worse! I for one will not leave this country for another, so I agree that we should send letters, E-mails and phone calls to our leaders in office and let them know how we feel about issues at hand. If they do not vote correctly on those issues we should try to vote and lobby against them for change.
"A few of the corporations
“A few of the corporations that should survive will be the Pharmiceutical, Insurance, Oil, Power and the largest Banks.”
While you’re at it, why don’t you add the media as a corporation? They’ve become mouth pieces for big business and you’re lucky if you ever get a lick of truth about ANYTHING with any of the major media outlets.
Forget about calling, emailing or writing your representatives. Do what the Europeans do. Get off your asses and march on Washington for changes that need to be done. Show your government that you’re the boss for christs sake.
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