Michael Moore goes to Washington
People Features
By Stone Martindale Jun 21, 2007, 20:45 GMT
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I don't agree with the comment 'In taxes and inflated premiums we pay the medical bills for people who are not even citizens of this country'. I am a IT specialist working on a H-1 B visa and also pay the same taxes and premiums that a citizen does. Despite the issues with Social Security drying up before it can be availed by the citizens of my generation, if it were available, we wouldn't be able to avail that facility. In effect we end up paying more. I don't think the above mentioned comment is fair and was thrown in without looking at the situations from all sides and how it affects all sections of a population (Economics 101).
I was referring to the people in emergency rooms and hospital beds who are not legally employed - as you are by permit - the people who are not legal citizens yet are taken care of for medical issues.
Come to California, spend an hour in any emergency room. These aren't educated IT workers on a permit visa I am referring to.
I work for a private ambulance company that covers a really large county in the midwest, and right now we are averaging a 27% collection rate in our largest city because we have a high indigent population and a very high number of illegal immigrants (put down your pitchforks, people. I'm not being racist, this is a fact). So, because we (or the hospitals) never turn anyone away and we do not receive any tax dollars, the burden sits on the shoulders of those who actually do have social security numbers and pay their bills. A trip on the ambulance for someone who needs it shouldn't be more than $500, but because of the situation we're in it runs around $1300 in order for us to stay afloat. And we are all that our county has in regards to EMS providers who transport patients. How do we level this out?
Side note: If you're gonna have socialized health care, then you've gotta deal with immigration as well, otherwise we're in the same boat where the number of people who use the system is much, much smaller than the number of people who pay into the system.
The fallacy in Moore's comments is the idea that 'every American has the RIGHT to have health care.' Not so and you'll never find it in the Constitution or any of the founders writings. There is no such RIGHT whatsoever. If care is deemed appropriate for everyone, then the best it can be considered is a privilege.
There are far too many people in this country screaming about far too many things they construe as 'rights' that are not rights at all...other than their own assumption...and demand...that they are.
Moore is not talking about constitutional rights, he is talking about ethics. Anyone who has taken the Hippocratic oath would be in violation of that oath if a patient with treatable disease presented and was subsequently turned away because a lack of ability to pay. Hospitals only provide free acute treatment, and sometimes not even that. Chronic disease is much more prevalent and does a great deal of harm if there is no intervention. Universal care allows both patients and good doctors to rest easier at night.
HA HA this is too funny.Being a former DC resident i can confirm that most people there are about as bright as Moore.The world would be a better place if the district and surrounding cities where sold to France.seriously most dc people are out of touch with reality.They are nice people though....
Dr. Gary tries to vindicate his position by means of semantic diversion, and not by citing a substantive issue that actually has to do with bettering health care. The fact is U.S. citizens suffer disproportionately more from disease: they live shorter lives because of it and have higher infant mortality rates than any other industrialized nation with universal health care. And that relative gap is widening over time, even though many of those countries have similar rates of obesity and its associated chronic diseases. If our country could win an arms race, why are we losing the health race?
'sowhatnow' brings up a good point: we are already paying for the poor to some extent. But we are paying for them when they are much more expensive to treat. There is a massive savings when you intercept disease early, a savings our country would realize only with some form of inclusive care, since you can only maximize the early utilization of health services by at-risk populations when, as a people, we remove the barriers to it.
Moore seem bright to me. His satires may be hyperbolic, but the stories he presents do spotlight many of the reasons our healthcare system is failing national health.
Mr. Moore has hardly been shy about sharing his political beliefs, but he has never before made a film that stated his bedrock ideological principles so clearly and accessibly. His earlier films have been morality tales, populated by victims and villains, with himself as the dogged go-between, nodding in sympathy with the downtrodden and then marching off to beard the bad guys in their dens of power and privilege. This method can pay off in prankish comedy or emotional intensity — like any showman, Mr. Moore wants you to laugh and cry — but it can also feel manipulative and simplistic.
In “Sicko,” however, he refrains from hunting down the C.E.O.’s of insurance companies, or from hinting at dark conspiracies against the sick. Concentrating on Americans who have insurance (after a witty, troubling acknowledgment of the millions who don’t), Mr. Moore talks to people who have been ensnared, sometimes fatally, in a for-profit bureaucracy and also to people who have made their livings within the system. The testimony is poignant and also infuriating, and none of it is likely to be surprising to anyone, Republican or Democrat, who has tried to see an out-of-plan specialist or dispute a payment.
I hope this debate will not be diverted in a plead against healthcare because occasionaly some illegal immigrant gets a free ride on it .Altogether the poorest part of the population will benefit from it AND the middle classes too of course.To the doctor that states health is not a right,of course it is.If it is not yet in the constitution ,it should be ammended.Even the charter of the UN states health and education as rights for all citizens on this planet .A lot still needs to be done in many countries but I hope soon the people from the USA will benefit from it;ll freeing them from financialy worrying over their children,parents and friends in case disease strikes them .I've just read a post that stated a 500 dollar bill for a ride in an ambulance .Cost here in Belgium is about 100 dollars .Quite a difference I would say .I would love to see you guys divert some money spent on weaponry into health care and education .Dont you think it would improve the quality of ligfe itself .A spinoff would also be a less costly incarceral and repressive justice .Ir is a simple fact that when quality of life improves criminality is reducing .It is a win win situation for all.
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Harvey KanussJun 21st, 2007 - 21:47:01
It is simple -- the country needs national health care now. Most people do not understand the almost 50% of all health care money now comes from the government add the rest and get over it.
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