People Features
By Stone Martindale Jun 21, 2007, 20:45 GMT
Michael Moore goes to Washington
And Also
Michael Moore - View Michael Moore Pictures - Michael Moore News
|
|
|
|
|
Latest Headlines in People
- 1. Tom Arnold marries - again
- 2. Jason Schwartzman happy to clean
- 3. Simon Cowell wants Eminem
- 4. Paul McCartney's retching ritual
- 5. Proud parent Jennifer Lopez
Via BuzzFeed
Older Talkback
page: 1 2
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.
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.
These healthcare juggernauts are cracking into the fortune 500. Does that seem weird to anyone else? These megacorporations need to be abolished. We need a nationalized healthcare where doctors and nurses are government employees. That's the only answer. Otherwise we have private organizations telling us what medical conditions we can and can't live with.
I am currently trying to deal with a preventable medical problem that has been greatly exacerbated by a long period of neglect stemming from lack of funds or insurance coverage.
Basing health care coverage on employment seems to me the least effective way of holding down costs. Had I had coverage all along, treating my problem would have cost money, but the total cost of preventive treatment over my entire lifetime would probably be only 2/3 to 3/4 of the cost of dealing with its current acute manifestation.
Outside of any humanitarian or medical considerations our current system is just flat economically inefficient. When political types like Senator Brownback go around saying that increased privatization will lead to more informed consumer choices, they are only rationalizing the system's inefficiency.
Insurance is about sharing risk, not about making consumer choices. Since we all need health-care and since it is expensive, the debate should be about pooling risk and not consumer choice.
Other countries have pooled their risk by including everyone in their insurance systems, until the advocates of increased privatization address this issue, their proposals only represent varying degrees of demagoguery.
I would like to direct a comment to Dr. Gary.
Dr. Gary states that there is no constitutional right to health care.
I refer him to the ninth amendment which states that the enumeration of rights in the constitution should not be construed to limit them.
Dr. Gary, if you are going to apply strict construction to the Constitution, you should read it first.
Robert Chapman
Lansing, NY
I think alot of viewers miss the importance of the film, in my opinion the film not only speaks about the cost of health care and who should provide it, but it also shows an industry that seems to be underregulated or not regulated properly and as such policy holders are mistreated by these insureance companies.
It is one thing to believe that the government should provide universal health insurance but i think that some one or some authority should stand up and represent the society against these profit hungry insuance companies.
I haven't seen the film yet so I can't comment on it. However, I will say this. My one worry about SICKO is Michael Moore's track record. As a political moderate, I don't subscribe to his politics to begin with. And his track record of taking liberties with the truth (if SICKO takes the same liberties) could harm efforts to popularize universal health care among other moderates. This would be sad since I'm a big believer in universal health care.
This belief is not some sort of touchy feely position on my part. It's based on my eight years of experience as a claims analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield carriers in Oregon and Washington states. That eight year period is not one I'm proud of. Insurance companies are not in the business of paying claims. They are in the business of putting barriers between patients and medical service providers (deductibles, copays, risk pools, exclusions). Further, health insurance companies have perverted the true meaning of health care - dividing it into categories with different pay levels and restrictions that most patients find confusing. Why do we need VISION benefits ... OUTPATIENT benefits ... INPATIENT benefits ... DENTAL benefits ... MENTAL HEALTH benefits ... when every one of those benefits apply to the life of a patient? There should only be ONE type of benefit ... PATIENT HEALTH benefits, covering all expenses a patient might endure to insure the health of their mind and body. Period.
PS #1 - A lot of people who knock universal health care point out the problems with the Canadian and British systems. But, they neglect to mention the successes of other universal health care systems. Case in point - Australia. How is it that Australians live measurably longer and healthier lives in a country where health care costs have been held to only one percent of the GDP? It's because Australia has a single-payer system that melds government service with services of private sector insurance companies. In short, a single-payer system need not be 100% government-run to be universal (and work).
PS #2 - A few years ago, there was a conservative political ad on TV that showed elderly Canadian residents getting on a bus to travel to the USA ... to acquire drugs they couldn't readily acquire in Canada. It never happened but I'd always hoped the Democrats would do a follow-up ad using the same theme. In this ad, it would show the Canadians leaving the bus ... replaced by Americans who continued on the bus until it reached Mexico ... so the Americans could acquire the drugs they needed at 40% (or less) than they cost in the USA.
What??? You want those of us who work, pay taxes, and pay for our own heathcare to pay for the heathcare for those who want it for FREE!!!!!!
Huh!!! Go jump off a cliff...and take Hillery with you!!!!
Mikey Moore is trying to rebuild his reputation. If some good comes out of it, all the better.
Tonny, compare survival rates for these diseases in Europe versus the USA and get back to us:
Colon Cancer
Prostate Cancer
Breast Cancer
I was going to say that A.O. Scott just plagiarized the NY Times movie review until I realized that he actually wrote that review. If that really is him on this board, nice work, until the gratuitous 'rather ingeniously' line at the end. You injected yourself too directly into the review, and in so doing, undermined the credibility of an otherwise compelling review. Bummer.
Kudos to Michael Moore for bolstering my faith in humanity. At a certain point, I was convinced EVERYBODY was prime asshole material. Sicko's popularity proved me wrong.
To me, Michael Moore is now the quintessential American. He now is the model.
SP4 what exactly would be your explanation for different figures of survival for some cancer types between the USA and some european countries ?Social security ?THink again and give some arguments .Meanwhile I will tell you that people here in Europe are less easily persuaded to have their breasts or prostate examined regularly than in the USA.Good for you but that indicated only behaviour mistakes .THe later a cancer is detected the lower the survival rates .I kno because my ex-wife is exactly in that situation because she dragged her feet in having her breasts examined .It took her six months to have a biopsy,because she was too afraid .After that she had two operations,she refused chemo and consulted a wacko new age idiot who gave her silly remedies .Now she is due for mastectomy and chemo,finally .Meanwhile she adds to tthe statistics you mentionned .But the fina
Meanwhile some material concerning mortality rates,infant mortality and longvity in Europe and the USA .THey indicate people in Europe live longer,less infants die,etc?Now how would that happen ,do you think.
One conclusion only.
page: 1 2
Your Talkback on this Story