SiCKO by Michael Moore

#61
I have not seen the film, but did see the interview. Totally 1 sided. Canada does not have wonderful healthcare but at least they can not deny access and people do not lose their homes or go into a lifetime of debt because of being sick.

The system is flawed that the funding is determined by the government and each agenda sees different allocation. In a city of 1 million, can you imagine only 3 hospitals, which have beds closed because there is not enough funding to pay for staff and equipment?

Here, we pay for provincial health care (in some provinces it is free) and pay for private insurance on top of that. Some companies pay portions (mine pays 40%) and other do not. We have a total of 52 weeks leave where the employer must hold the position or provide a comparible position at the same pay. It is made of 15 weeks maternity and 37 weeks parental leave. This allows for adoptive parents and fathers (instead of the mother) to take time off with the child. Employment Insurance covers wages for that time, 55% of earnings to a maximum $423 per week. Some companies top this amount up.

People have died waiting for surgery for ruptured apendix because they wait for 8-10 hours in the emergency room before even seeing a doctor. It just happened again last year. To be fair, many of the people in Emerg, shouldn't be there. They should be going to a walk in clinic or critical care facility instead of the hospital. That plugs the system up too.

There are not enough hospital beds so women are going to outside towns to give birth. It is standard to be released 24 hours after the birth and have a nurse visit the next day.

Wait times are huge, not just for surgery. You wait to get into your GP, (if you have one, another issue), then wait to get a specialist appointment, then wait for the appointment, then wait for surgery. Diagnosis times are horrific, many people pay to go to private MRI clinics. Can you imagine waiting months to find out whether you have cancer, never mind the progression that has ocured in the time it took to diagnose?

To portray Canada as "ideal" is very misleading.
 
#62
ldq31 said:
Sorry but they are still getting away with this. My firend works for a big name drug company and she bascially gets paid to lunch. She takes her boyfriend out and writes that lunch off as "business" expense. Thats how much entertaining she can do and its allowed. Plus all the freebies she gives the doctors and such. Maybe some ahve reformed their ways but not the vast majority. Our heathcare system is horrible. Plain and simple. And to me that is what I will be basing my vote on 2008.
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well, sounds like your friend steals:shrugs:
Doubt the shareholders, Board of Directors or FDA are supporting this:nogood:
The FDA will fine and investigate any CO they hear is doing this.
DH is traveling next week to accompany attorneys on FDA investigation just because a couple of guys made their own literature.
It's hardcore.
Hope your friend can keep her job. . . and she's risking her boss's job too, and if she does it because her boss says it's okay. . . then they're still taking that risk.:yes:

The FDA enforces these rules aggressively, if companies are aiding their employees in doing this then it's not the governments' fault, we have an ethical problem w/ a couple of companies. . . I think it's fair to assume a couple of companies in EVERY industry are a little unethical.
 
#63
I heard his next movie is about the Pharma industry. I'm not joking.
I had a couple of friends who had high level jobs for a large RX company. One bragged about how she was told not to ever spend less than $150 on a bottle of wine, this was 10 years ago. When they traveled they stayed only at the Four Seasons or Ritz. When they had their national sales meeting the company would pay to close down Disneyland for several days & fly in all the reps families. Can you imagine the millions this would of cost?!?
If someone has great health insurance, good for them. Its a great perk that big companies are able to offer.
Seriously, spend the money & go watch it in the theater. Have some respect for other people intellectual property like you would expect them to respect yours.
Karma has a funny way of balancing things out.
 
#64
^that's probably the one the people DH knew/knows will be in . . . I try and not put any $ in MM's pocket, so I haven't seen Sicko, wasn't sure if it was this one or another one that these people had been approached for.
 
#65
I think Moore makes a good point when he says the major problem with healthcare in the US is that it is for profit. If we had fire departments or police forces working for profit, they would let certain people's homes burn down and walk past muggings on the street. Healthcare, arguably, is as much a basic necessity as a fire department or police force, yet we allow healthcare companies to work for profit, deny coverage and increase premiums to unpayable levels. We have people going bankrupt over hospital bills (it is a leading cause of bankruptcy).

We may not be able to point to someone else's system and say it is perfect, but the fact is that we pay MORE than most other countries and receive less care. Something has to change.
 
#66
HauteMama said:
We may not be able to point to someone else's system and say it is perfect, but the fact is that we pay MORE than most other countries and receive less care. Something has to change.
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Actually, we do not pay more than other countries that have so called "successful" UHC. Between the high taxes (to pay for the "free" system), the co-pays for the government healthcare, and the additional premiums for private healthcare (which covers what the gov does poorly, over 90 percent of the French pay for this), it's not so butter.
 
#68
We had not for profit health care till about 1972. Bad choice to change it.
If you went into the hospital for something, no one was tying to kick you out. Not this drive through baby delivery that happens now.

According to that map its the US & third world countries who don't have some kind of universal health care.
 
#70
Vegas Long Legs said:
We had not for profit health care till about 1972. Bad choice to change it.
If you went into the hospital for something, no one was tying to kick you out. Not this drive through baby delivery that happens now.

According to that map its the US & third world countries who don't have some kind of universal health care.
Click to expand...

Okay, when the US is being compared to third world countries based on our health care then you know it's time for our government to start taking action.

I'm not the biggest Michael Moore fan and I do find that most of his works are a little twisted to fit his view of things but I might still go see the movie since it's been getting rave reviews :shrugs:.
 
#72
I don't think any country has a perfect system of healthcare. However, when over 10% (if not more) of legal Americans do NOT have ANY form of medical insurance, it is quite frigthening! :wtf: Something MUST be done to address this issue- the US govt need to do something to protect each and every one of its citizens.

If I had the option of NO medical coverage whatsoever (which is an unfortunate possibility for some Americans), or some coverage yet having to wait for specialized care... I would most definitely take the latter..... at least I know I would have some security in knowing that I wouldn't be kicked out the hospital's door when I don't have my medical insurance card in my possesion.

PS My fiance's best friend was diagnosed w/ colon cancer last November. Had his surgery to remove his tumor in mid-December. And he was at the hospital for 2 weeks before they even considered discharging him. No rush and absolutely no hospital bills to pay. And yes, he (as well as my fiance) are Canadian.
 
#74
I just watched the entire Michael Moore interview with Sanjay Gupta on Larry King Live... it's worth watching, he defends his "fudging" of facts and numbers, and pretty much owns as mostly Sanjay agrees with everything anyways.
 
#75
Ok, let's clear up a few things first. Society likes to blame insurance companies for everything that goes wrong with healthcare. An insurance company is first a business, so they do have to have limitations. They can't just pay for everything that you want them to, which is why they offer different plans that fit different needs and financial requirements. Secondly, more blame should go towards your employer cause they're the ones who buy the plans offered by the insurance companies. Regarding Meg's story, yes, it sucks that a child was moved out of the NICU too soon, but that's the ins plan either that person chose or their employer chose. There are other plans that give more benefits, so the ins company is simply agreeing to pay for what its contract with you implies. I mean, if you own a house and decide to not get flood insurance, are you going to expect State Farm to pay you when a hurricane floods your house? That's the same case here. Some companies buy pharm riders that cover fertility, some don't. Some people choose a plan that requires a referral, some don't. Some offer longer stays in NICU, some don't
Now, I can agree that the cost of healthcare is outrageous, but it's not only the ins co's fault here. We have patients that bring up unsubstantiated law suits for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. From those, the malpractice insurance raises which means the Dr's need to raise prices, but at the same time, the ins companies have no control over law suits and want to try to keep their plans affordable, so they don't raise the reimbursement rates, so then you have dr's who try to squeeze more patients in and the level of care lowers. Then you have pharm companies that spend millions on docs trying to push their drugs on them which drives the price of drugs up. The whole system is tightly interlinked and it's never one piece that's to blame, it's the whole system that needs to be overhauled.
 
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