Just watched Sicko–stunning
I know I still haven’t fixed my website yet but I just had to post about this movie:
It was amazing
If all my economic arguments for a single payer healthcare system haven’t convinced you yet, you need to see this movie. It shows the other side of the argument. It shows precisely how and where private healthcare fails. Michael Moore has done an amazing job.
You owe it to yourself to see how health insurance companies intentionally bankrupt people to save money (they hire private investigators to invent undisclosed pre-existing conditions), how hospitals abandon patients that don’t have insurance (they drop them off at Skid Row, literally!), and how DOCTORS ARE PAID TO DENY TREATMENT to people so companies like Humana, Blue Cross, and Kaiser Permanente can save a few bucks… At the expense of people’s lives. They are literally killing people with their business practices.
Sicko also made passing mention of the drug companies but that could probably be its own movie (any takers?). There were so many details in this movie that you might miss… A drug that costs $120 in the U.S. costs $0.05 in Cuba. Why? Is it simply because the Cubans subsidize it through their taxes? Actually, no: it is because Cuba negotiates prices on behalf of all Cubans (and doesn’t allow bullshit patent extensions). If Cuba can get that drug for $0.05 imagine what the U.S. could get negotiating on behalf of all Americans.
Private healthcare is failing America. It is time we ended it.
2 Responses to 'Just watched Sicko–stunning'
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on July 6th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I just finished watching it too. Stunning is certainly accurate. To think what could happen if we all decided to simply take care of one another. To take monetary concerns out of the way, and provide actual, real, health care. Not sick care. Or even worse, death watch care.
on July 9th, 2007 at 11:03 am
What’s interesting is that pooling our resources to care for the sick is actually cheaper than letting the sick (not) pay for their own care. What goes around really DOES come around.
It costs the private health care industry about $400 billion/year to handle the paperwork associated with billing people. It would cost less than that to cover every American in a non-profit social health care system! Check it out:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=8800
For reference, here’s the link to a summary of the non-profit health care bill introduced by Representatives Kucinich (the presidential candidate), Conyers, McDermot, and Christensen:
http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_hr676_2.htm
(United States National Health Insurance Act)
If you want it, write to your senators (Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez) and your Congresswoman (Corrine Brown). There’s a contact form for the Senators here:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=FL
Corrine Brown’s CRAPPY AS HELL contact form can be found here:
http://www.house.gov/corrinebrown/IMA/issue.shtml
Further reading:
(how much it will cost, how it will be paid for)
http://www.pnhp.org/publications/executive_summary_of_the_united_states_national_health_insurance_act_hr676.php
For reference, I’m currently paying about 9.7% of my salary on my health insurance premiums. My employer is paying 29% of my salary on their end (that percentage will go down if I get a raise). That doesn’t include all the co-pays on drugs and doctor’s visits (a further ~12-15% of my salary). If the USNHI program goes into effect I can’t even FATHOM what I’d do with all the extra money I’d save. Not to mention how much money my employer will be saving (they could, in theory, raise salaries).
For reference, when people suddenly have that much more money they usually spend it on (a wide variety of) things which is _seriously_ good for the economy. Really, the only people who lose out in HR 676 are the health insurance companies… Those same folks who deny life-saving coverage to people; effectively killing (or at best, bankrupting) them.
There is absolutely no good reason why we should all suffer the private health care system any longer.
-Riskable
http://riskable.com
“To define a problem incorrectly is to ensure that it will never be solved.”