I just finished watching Michael Moore's new documentary "Sicko" and I must say it really made me think about how far, and frankly how low, our country has come in a generation it seems.
I've never been a big Moore fan, I felt that he had a penchant for taking too much artistic liberty with skewing the discussion towards his own predetermined conclusions but, in the case of "Sicko" I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly.
I worked in healthcare for well over 10 years and witnessed firsthand how broken our system really is, and how its methodically geared towards PROFIT at the expense of TREATMENT, or what the industry refers to as a "medical loss."
With some 46 million Americans currently uninsured, and the fact that many of those that are live in daily fear that a claim will be refused or that they will simply be dropped from coverage, isn't it time we all acknowledged that the system is broken or at the very least in terrible shape?
It shouldn't be a partisan issue that Republicans use to decry as a form of evil Socialism, or that Democrats use as a ploy to gain "street cred" with Unions and then never actually do anything about.
As Moore notes, what it should be is an issue as part of a larger discussion about what the heck kind of a society we want in this country. Do we let the CEOs and top EXECs amass hundred of millions of dollars in annual compensation while the middle and lower class of our society, the vast majority, end up working well beyond normal retirement and pray that they don't get sick or suffer an accident?
As the world's richest and largest economy it's pretty sad that we can't afford to do what other smaller and less affluent countries have been able to. We came up with $400 billion for the Iraq war awfully fast, can't the same be done to treat the sick and injured here at home?
Do we want a society based on the purest form of individualism or do we want some kind of acknowledgment that we are all in this together?
Hillary wasn't the best spokeswoman in world but, we do have good old Arnold here in California trying to make the case for universal healthcare in this state. People with Austrian accents trying to convince others about the benefits of more government still makes people leery but, he his newfound penchant for "bipartisanship," if it really exists, makes him an ideal candidate to get the job done.
The last thing I want to say is that something hasn't been right in this country for a while. Maybe it's Bush, Maybe it's the War, maybe it's the Yankees doing so terrible but, never before has the preamble to the Constitution of this great country , "We the people," felt so hollow. "We" havent cared about "Us" in a long, long, time.
I've included a poll to gauge what others of you think, and whether universal healthcare is something you'd like to see in this country. Is it time to give a damn?
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**NOTE: If you havent seen it already, DOWNLOAD IT HERE using BitTorrent. Moore said he doesn't mind piracy so as long as you aren't profiting from it.**
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3 comments:
If you think our system is broken - go to europe or canada and work there for 10 years. Our may have flaws and may not be perfect but government run healthcare would be 100 times worse than it is now.
People here that have no healthcare PPO/HMO have to wait hours to get looked out but do you realize that in England and Canada people wait weeks and even months to get something looked at?? Because it's free - every tom, dick and harry comes in for any little thing so it floods the system with unnecessary patients with minors cuts and bruises and colds that they wouldn't come in for if they had to pay for it themselves. trust me - you DO NOT want what Europe and Canada has.
I'd rather wait in line than have othing at all, and I think many would agree. As pemiums go up, and more people are denied covergae its only going to get worse. How bad must it get before u change your mind?
You need to checkout the following youtube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/StuartBrowning
HSA's are the way to go.
I have a friend that died waiting for care in Canada, because he did not have the money to get help in America.
No, I'm not the person that did the videos.
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