That's Sick!
That’s Sick!
If you plan to catch a summer movie and you’re in the mood for something hair-raising, you can try Stephen King’s supernatural thriller “1408,” or the zombie virus horror of “28 Days Later.” But if you want to see something that will truly haunt your dreams, I recommend “Sicko!”
Health care in America? Now that’s scary!
Less is Moore
As with every Michael Moore movie, there’s a lot of Michael Moore in “Sicko!” But whatever opinions you have about his controversial persona, I think it’s worth putting them aside in order to appreciate that a no-holds-barred expos of the U.S. health care industry has finally appeared on the mainstream radar.
According to the New York Times, representatives for pharmaceutical and insurance trade groups have been handing out fliers at some “Sicko!” screenings and running ads in newspapers to respond to issues raised in the film. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Mr. Moore, but if he’s got Big Pharma and Big Insurance scrambling to mount a defense, he’s doing something right.
The question is: Is there an effective way to wrestle these two insanely powerful giants to the ground? “Sicko!” illustrates the core challenges in doing that: Insurance companies make astronomical profits by denying coverage
The people who represent us and make our laws receive huge sums of money in campaign contributions from the drug and insurance industries
There are four times as many insurance company lobbyists in Washington D.C. as there are congressmen
One of the most sobering revelations in “Sicko!” is that an insurance policy is not a safety net. If your health care needs are fairly routine, in most cases you’ll pay part and your insurance company will pay a share. That’s the agreement, and for the most part it works. But that’s a helping hand, not a safety net. A safety net saves you when you’re falling. And for many people who fall, the net simply isn’t there even though they may have taken steps to make sure it’s in place. Moore illustrates this by following the stories of several families who are devastated when the safety net vanishes.
Bottom line: Don’t get sick in America.
Ill-gotten gains
“Sicko!” has two primary messages:
1) If you have insurance coverage, don’t imagine you’re actually covered
2) All other major western countries have free, universal health care – so why can’t we?
Moore travels to Canada, France, Britain, and Cuba to show just how remarkably different government-run health care can be. But while the evidence we’re offered is compelling, Mr. Moore doesn’t show us any downside to this type of health care. Can it really function as effortlessly as he portrays it? That’s hard to imagine.
Believe it or not, when it comes to the “care” of health care, the government-run system would seem to have our private system trumped. Moore presents data that illustrates how health care in countries with “socialized medicine” is superior to health care in the U.S. For instance, when a 2005 study compared the health of middle-aged white males in Britain to the U.S., the British subjects had significantly lower rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic health problems. And the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in an international survey of more than 190 health systems. France is ranked number one. Slovenia is ranked 36th.
The most troubling outrage revealed by “Sicko!” is this: Our system actually rewards those who deny patients coverage. After seeing people explain why their family members are dead because the system denied them, you won’t soon forget the testimony of a doctor who appears before a congressional committee and admits that her success within an insurance company was steadily enhanced every time she reviewed a case and said no to coverage.
“Sicko!” definitely won’t pass a “fair and balanced” test, but it will make a lot of people very angry. Hopefully this anger will move us closer to a system that emphasizes actual health care instead of just healthy profits.
