I, like most Americans accept the way our health care is handled here in the States. I never realized how greedy our government is an how brainwashed we have become. Last night I watched "Sicko", a Micheal Moore film on the United States heath care system, and was truly shocked. I was brought to tears by the stories that were told about non insured and insured people being denied medical help. It is crazy how many people who are insured get denied medical services. A woman lost her daughter that wasn't even 2 years old because her insurance wasn't accepted at that hospital(Kaiser). A woman lost her husband because her insurance, that was supplied by the hospital that she worked at, denied a bone-marrow transplant for her husbands cancer. They said it was experimental treatment. Seriously!
I was always told that places like Canada, France, England, and even Cuba who had universal health care received slow and poor medical attention. The film showed people in these countries that said just the opposite. They never have to pay for medical assistant, they were saying that the E.R never takes more than an hour. Their prescriptions are a fixed price, which was about $10, and that was for anything. And they don't not consider this charity. Their attitude about it is that you are espoused to help others, and people should help you. They said a poor street person in France will live longer than a wealthy person in the U.S. That's crazy!
I think we need to change this. By the way we are #37 in the world in health care, by we have billions our dollars for point-less war. Forget weapons of mass destruction, our own insurance companies and government are killing us by the masses.
13 comments:
I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's so important for people to do their own research on these kinds of things. I think a lot of people are under the misconception that health care in Europe is awful because they heard it somewhere and have no facts to back that up. No country's health care system works 100% of the time. But ours definitely needs to be reassessed. Pretty much all major countries in Europe are ranking higher than us with the World Health Organization. So they have to be doing something better than we are!
well somewhat you are right that something needs to be done wit the healthcare but you also must realize that Micheal Moore only shows the worst of everything in the us and the best of everything in other country's. What he wont show you is all the people that live and that have gotten help. and what u must also understand is that the downfall of the healthcare is the government alone not the doctors and hospitals that you go too. I work in healthcare and I see what doctors have to pay for and sometimes it is almost worst than what people have to pay to be helped.
Health care in America is beyond crazy. I know that my parents pay upwards of a thousand dollars each month to make sure we are insured. I am guessing that we use almost a 500 dollars a year towards medical bills so knowing that a 1000 bucks a month is just going to fuel these companies is crazy. Universal healthcare is a great ideal but I am worried about the cost it will end having on Americans and also the doctors and other physicians.
Healthcare is a monolopy in itself. If everyone had propor and efficient health care treatment we would all live in a perfect little world. I have not seen the film "Sicko" yet however I do plan to watch it. Now that it has been brought up I would like to read more into its information.
The issue with are health care is crazy and the government needs to get a handle on it soon. If the Republicians and Democrates could put their differences aside then things would be better.
Michael Moore is something else, and I mean that in a mostly positive way. As a film student, i've studied him and he's made some awesome stuff. He's not, however, above stacking the deck to make his point. You should think of his movies more as opinion pieces or editorials than say news articles.
I've had a couple run ins with socialized medicine, and yes personally not second or third hand. I think i've mentioned on here before about my mom breaking her wrist in england, but long (not to mention painful for her!) story short, she was ignored, they refused to even give her ice while she waited half the night to slow down the major swelling from the break, and then they set it wrong. We of course didn't know about that till we got back home and the doctor about had a heart attack, after over a year in physical therapy the permanent damage was about a 30% reduction of strength, mobility and stability in her wrist.
When i was about 4, we were taking a trip thru canada in our motorhome. I got really sick, the high fever and weakness, all that stuff, so my parents looked for a hospital while i was passed out on the bed in back. Unfortunately, we were in Quebec at the time. If you don't know or have never been, there's one reason it was very unfortunate for us, no one speaks french in my family. Officially Canada is bilingual, everything's supposed to be in french and english, and everywhere else it is, but not quebec. After being lied to about the nearest hospital ( 1 mile vs 15) and made to stand in line for hours on end, only to be sent to the back of another line b/c the person 'didn't speak english' etc etc we were there awhile. At some point a nice local person came up to my mom and asked if we were american, when we were, she said to find something with the american flag on it or something similar for me to wear. We were still going to be treated poorly for not knowing french, but the only thing the biased quebecs hate more than americans were english-only speaking canadians. After going thru a couple drs who mysteriously lost their memory of english, i was finally seen. But ironically, i wasn't all that sick anymore. I'd had a particularly strong 24 hour virus...a virus able to run its entire course while we were sitting in the ER, waiting for a dr.
That's all the long way of saying i'm bitter, disillusioned, and totally biased. No system's perfect, some are less perfect than others though.
I knew when watching the film it was sort of one-sided. But these where actual Americans going through this. It was so sad. Our heath care system rapes us, not saying that others are perfect. In in a country that is so wealthy how could we ever refuse service to a child because they are afraid that they will not get paid for their services. That is out right greed. I am going into nursing, I want to help people, not get rich. I think that some people are just too busy trying to get rich and not as worried about helping people.
I agree with you on this. I would've never thought that a country as wealthy as the US would rank #37 in healthcare. We shouldnt be too proud to use whatever system those European countries are using.
Experimental treatment?!?!?
I am strongly against the way the government runs healthcare. From the time I was a toddler until the age of 11, I was a Kaiser patient. They are very selective about who they admit into their hospitals and who gets medical attention first (those with the most money). Certain insurance companies, Blue Cross for example, "cover" their customers when they have regular doctor visits. For others who don't regularly get sick and barely go to emergency rooms, they cut off the coverage or the family ends up paying the next time they visit--all while paying the insurance company. Money iis being spent on the war going on overseas, but we can't even take care of our own? America has a lot to earn from Eroupe, Canada, and Cuba.
My dad has always had good health insurance through his work, so I have a hard time relating to stories about people who were refused health care because of lack of insurance or inability to pay. I do know though that what hospital you choose to go to can make a big difference in what kind of care you get. My brother broke his femur the other day in a dirtbike wreck and my parents passed up several local hospitals and opted for a 45 minute ambulance ride to get to Athens Regional. They felt he would get the best orthopedic care there. Hospitals and doctors are just like everything else in our society, you have to know where to go to get the best quality and you have to be willing to pay for it. It may not be fair, but it is a free ecomony. Some people have to wear Kmart shoes while others can affort to buy Nike.
You have to look at it closer...
You’ll are not looking any further than the actual number for the rank and are not looking at the reason behind the rankings. The W.H.O(World Health Organization) of the UN list that you're referring to ranks based on how and who the health care is distributed to, not the quality of the healthcare being distributed to the people receiving it.
Our healthcare system is not in a crisis, but there is a problem. What needs to happen is they need to put tougher laws and restrictions on health insurance providers and work on providing healthcare to the bottom 11% that truly need it.(Not Nationalized or Socialized Healthcare).
Don’t believe everything you watch on T.V. I’ve traveled to many countries, and have family across Europe. The healthcare there, might be distributed to everyone, but the quality of that healthcare is not even sub-par to that of the U.S. And you can tell me what good is healthcare, if you take care of the quantity but do not endorse and uphold the quality of it.
Michael Moore is a great director and documentary creator, however he is nothing but a propagandist. Ask Michael Moore what country he would go to if and when he needs a major heart surgery, ask him what country would he go to if he needed a blood transfusion.
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