"Sicko"

I'm generally a big fan of Michael Moore's documentaries.  The only one I hadn't seen, and one of the two I don't own, was "Sicko."  Both lapses have now been corrected.  It's as great as all of them, except "Fahrenheit 11/9," which was somewhat disorganized, and not as perfect as the rest.

"Sicko" is about American "health care," or the lack of it.  Moore hits every note perfectly, and he compares American "health care" to health care in other/real countries.  He focuses on Canada and France for his information about real countries.

Here are the essential highlights: in real countries, everyone has access to health care.  Even visitors/tourists do.  They're not charged money when they get treated.  (Moore at one point asked about a sign that said "Cashier," that seemed to belie the assertion that patients don't pay.  It was explained to him that some patients arrive at the hospital on an emergency basis, and when they get released, like from the ER, they have no way to get home.  The "Cashier" doesn't charge them money.  It gives them money, to cover the cost of the ride home.  The fiscal structure of the country pays for everyone's health care.  And it's good care, too.  (Medical care in this country costs far more than it does in any other country, and our results are worse than many.  We just pay too much, and we don't get our money's worth.  Do you know that the commonest cause of personal bankruptcy in this country is and always has been an inability to pay medical bills?)  People/patients in real countries don't get care they don't need.  (I might have told this story some years ago, but I have a right wing cousin who worked on Wall St -- one of the many VPs of whatever -- and part of his benefit was luxury "health care."  Whenever he had a cold, he marched himself to his PCP, and demanded an antibiotic, which his PCP dutifully prescribed, even though antibiotics don't do anything for colds.  Once he had made so much money that he couldn't think of a reason to bother to go to work any more, and he retired, he had pedestrian "health care."  Now, he had to pay a co-pay for doctors' visits, and for prescriptions.  He quit going to the doctor every time he had a cold, and he quit taking useless antibiotics.)   Importantly, doctors in real countries are not doctors so they can feed at the money trough.  They certainly make enough to live on, but they don't get rich inventing and treating conditions that aren't going to get any better with pretend treatment, and for which this superfluous activity serves to enrich the doctor.  And most importantly, people in real countries actually care about each other, and they want each other to be well, so they pay taxes.  That's how the real countries get the revenue to support their health care systems.

And no, real countries don't only control the costs of having doctors.  They also control the costs of medications and everything else in health care.

Real countries have a huge advantage we don't have, and it makes this kind of societal evolution possible.  In this country, campaigning lasts a really long time, and it costs a huge amount of money.  Candidates who need that much money are very beholden to whoever gives it to them.  In France, for example, the campaign season lasts two weeks.  In the UK, it's about five weeks.  In Canada, it's 36 days.  In Italy, it's 45 days (about six weeks).  In Spain, it lasts a long time -- up to nine months.  But when you have to hurry up and get your agenda out there, and not rely on drowning the voters in exposure, it just doesn't cost that much, and you don't need that much, and you don't owe anyone (except the voters) much.  That's why in real countries, electeds focus on the wishes and needs of the public, and in this country, candidates only care -- only have to care -- about the wishes and needs of their real constituents, which are the donors (not the voters).  Many of those donors and paid lobbyists come from the "health care" industry.  When candidates take that money, which they generally feel they have to, they've been bought, and are owned, and have to deliver.  And what they're required to deliver is not what's in your or my interest.

If you have a DVD player, you're welcome to borrow my "Sicko" DVD.  I just want it back.  You can also borrow my copy of "Un Traductor," which is based on a true story of a Cuban guy who was an academic, and studied Russian, and got assigned to a children's hospital which was treating Russian children who had been damaged by the Chernobyl disaster.  It's a different focus, but a great movie.  I want that back, too.