British Expatriate Network

Anyone seen the new Michael Moore film Sicko? I saw it the other night and loved it. It is basically about the health care industry in the USA, focusing on people who have health insurance but find out when they need it that they really aren't as well protected as they thought they were. Michael takes trips to Canada, UK, France and Cuba and compares the socialized healthcare there and the healthcare in the US. He attempts to show how most American fears of a national health service - long wait lists. doctors making no money, not being able to use the doctor you want, etc. are really more fearmongering to entice us away from the idea of a free healthcare, and distract us from what we have actually got.

The best part is when he takes volunteer medical personnel who assisted during 911, who have since developed lung/breathing problems and cannot get any assistance from the US government or even health insurance, and takes them to Cuba. There they are given all the medical testing that they were denied in the US, free medications and generally are treated like the heroes they are.

The only thing is mel its not free you will pay for it in taxes one way or another ..

everybody wil be covered yes thats a plus

Haven't seen it but would like to.

I can't really see that we are paying significantly lower taxes in the US though, when I add up medicare, social security plus huge health and auto insurance premiums it's as if we're paying the same. Prescription drugs are a racket and I'm just pleased that I don't have to pay for any.

Things that are a plus, we only have 8.4% sales tax though we are one of the few states that taxes food items. Petrol obviously is a lot cheaper.

I think Americans are certainly fooled into thinking the rest of the world has substandard care, but the old myths die hard.

Not seen the movie, will probably have to wait for the DVD or 'on-demand'.

However, I was recently involved in a focus group for the presidential elections. Part of the discussion was healthcare. What surprised me (stunned me to be honest) was that a large and apparently representative group of NH residents universally (as in every last one of them) supported the creation of some form of universal healthcare system.
If that is remotely indicative of the US as a whole we could be in for a significant seachange.

What was also interesting was that many, conservatives included, thought that this would ultimately be thwarted by Doctors and insurances companies.

"Sicko" was widely mentioned too.

I wouldn't be so sure that anything will change.

I did study about 7 or so years ago and found data from 1960 to 1998 that consistently showed over 70 percent of the American public wanted a universal health care system even if it meant paying higher taxes.

The reactionary forces against such a national project are so powerful that I doubt you'll ever see significant change.

You can see it for free on milkandcookies.com in its entirety. It's pretty decent and Moore stays in the background a bit more than usual. Still, it's a little sugary and nonsensical in parts but then his agenda demands it. I'm sure Canadians, Brits and Frenchmen will see the glorified health systems they are under and see how sugar-coated it is. I did. Decent review on Reason but then they have their agendas too. But they do show how easy it is to cherry-pick people with horror stories from any country really.

http//www.reason.com/news/show/120998.html

I don't think anything will change either - the insurance companies and AMA will see to that. At least the film may allow some Americans to understand that there is another way. Personally, I think the horror stories are easier to find in the US. I have two families on my road alone where the family had to remortgage their homes in their 50s to pay for health costs, as their insurance companies dropped them like hot potatoes when they became seriously ill.

Agreed. As I said, I was stunned. They were certainly not all advocating a move to replicate the NHS or a single payer system, but all (and I mean all) wanted some form of universal system.

Perhaps they'd all been watching 'sicko' the night before?

The Americans are such hypocrites. They bang on about education being a founding principle of democracy and that no one should be denied based on wealth, or the lack of it, etc etc. They fund a massive universal public education system, and, very few use pejorative terms like "socialized" about it. And like every system, it could be improved but only a few ardent righter-wingers would advocate its dissolution.
But then they are ready to accept a profit driven health care system. it just boggles the mind how apathetic and self-centered these people are. They should be out in the streets by the millions.

thanks for showing the other side of the coin .
like I pointed out a govt run system will not iron out all the bad points and as i have stated in previous posts show me a govt run system that

is not over bidgeted overrun by baurocracy and falls well short of its goals .

But at least the goals are noble and just ones, not just to make a profit by denying as many claims as they can.

seen it, should make people think. Think he only played on the best parts of the system and not the bad parts of it.

feel that there does need to be a NHS here, but not like the Uk. The governmant should be made to over see the insurance companies to stop them hiking their prices and dropping people. that way making it affordable to all.

There is no way a plaster should cost $40.00. Needs goverment to say no.

The main reason for this is because hospitals are forced to absorb the costs of the uninsured. Because they have to cover the cost of this, that's why they bill insurance companies $10 for a couple of tylenol. It's not the insurance companies charging this, it's the hospitals. You can thank Ronald Reagan for that little piece of legislation (Gawd bless'im can't speak ill of the dead). :roll:

There does need to be some government control.

Insurance costs have funnily enough, skyrocketed since 2000, when the Republicans got control of the Presidency and congress. It's no coincidence that when my United Healthcare premiums went up 40% in one year, so did their profits when I visited the shareholder section of their website.

Will wait for DVD, should be a wake up call but sadly, will not be. There are three issues at work here.

1. Americans will not pay for it.

2. They don't care.

3. They don't care because they don't know.

Most americans sadly have little knowledge or interest in the world outside their borders, moreover they have little knowledge of how there own government functions. One of my daughters friends came round for dinner and is a political major and she did not know the following.

1. How many judges sit on the supreme court
2. any of their names
3. What habeus corpus means
4. When Jamestown was settled.
5. Who has authority to declare war.
6. The dates of the civil war
7. When the declaration of independence was signed.
8. When the war of independence was won.

I knew the answer to all these questions, not because I am knob head, not because I am studying for the citizenship test (not on your life), but because I am a fairly typical informed member of the public from across the pond. Maybe ignorance really is bliss, has anyone else found the same thing??

But the current US system of health care via health insurance is nothing but pure evil. The cost is deliberately over-inflated and the federal government deliberately helps to do this. It is nothing short of disgusting. And as Moo says, what logic does it make to say the govt has no business in providing health care when it regulates everything else without cries of socialism. This is not an argument as to whether health care in the US is better or worse than elsewhere but questioning why federal and state governments allow insurance companies to dictate the absurd cost of health care in the US. You can't defend it as free market economics because the prices are fixed. I accept the points made in that Reason article, but I cannot ignore the fact that health insurance is no different to a protection racquet.

The US government doesn't just pay for bridges, roads, national parks, educational projects, Medicare, etc, it demands that it does. It will not allow a state priority over where a thruway will go. It will not allow a state to pick and choose contractors to build a harbour, or an army base. It demands that it has the sole responsibility to provide these services. Hell, the US government spends more on national parks than it does on Medicare/Medicaid. What sense is that?