I just watched MM's "Sicko" for the first time, and something immediately struck me...

[tex-wyo-dem]

First of all, I know, I know, you're watching it for the first time?!??!!…shame on you! For the record, I can't believe it took me this long to see it.

In any case, something struck me right away after watching the movie. It came to me from a statement the old scholar from England said about the UK's NHS: "If the government tried to take anything away from the people's healthcare system, there would be a revolution" <paraphrase>

And THAT is what the vulture healthcare insurance companies and big pharma in this country fear more than anything: If the people of the U.S. actually got a taste of a truly nationalized single-payer healthcare system in this country, there would be no turning back. It would spell the end of much of the healthcare insurance and pharmaceutical industry, and that explains why they have fought so hard to demonize anything else but the status quo…including the ACA.

They will continue to fight, but they are fighting a losing battle…sooner or later, we are going to win.

[JeffHead]

1. The ACA is just a foot in the door...

Once Vermont establishes single payer it will spread like wildfire.

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

2. Yeah,

it's a good move! One to watch.

[tex-wyo-dem]

4. I do hope so...

A major problem in this country is that the health insurance industry and big pharma have a MAJOR influence on the MSM, due to massive advertising dollars (just watch CNN for 10 minutes and you will see probably three or four ads).

So the MSM could pretty effectively just ignore whatever is going on in little ole Vermont.

I hope I'm wrong...

[caledesi]

25. Yup. That is what happened in Canada! nt

[Brigid]

3. I think it may already be too late.

This screwed-up state (IN) and others may be refusing to set up exchanges or expand Medicaid -- at least for now -- but there are already too many good-news stories out there. It will take time, but the floodgates have been opened.

[LeftyMom]

5. You know what struck me? All of those people had insurance.

And now we can all get just as fucked as they were! Yay!

[tex-wyo-dem]

6. Yeah, that's the truth...

Moore should re-release the movie with updates since the ACA was passed.

If enough people saw this movie (a critical mass, so to speak), I really believe we would have our own little revolution on our hands.

As I understand, the movie did have some influence on the ACA's passage in the first place.

[solarhydrocan]

9. AHIP and "Sicko"

AHIP: America's Health Insurance Plans
is a national political advocacy and trade association with about 1,300 member companies that sell health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Health_Insurance_Plans

On the July 10, 2009 edition of Bill Moyers Journal, Wendell Potter, former Vice President of corporate communications at the health insurance corporation CIGNA, claimed that the industry was "afraid" of the Michael Moore documentary Sicko.[11]

transcript here
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html

As a result, AHIP formed a strategy to "discredit this film".[12] As part of the reporting on this allegation, Bill Moyers Journal provides May 2007 and June 2007 drafts of a memo entitled "Ensuring Accurate Perceptions of the Health Insurance Industry".[13][14]

This memo outlines the strategy the health insurance industry would use to battle Moore’s documentary. The later draft lists the following as the "5 Strategies We Reached Consensus On":


1. "Debate the System, not the Anecdotes. Set the record straight then get off Moore’s turf and on to ours."

2. "Reframe the Debate: Mount Campaign against a Government-run Health Care system."

3. "Define the Health Insurance as Part of the Solution."

4. "Caution Democrats Against Aligning with Moore’s Extremist Agenda."

5. "Game Plan for Various Potential Scenarios."

The AHIP memos do not list any factual errors in Sicko. The memos instead focus primarily on media messaging in terms of influencing politicians and public opinion.

AHIP's Karen Ignagni: Probably the single biggest factor in getting Obama to reverse his position on mandated health insurance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Ignagni

[tex-wyo-dem]

22. +1!

He needs to rerelease the movie with updates…that would be another shot across their bow…especially since they are now trying to fuck with the law (and the website) and continue their all-to-obvious propaganda campaign.

[Enthusiast]

33. +2!

[Dragonfli]

8. That's why it was the Heritage plan before it was the DLC plan, to continue the uniquely American

aspects that made such money for the Corporate "citizens" while merely sacrificing the less important human citizens.

At least now, part of the profits get to come directly from our taxes for the shareholders with no right to refuse the product!

Success of the Heritage Foundation sponsors was always more important than the people, that's why we had no health care reform and went with mandated continuation of SICKO insurance instead.

This is America!

If we ever get politicians that work for the people rather than the corporate donors, we may get health care from them, but with the Republican Fascists working with Republican "Democrats" AKA "centrists" in charge of the other party, we will only get SICKO insurance.

It is only a matter of time until the few new regulations meant to protect us from the insurance rackets get weakened and then repealed, it will happen just like it did with bank deregulation, in a bipartisan centrist orgy designed to protect "growth" from the needs of those that insurance cos need to prey upon. Prey are prey after all, and at least for now the pols work for the predators and not the prey.

[Enthusiast]

32. Your post deserves a big plus one.

[truebluegreen]

14. Inadequate insurance...

What they can get now will be better, but there's a long way to go.

[DesertFlower]

15. that's why with the ACA there is a maximum

out of pocket so you can't lose everything.

[LeftyMom]

19. That is so trusting it's adorable.

The more money insurance companies spend providing health care, the less money they make. Fucking you over is their business, and they're professionals.

[jeff47]

20. Yeah, that's why there's nothing in the ACA that limits their profit.

Oh wait.....

[LeftyMom]

21. They're still going to game the system.

Putting up a road block to doing so is just going to keep a few more paper shufflers busy. Employing clever accountants is cheaper than providing medicine, which is why a market based solution is utter horseshit.

[jeff47]

23. Yeah, which is why the ACA doesn't spell out what is overhead and what isn't.

Oh wait.....

[LeftyMom]

26. Evading regulations is WHAT THEY DO.

And nobody's going to do dick about it, because the revolving door between government and industry is a thing, and the lucrative jobs are in the private sector. Standing up for a patient is the right thing to do, but when you're a desk jockey with kids who are about to start college and you're eying a boat and Aetna's recruiter's been sniffing around, how effectively are you going to apply those byzantine regulations?

[jeff47]

27. What counts as patient care and not patient care is explicitly spelled out.

And they are required to spend 80% or 85% on patient care. Any less and they issue refunds.

You are arguing that the "desk jockey" is going to spend less money on patient care so that he has to tell his bosses they will be cutting a lot of checks.

The ACA is quite lacking compared to single-payer. Doesn't mean we should lie about what's in it.

[tex-wyo-dem]

24. Exactly…it's the same paradox as right-wing rethug legislators...

who are in a position where they are expected to govern, but don't believe in government, so therefore will just destroy the system from within.

The healthcare insurance complex is by no means wanting to play along with the ACA, so they will just game the system to break it from within.

[indie9197]

28. Not true, unfortunately

There is no out of pocket maximums for out of network care or for balance billing.

http://www.citizenvox.org/2013/11/19/balance-billing-it-makes-you-sick/

[JEFF9K]

7. Republicans always seem to be afraid of the truth getting out.

[truebluegreen]

16. "Facts have a well-known liberal bias."

heh

[freshwest]

10. Any increase in the safety net is a danger to them. Makes people get all 'uppity,' don't ya know...

Last edited Mon Dec 9, 2013, 03:44 AM - Edit history (1)

When a floor is established to support basic human needs, the minimum wage, housing, jobs, health, education, food, the quality of air and water, it does the opposite of conservatives claim. .

They say it impoverishes others who have all those things to pay for those who aren't deserving of them, and they employ an entire industry convincing the voters of that falsehood. If all poverty and all it entails, was eliminated, there would be no whip of fear to lash the middle and working class.

They must keep up inequality to make division. Really, there is no way to divide us when we accept each other. That is unity and it requires we love each other and see others as good as ourselves.

The ripple effect of bankruptcies for medical costs, lost employment from illness and deaths to feed vulture capitalism. Stealing their chance for advancement, homes and lives, leaving their next of kin disadvantaged for years and for further preying upon.

The GOP preys upon the weak egos of those who do not feel they can compete with those they now disdain, so they screw others by their votes.

Americans lost their identity to a commercial culture to value dead things which do not last as they discount iving ones. That's why the media is so very powerful, to keep the American people in that box.

The media is not producing ideas to inspire thinkers or philosophers, or even those who are marginally aware of the true value of their time and their lives. If they were, they'd settle down and devote their efforts to things to benefit future generations. Their vision is tiny:

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

~ Barack Obama

Anyway...

.

[Luminous Animal]

11. It would be nice if President Obama would take his own advice.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Point of information: That wasn't "an old scholar"

That was Tony Benn, one of the leaders of the "old" Labour Party, the man Thatcherites saw as the incarnation of everything that was wrong with Britain, you know, like a fair deal for the working class.

[tex-wyo-dem]

17. Sorry, you are right...

I went to DU after watching the film not taking notes on who was who

I was highly impressed with Mr. Benn.

[House of Roberts]

13. If it makes you feel any less guilty

I still haven't watched it straight through. I've seen bits of it. I don't need to be convinced. I'm already on board. I expect you are too.

[tex-wyo-dem]

18. I 'll have to say that the film is absolutely incredible!

It sounds clique, but I laughed and five minutes later cried, it made me angry and sad and happy…Moore is a master at drawing every human emotion while educating.

[chervilant]

29. They are fighting a losing battle, but

for those of us without insurance, the ACA will be too little too late. I just had emergency surgery at a hospital in Springfield, Missouri -- two hours from my home. I had a gallstone move down into my bile duct and block it, causing excruciating pain. The ER doctor told me my options: sure, go home, try to eat again, have more severe pain, develop sepsis, and die.

Yeppers, I had the surgery. An ambulance took me to Cox South, where a GI specialist cleared my bile duct, and a surgeon took out my gall bladder.

I don't make enough money to pay the massive medical bills coming my way. I suppose I'll be filing for bankruptcy.

[Enthusiast]

30. K&R! You can't blame the insurance industry or the pharmaceutical industry.

They have a wonderful gig going on. Is it any wonder they fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo?

The insurance industry is essentially rewarded with "free money". They are entirely parasitical in nature. They do not deserve their largess at the expense of the consumer, they just don't.

The Pharmaceutical industry is in a similar position. They could lower drug prices significantly and remain super profitable. Instead they choose to make life difficult for millions of vulnerable, sick people. They use every trick in the book, and some new ones, to increase their profits at the expense of all of us.

And worst of all, in the interest of preserving their ill-gotten gains, these industries have corrupted the election and legislative process undermining the very foundation of our democracy.

[librechik]

31. Insurance and pharma wouldn't end. They would just be cut down to size, like in civilization.

That thing we don't have out here on the frontier.

Those pricks have nothing to fear except losing their third vacation home or fifth luxury car.

[sibelian]

34. Yeah... you see, they are going... to... DIE.

I haven't seena nyone on this website or in any other left-leaning site anywhere look that one flat in the face.

Big Pharma, medical insurance... every step closer to Universal healthare rots their market away PERMANENTLY.

They can't afford NOT to fight public healthcare. They have to. It's their very surivival on the line. There is no way they can sit back and allow it happen. EVery dirty trick they can pull out WILL BE USED. Of COURSE it will.

The most significant factor in the healthcare debate isn't the president or any individual stories aout websites or insurance failure or the habits of other countries (although those factors are of course significant), the most important thing to talk about, as far as I can see, is to get the influence of the insurance companies on the debate OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY. Wherever its dirty, slithery little trails of slime can be found. Smoke the shits out.

As far as I'm concerned, activists should be looking at every lobbyist going into Washigntom and demanding that anyone connected with healthcare insurance be banned from Washington or at least every visit should be logged somewhere and shown the American public with big banners on it saying "THE BIG MONEY BOYS WANT YOUR BODY'S WELLBEING DECIDED BY THEM". as publically as possible.

Private companies have no inherent right to discuss how policy affects their profits with democratically elected officials. It's just plain WRONG. If they go under, that's just tough. That's how business is SUPPOSED TO WORK. When the market changes, either the business changes or a new business emerges. It's not even good econimocs to support failing models.

I want mugshots.

[Prophet 451]

35. Sadly, that's turning out to be untrue

Our current Tory government are gradually privatizing the NHS by stealth.