Moore’s grand slam: Health care documentary shows a sick system

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8212

Moore’s grand slam: Health care documentary shows a sick system
by Jack Lessenberry | Jun 20 2007


snip//

Sicko, however, is an utter masterpiece. Simultaneously brilliant, acidly funny and terribly anger-inspiring, it makes you want to start a revolution — and worry at some deep level that the oppressed are far too beaten-down to care. The movie, in fact, is only partly about the failure of health care in this country. Mostly, it is the story of how we are falling apart as a nation and have failed as a society.

But as subtly portrayed by Sicko, the enemy is not who you might think. True, the movie does show a country being destroyed by a predatory and greedy health care system, and citizens who are losing their lives because of it. Yes, it does make an effective case that a lot of our problems are traceable to the health care giants, Aetna and Kaiser-Permanente and Humana and the rest.

Their health care lobbyists have mostly bought off the politicians, including, according to one of the movie's most controversial sequences, one Hillary Rodham Clinton, who in 1993 led her husband's charge to come up with a system of universal health care. The medical-industrial complex crushed that effort like a bug.

The "health care" giants are, indeed, the problem. (One of their evaluators who evidently developed a conscience is shown piteously detailing how she was rewarded for denying people benefits that could have saved their lives.) The people themselves know they are being wronged. The filmmaker shows case after case of citizens — who allegedly have full coverage — getting the shaft, including 9/11 rescue workers whose lungs were terribly damaged.

Moore talks with the widow of a man whose life could have been saved by a bone marrow transplant that was not allowed because it was "experimental."

But saddest and perhaps most frightening of all is the deadening and pervasive apathy. The victims mostly don't fight back, or make a few weak efforts and give up. There is the heartening case of one plucky man who writes his insurer and threatens to expose them to — ta-da — Michael Moore unless they will restore his daughter's hearing in both ears, not just one. Guess whose case was swiftly reassessed! But mostly, the afflicted sit there, bewildered, penniless and suffering.


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[Warpy]

1. There is nothing like being desperately ill to stop any effort

to fight this system. Expecting the sick and penniless to fight these giants seems just a little cruel. It's not apathy, it's inability.

What we need to do is fight these bastards while we are still relatively healthy because once we get sick, it's too late. We are shafted.

Any candidate who suggests a plan to bandaid this system and keep the insurance giants in place needs to be shouted down at town meetings and campaign stops.

Our lives depend on getting the scum out of our healthcare system.