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Sicko
By Truman Bashore
I recently saw Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, about healthcare
here in America as opposed to the approach by such countries as the
United Kingdom and France. America is the only industrialized
nation that doesn’t provide universal healthcare to “fifty million
Americans.” Moore further points out that our health care system
ranks “37 out of 191 by the World Health Organization with certain
health measures such as infant mortality and life expectancy equal to
countries with much less economic wealth.
The most insidious claim about American healthcare that Moore makes is
that former employees of insurance companies describe cost-cutting
initiatives that give bonuses to insurance company physicians and
others to find reasons for the company to avoid meeting the cost of
medically necessary treatments for policy holders and thus increase
company profitability.
The root cause of American antipathy towards healthcare goes back to
the “1950’s-style anti-communist propaganda in which Ronald
Reagan made a recording warning “that universal healthcare could
lead to lost freedoms and socialism.” But, I would add that the
only “lost freedom” is the ability to pay for our healthcare here
in America.
Moore describes England’s National Health Services (NHS) as “a
comprehensively public funded health care systems. In interviews
with patients he is told that “there are no out of pocket
payments.” He visited a UK pharmacy and discovered that the only
expense was “ about $10 per item.” Interestingly, hospitals
employ a cashier whose job is to “reimburse low-income patients for
their out-of-pocket travel costs to the hospital.”
In France, Moore discovered that the French offer a “24-hour medical
service that provides house calls.” He furthered learned that the
French provide “social services suc as healthcare, public
education (including universities) , vacation and day care for $1 an
hour and neonatal support that includes cooking, cleaning, and laundry
services for new mothers.”
When he returned to America, he interviewed 9/11 volunteer rescue
workers who were denied government funds “to care for physical and
psychological maladies they subsequently developed, including
respiratory disease and PTSD. These workers and Moore’s
friends needing medical help, sailed from Miami to Cuba in “three
speedboats to get the medical attention” these heroes of 9/11 could not
get in America. Imagine, Moore had to enter a communist country
to get medical aid for American citizens who were denied help from our
own government!
Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Congress has tried to
derail the ACA over fifty times but thankfully has been
unsuccessful. It amazes me that we live in a country where
politicians want to hinder and even turn their backs on those who
elected them. There has even been a movement to privatize Social
Security so “Big Pharma” can earn even bigger profits! But in the
end, it is hard to pursue “life, liberty and happiness” when we are met
with resistance to get basic healthcare like those in England, and
France.
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