Sicko

[dannyboy420]

Michael Moore has a habit of lying and misrepresention when it suits him.

In his famed Roger and Me, the premise of which is that he could never actually get time with the GM head Roger Smith, he left out the fact that he had an extended Q&A with Smith. This isn't new, but it is overlooked -- along with all his other tricks.

A couple of filmmakers have turned the camera on Moore in an upcoming documentry called Manufacturing Dissent.

See: Manufacturing Dissent (2007)

[Markass]

At least in Cuba the poor and uninsured have health care, Rebgirl. That is an advantage, despite what people may think, and those folks are very happy with that fact. Ask most Cubans who're old enough to remember whether they're in better shape under Castro and Communism than they were before 1959 and they'll tell you yes across the board.

I can say this with a relative degree assurance since my husband works in medicine and since I am training to do the same. No matter how much people disagree with Michael Moore and his political stance, the facts are that pharmaceutical companies and big insurance DO drive our health care here. It's downright scary, too. Yep, the people who are insured can access quality health care in America, but the ones who are not cannot. They can't usually even get inferior care. And they certainly can't afford drugs. And now it's been fixed for at least another political season that no one in the U.S. can import drugs from less expensive places such as Canada.

Someday if you're ever in Texas, I'd like to take you to an average doctor's office and let you watch the goings-on for, oh, about four days. You'll see the pharmaceutical reps come in constantly all day long and bring lunch for the entire office staff, give gifts, push free samples of the newest (and most expensive drugs) so the docs will write scripts for those and not the more affordable ones. They pay for trips and junkets for doctors and pay stipends so they'll prescribe those meds. Most doctors just roll over and lap up all the freebies and money. That ought to be illegal. It's payola for doctors just like paying bonuses through HMOs to under-treat is--or like special interest money is for politicians. Docs like my husband, who resist the hard sell and shun the money and trips and freebies so they can maintain their objectivity, are very rare. Fortunately, cardiologists treat a large percentage of elderly patients, so they have to make sure they're prescribing the less expensive drugs.

Our medical system is scary as hell in its current state. And with each passing year, fewer and fewer people can afford to get treatment or care and more and more influence is exerted from big Pharma and big Insurance. That's a crying shame.

well said :thumbsup:

[medicinal]

The Medical system in this country is a piece of shit. If you have an HMO, or have nothing, you'll know what I mean. The money spent on lobbying and doctors junkets to keep the status quo is horrendous. The politicians are bought off by the HMOs and The pharmaceutical companies. I believe if the money being spent to keep the politicians and the doctors in line was used to create a "comprehensive" medical plan that included every "citizen", we could fire a bundle of CEOs (With exhorbitant salaries) and by adding all the money paid by clients through a tax, a significantly lower amount, we could field a medical society that would be much better than the current one. To be the richest country on the planet and be in the bottom 40% of medical care is appaling. We have to eliminate insurance companies and HMOs. The only ones that like this plan are the people that have premium medical coverage like senators and congressmen, CEOs and upper management of large corporations. My personal med care is adequate, but only because I have not been very Ill. who knows what would happen if I contracted a dibilitating disease. BTW, Michael Moore speaks more truth in one sentence than all the politicians in washington do in a year.

[rebgirl420]

My insurance is wonderful! It paid for all of my chemo, surgeries, radiation, my bipolar meds, everything!

[medicinal]

My insurance is wonderful! It paid for all of my chemo, surgeries, radiation, my bipolar meds, everything!

Good for you, you are one of the lucky 5% who have decent Med insurance. The other 95% have insufficient coverage or no coverage. Wait, did I hear Bi-polar meds, Ok, now I'll have to ease up on you. That means you can be nice one minute and a b**** the next. My stepson is Bipolar, a rather severe case. He is actually a paranoid schizophrenic and periodically wigs out and goes to the mental ward. They've tried many types of meds to help him, and sometimes he is fine for a few months, but I guess he builds up a tolerance to the meds and he wigs out again. I really feel sorry for him as he is such a tortured soul.

[Fengzi]

Yippee, I'm in the 5% too...

Seriously though. although I'm not a supporter of socialized medicine I will certainly agree the system needs a major overhaul. The gifts, trips, and other incentives that big pharma gives to doctors are nothing more than bribery which, the last time I looked, was illegal in this country. In addition, insurance companies should not be allowed to pressure doctors into not doing this or that test or not prescribing a certain medicine (or push then to prescribe a certain medicine for that matter).

One other thing that nobody has brought up yet though, is the fact that one aspect of our society is greatly contributing to the cost of health care. That is the fact that we are sue happy. If anything goes wrong, or not just the way a patient wanted, they want to sue, and there is a line of lawyers waiting outside the hospital door waiting for them. Depending on their specialty doctors can expect to pay $50K-$100K+ per year. I can't even imagine what a hospital might pay. This adds up quick and someone has to pay for it.

Sure, there are plenty of cases where a doctor is clearly negligent and should pay, and the victim, or their families, is compensated. But people also need to realize that doctors aren't gods. An open heart surgury is an attempt to save a person. It's not a gaurantee of eternal life. Some complications are exactly that. There are far to many cases of a patient trying to benefit as much as possible from a minor inconvenience caused by a complication. Some people even hope something goes wrong just so they can sue. "Hell, I'll lose a toe if it means I can get a million buck$". Don't people realize they are just contributing to the problem?

[birdgirl73]

There are pros and cons to each Birdgirl. My experience with socialized medicine is that it's great for basic things but when something really goes wrong you're screwed. I got serious food poisoning when I was living in China and had to go to the hospital. A day at the hospital, with all kinds of tests, and a sack of meds cost me 25 yuan, about US$3.00. The last time we took our daughter back she got bad bronchitis and we had to take her in to the hospital. Her doctor visit and meds were free. Sounds great, right? But when my father in law got cancer, there was no one around for miles and miles who could treat him. Fortunately he knew somebody, who knew somebody, who knew somebody who was a specialist in Shanghai and agreed to see him, but only if he could come up with US$30K. Fortunately between my wife and I, and my brother in law, the money wasn't a problem but that's not the case with the vast majority of folks.

Socialized medicine really seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing. And, until our government starts to think that it's better to spend billions a year to keep our citizens healthy than to kill Iraq's, it always will be.

Why the disparity in medical costs for the treatment of your father-in-law, Fengzi? Because it was cancer? Admittedly, that is a more expensive disease anywhere than, say, food poisoning or pediatric pneumonia. But I'm just wondering about such a huge disparity, particularly in China.

I agree that there are damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't aspects to the prospect of socialized medicine here. All the opponents say it'll affect our quality of care as it has in other places, and they may well be right. There'll certainly be some bumps and bruises as we're adjusting, assuming we ever get such a system, which, with the current medical, pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital corporation lobby, is highly unlikely. In the end, we need to make some adjustments to incorporate aspects of both a private and public system. I think it'll have to be a cooperative effort among private employers, contributors (the insured), and a national system. That cooperative effort will help maintain some quality and some of the good aspects of the current system. It'll probably lengthen our wait times for care. And the growing pains will be miserable.

One thing is true, however. The groups who're wailing the loudest in opposition to the idea of a national health care program--conservative doctors, the AMA, the pharma, hospital and insurance industries--are the ones who also wailed the loudest 40 years ago about Medicare and Medicaid when they were implemented. These are companies and individuals who are richer than God, for the most part, and who are brilliantly adept at adjusting their methods so they'll still benefit immensely from a new system. They did that in the 1960s and can do it again. Doctors aren't going to find themselves out in the cold or dying from poverty or providing inferior care to patients, although 9 our of 10 will say that's what'll happen. They'll reinvent themselves and rise from the ashes like the skilled phoenices they are. What may suffer for a time is the quantity of trained professionals to deal with all the newly covered patients. We have a nursing shortage as it is. And we're increasingly seeing a doctor shortage. So that'll be a challenge to overcome. We also won't be able to create a system that provides as well for people who live in remote, rural areas. Patients who live in urban or suburban areas near major medical centers will continue to have more choices and better access to care, I'm afraid.

Hey, Reb, I'm glad you had good coverage. I have, too, for the most part. But I expect if you ask your parents about your insurance coverage, you'll find that you got such good coverage of your Hodgkins treatment because that was a few years ago. If you developed that cancer today, your parents would pick up a larger percentage of those expenses. Our health care plan used to pay 100% of covered expenses. This year it covers 90. Next year it'll be 80. And that's a very good plan. More and more plans nowadays pay only 40% or 50%. The benefits go down with each passing year. Check with your mom and dad or whoever carries you on insurance and see if your coverage would be the same today as it was a few years back. If it's anything like the insurance most people have, the answer is no.

[Matt the Funk]

I'm somewhat excited to see this movie.

[Fengzi]

Why the disparity in medical costs for the treatment of your father-in-law, Fengzi? Because it was cancer? Admittedly, that is a more expensive disease anywhere than, say, food poisoning or pediatric pneumonia. But I'm just wondering about such a huge disparity, particularly in China.

.

Why? Corruption and the fact that a good specialist was hard to find. The $30 wasn't exactly for his treatment. It was paid directly to the doctor for the priviledge of being his patient. My father-in-law had a tumor on his liver and the local docs pretty much just told him to get his affairs in order becasue his time was up. But someone who went to school with my bother-in-law knew somebody who knew one of the top liver guys in Asia (supposedly).The good doc said he'd operate but there would be a charge. Of course the $30 payment had a fancy name, can't remember it exactly, but a box of shit is still a box of shit even if you put a fancy ribbon on it. This has actually become a huge problem in China. Even with socialized medicine the problem is the same. The wealthy get treated and the poor don't.

[rebgirl420]

Good for you, you are one of the lucky 5% who have decent Med insurance. The other 95% have insufficient coverage or no coverage. Wait, did I hear Bi-polar meds, Ok, now I'll have to ease up on you. That means you can be nice one minute and a b**** the next. My stepson is Bipolar, a rather severe case. He is actually a paranoid schizophrenic and periodically wigs out and goes to the mental ward. They've tried many types of meds to help him, and sometimes he is fine for a few months, but I guess he builds up a tolerance to the meds and he wigs out again. I really feel sorry for him as he is such a tortured soul.

Yeah i'm schizo also, and bipolar w/ psychotic features. But after being sent away to JDC and the mental hospital I was court ordered to be on meds and Ive taken them since. I havent had a problem since.