Documentary: Sicko

Along with I.O.U.S.A., I also rented Sicko from Netflix during my time at home while ill.  First, perhaps it wasn't the best idea to watch a show about the lack of our country to provide healthcare to its citizens and the exorbitant amounts of money we have to pay on health insurance and prescriptions.  But, alas, that is what I did.

I am not a big fan of Michael Moore whatsoever (in fact, the man's a jerk), but I respect the material that was gathered to be put in this movie.  Sicko exposes the failure of the U.S. healthcare industry as one that is aimed to make a profit rather than one that is aimed at providing basic care to its people.  It also explores how other countries handle healthcare.

A few interesting points from the movie:

• The lobbying power of medical insurance and pharmaceutical companies in the federal government is astonishing.  In fact, so much so I wonder if we will EVER get comprehensive healthcare reform (I don't necessarily want the government to run everything, but we need to do something).
• The right wingers always talk about the disaster that is socialized medicine and how if we were to use it, people would have to wait 6 months to get bypass surgery or that ERs would be lax and not willing to help people.  That premise (as you might have guessed) is grossly exaggerated.  The level of healthcare in other countries are even superior to ours.  And there is a correlation between those nations that treat healthcare as a right for all citizens and the life expectancy of those citizens and their overall health (positively correlated).  The key - those nations practice preventive medicine.  In this country, we are reactionary, not precautionary.  When we have diabetes, we deal with it with drugs.  We don't take the time or have the resources to explain to everyone the signs of diabetes and why it's bad and how to prevent it.
• To continue from that point, there is of course some explained variance through the different lifestyles that people live in France and Italy vs. the U.S..  In France, the work week is 35 hours.  Here, the typical work week exceeds 40 hours (often 60+ hours).  I will be highly considering a job in Europe for those reasons. :)
• The cost of drugs in this country is outrageous.  Especially when, in other countries, the same dug is VASTLY less.  At the end of the movie, Moore brings a bunch of ailing Americans to none other than the "Evil" country of Cuba.  Granted, the human rights violations done by the Cuban government in the past have been atrocious (well, so has those committed by the Chinese, but we conveniently still trade with them).  However, the healthcare system there is outstanding.  A woman who needed a special inhaler, which costed $120 per inhaler, bought one at a Cuban pharmacy for $0.05.  And the $120 was WITH insurance I believe, which means the cost is even more.  Folks - when are we going to get a handle on these skyrocketing drug companies?

Overall, I found this movie to be quite informative and also helped expose some of the faults of our system and why we shouldn't be scared of healthcare reform.  My one criticism is that the movie really didn't present a way of how things could change or what we could do towards that effort.  Not that I would necessarily trust Moore on that front, but it would have been helpful.

In the meantime, I'm taking out the classified ads for jobs in France and England next year.