have you seen sicko? the most recent documentary installment by michael moore? we watched it the other night. the boyfriend wasn’t too enthused at first. really isn’t one for documentaries that, on the surface, sound completely boring. “a documentary about heath insurance in america?” he said. “no thanks.” to which i calmly replied he could watch or not watch, but i was taking over his tv for the next two hours. really, he didn’t have much choice. heh.
so we watched sicko. needless too say (unless you haven’t seen it, then you need to) he was glad he did. and we alternately decided to move to canada, great britain, france and then norway. why, in this day and age (and yes, i mean even this day and age of recession) can the most powerful, one of the richest nations in the world not be able to provide decent health care to its citizens? wtf?? i mean, even cuba gets it right. cuba!!! a tiny little tropical island with so few resources and so many embargos on it that people still drive cars around like it’s 1942!!
almost fifty million americans are uninsured and those who are covered are often victims of insurance company fraud and red tape. interviews are conducted with people who thought they had adequate coverage but were denied care, as well as former employees of insurance companies who describe cost-cutting initiatives that encourage bonuses for insurance company physicians to deny medical treatments for policy holders.
nearly everyone i know is against universal healthcare or healthcare that is controlled by the government. nearly everyone i know is scared $hitle$$ that president obama is going to turn us into a communist or socialist country by socializing medicine. but when you see this film, when you see what the healtcare system is doing to people like you and me on a regular and routine basis, you have to agree that what we have now is worthless and broken, and if we could get to the point where what we have is closer to england or france or canada that we would be so much better off.
in fact, i take it a step further than michael moore did. i think that the healthcare industry (which really, considering it is an industry is already wrong on so many levels) is completely in bed with the food industry. think about it: we eat $hitty food, and then we get sick, so we go to the doctor and get a prescription, and that gives us more problems with the side effects, so we need another drug and then we gain weight, so we change our diet, so we have to buy special foods, and they have chemicals in them that you can’t possibly pronounce like Butylated Hydroxy-anisole and Propyl p-hydroxybenozoate which are known to be carcinogenic and have effects like chronic dermatitis, so you go back to the doctor to get treatments for that… you see where i’m going here, don’t you? and it’s not just me, either. check out bill maher sometime, he’ll talk your ear off about it!
speaking of insurance companies