movie mamas - special SICKO edition
sorry, i had to start a new thread...
i went to a sneak peak screening of SICKO tonight. and wow! it's as good as you've heard. and so so unbelieveably sad, in particular the situation for the 9/11 first responders who have been left in the literal toxic dust. parts of the film are a little whitewashed, in particular the france segment, as is expected with any michael moore film. and his voice over gets a little melodramatic at times, not unlike parts of his other films. but fuckin hell, the U.S. system is so SO fucked. as a US citizen, whether you have the best damn health coverage out there or, more likely, not, you can't help but leave this film feeling totally fearful of your own future. and hoping beyond hope that the entire U.S. wakes the flip up and DEMANDS some changes to a system that is designed to fuck us all. STAT!
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Maybe this will finally be the kick in the pants we all need. Fuck the insurance and pharm lobbies.
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a british woman reveiwed the film (actually i think it was on roger ebert's show, although roger ebert wasnt there... anyway, it's her, the dark haired lady)
her feeling was that it really paints a rosey picture of european health care, to the point that it's deceptive. lunarmama can tell you about her experience with healthcare in europe.
i worked with a woman from liverpool who was a nurse over there. she cared for an american man who was there and had a heart attack. she was asked to go in to the hospital room to tell him to talk to the hospital about how to pay the bill, since he wasn't a UK citizen. two doctors yelled her out of the room, "how DARE you talk about money, this man is recovering from a heart attack" and whatnot. interesting, considering how here they will hand you shit to sign when you're sedated and on a gurney on your way into the OR.... or so i hear...
"How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive." Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Seems like it's different in every country.
We were in "geneva" last christmas, (actually in france but *right* on the swiss border -- got duped into a cheap "geneva" hotel that was actually not in geneva but in france) when dh went ahead and got a crazy eye infection. We called our doc here and the insurance company to see what we were in for; doc said that it was serious and that we did need care and insurance co was all foreboding, "well, we may be able to pay but only if it is pre-approved...etc".
Talked to the girl at the front desk and to the cab driver and both were like, "go to switzerland" (30 min. drive). apparently the care is much better and there is no waiting, etc.
So we went and I was fretting the whole time about how we were going to pay for this -- insurance or no, we had to front whatever money it was -- thinking it would be a few thousand easy, this being switzerland and all, where a breakfast of croissants and coffee can cost $20 in the wrong restaurant.
With no appointment at the university eye center, he is seen within an hour and we are called in to talk to the accounting lady. Everyone at the hospital is very concerned for us because we will have to pay in full, and they state this fact with a level of gravity that is unique to that country (my mom is Swiss, I've spent a lot of time there). So finally they hand over the whopping bill -- it was like $80. This is, by the way, less than my copay if I go to an emergency room here. I had to check a couple of times to see whether they were missing a decimal place.
Same thing happened when I went to get the prescriptions -- each one was like $12.
As a matter of comparison, I had to go to an emergency room here not too long ago for what turned out to be a really bad kidney infection and the bill was $2000+. Thankfully I have what is considered good insurance and didn't have to pay this...But my god, if I didn;t, I would have waited over the holiday weekend to get in to see a doctor (while, of course, the condition gets worse) and then would have paid through the nose for the office visit, lab tests, and prescriptions.
The short of this is that something needs to be changed here -- whenever I see some guy with missing teeth talking to himself and slapping a light pole or some lady sitting on the sidewalk with a huge, swollen gangrenous wound on her foot in a city where the median home price is $850,000, I know that we are not doing things right (understatement, I know). But then again, we hear how rough socialized care can be (propaganda? our government? never!).
So, yeah, I would love to hear from lunar, expat, and any Canadian mamas/any other euro or uk mamas about what they have seen -- what works, doesn't etc.
I want to say it again: Fuck the insurance and pharm lobbies.
I accept insurance--but dealing with them is a constant jaw-dropping outrage. Something is *So Wrong*.
that when they said "in NY city" for the opening, they meant NJ too. sometimes they do. but i will have to wait till the 28th like the rest of the country.
i personally ahave been fucked by the healthcare industry, so i've been waiting for this one.
it also tickles me to think of the presidential candidates watching and studying it for their campaigns.
"How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive." Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
something tells me he has got some woman issues.
"How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive." Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
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before i saw the film. since seeing it, however, i really can't find a way to even imagine there's any possibility that this country will ever move over to a system that provides quality universal health care to all our citizens. no chance, no how. i hate even admitting that i walked away feeling this way, but i've been pondering it all night and all day. we have so severerly fucked ourselves. it disgusts me. it won't keep me from pushing for change, but it's just so... so... insurmoutnatble. dismanteling the system that is currently im place. one of my favorite parts of this film involves a conversation MM has with this Brit, talking about how the UK came to create universal healthcare in the aftermath of WWII. the man talks at length about what a true democracy is, how it requires --DEMANDS-- participation from the poorest of the poor within that society. and how the powers that be in good ol' USA have done a wonderful job--some would say a heck of a job-- to rob the poorest of our poor of any semblance of hope. and without hope there can be no action, there can be no change, there will be no revolution. uugh. sigh. bah.
see it and convince me otherwise. please!