THIS Sicko thread is for folks who have actually seen it...- Page 4

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:34am

If Canadian healthcare is so great, I have to ask why they are constantly visiting the USA for healthcare. Maybe because of the months-to-years-long waiting lists that Moore failed to point out in his film. There's actually a documentary about the failures of the Canadian universal healthcare system, called "Dead Meat." I advise fans of "Sicko" to check it out and get both sides to the story.

And, as I said earlier, Cuban healthcare is only good for foreigners, who have to fork over money. The Cubans themselves get treated like dirt and put into filthy, unsanitary facilities. Sick people have to get taken to the hospital in wheelbarrows because no ambulances are available. The fact that Michael Moore would uphold it as a pinnacle towards which the US should strive completely boggles my mind.

Another interesting fact: the notorious hospital King-Harbour in LA, which Moore points out as an example of our rotten system, is actually run by the government and a great talking point for anti-universal healthcare conservatives. He fails to mention that, of course...

Updated On: 7/17/07 at 11:34 AM

[HDThoreau2]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:39am

Sing Goddess! Sing!!!

I will plan to see Dead Meat too. WOW! Thanks for the information!

[romantico]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:49am

HD, you are a pathetic joke. Your not fair nor balanced and the only reason your going to spin this wild tale that you saw the film is because you think your views will have some sort of credibilty then. WRONG! Your a liar and been called out many times on this board. Your hateful, racist, and bigoted posts and comments have been deleted due to flat out lies.When the heat gets to high you run and start another thread (which usually gets pulled)or you ignore the question being asked. You rely on others to post various views on subjects your too dense to answer on your own. You have been warned by moderators just this week your skating on thin ice.

This thread is for those who HAVE SEEN THE MOVIE! You have posted comments on this thread and you have not seen it. SporkGoddess has! I respect her views because she has seen it. I may not agree, but atleast she knows what she is talking about because she has actually seen SiCKO! You are a disrupter! I feel bad for the author of this thread because he really wanted an open discussion about this film. All VIEWS welcomed, but you have turned it into a mud slinging farce like you do all the posts you comment on!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:04pm

"Sing Goddess! Sing!!!"

He's duly impressed by people who can actually express themselves and hopes one day to be like them. He HATES those of us who can express ourselves but with whom he disagrees. It infuriates him and he will do anything in his power to disrupt us.

Meanwhile, sing Goddess, sing! So Li'l HDelete-O-Matic can nod next to you like a little sidekick to a Disney henchman going, "Yeah! Yeah! What she said! That's right, boss! Heee hee hee heee." Only spelled wrong.

[HDThoreau2]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:10pm

I'm sorry to have to contribute to this tired old thread, it is such old news....

but about Goddess, she has coloratura like other, she is the conservatives answer to the shrieking voices of shrill liberalism that tend to dominate this board.

She is the DIVA, she is the SHI*

[HDThoreau2]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:11pm

about that hdelete-o-matic, a friend says,

""that is so 1960's""

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:29pm

Like I said.

but about Goddess, she has coloratura like other, she is the conservatives answer

Maybe it's not too late for you to take some remedial classes so that you might become half as smart as the rest of us.

Updated On: 7/17/07 at 09:29 PM

[mesmerized24601]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:09pm

There are longer wait times in other countries because we, in this country, have taken thousands of people out of the line due to there financial situations or pre-exsisting conditions.

And

I believe that most people agree that we dont want to blindly adopt Canada or Cuba's health care plans, yet we need to examine them as possibilities for our future plan.

There is no reason that this country shouldnt be able to come up with the best method of caring for its people, this is America for christs sake!

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:17pm

Hospitals will actually see anyone no matter what. I do work as a receptionist in a local hospital's ER, and the policy there is never to turn anyone away. And no matter the lack of severity of the person's problem, the hospital is required to examine them. That's actually part of the problem with the US healthcare system; we have to pay more because of these people who can't pay.

The US healthcare system needs reforming, I won't argue that, but I do not think that socialist healthcare is the answer; I believe that the answer lies in giving the government less control, not more of it.

[Craig]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:28pm

Related to SICKO is a story that's been ongoing in NYC.

"Ailing rescue workers from the World Trade Center site filed a lawsuit Tuesday charging that a $1 billion insurance fund set up after Sept. 11, 2001, violated a congressional mandate to pay their injury claims and instead spent millions of dollars fighting those claims.

The suit alleges that WTC Captive Insurance Co., which is controlled by New York City, has drained the money available for workers, who say that their exposure to toxic dust caused serious illnesses.

"Not a single rescue worker who became sick has seen a penny of this money," said David E. Worby, the lawyer who filed the suit in the state Supreme Court in Manhattan. "It's torturing our people who are sick and dying every day."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071701641.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[mesmerized24601]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:29pm

right, some people pay more because others are forced to go to expensive emergency rooms that they cant pay for because they have to be cared for there!

Can you tell me what the hospitals policy is once the patient is stable, do people with and without insurance recieve the same length of stay for similar ailments?

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:35pm

AFAIK, if a person comes in, needs to be seen, and can't pay, they're given stabilizing treatment and then discharged.

[mesmerized24601]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:40pm

thats what I thought

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:53pm

"they're given stabilizing treatment and then discharged."

Sometimes right to Skid Row where they're dumped on a street corner, disoriented, while wearing hospital scrubs. Well, that's what the story is anyway. It's not like there were reliable witnesses or film footage of such an atrocity.

Ah, the US. The greatest country in the WORLD!

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:05pm

First off, hospital gowns. Scrubs are what doctors/surgeons/nurses/etc wear.

Second off, consider the source. Moore always edits his material, so I doubt that the story is completely true. I would need to investigate it further.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:09pm

The story was all over the news long before the Moore movie was completed.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:16pm

I just researched it a bit. The hospitals are in trouble for this practice, so it is obviously not condoned, and I've only seen it in connection with LA hospitals, so it's not common, either. Hardly a reflection of US healthcare, especially seeing as how they're under investigation by the police for it.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:27pm

I don't understand what point you're trying to make? That except for these specific isolated incidents, poor dually (and more) diagnosed patients in the US are treated well and with respect?

I mean, when this story was in the news I remembered it because I actually care about how poor and disabled people are treated here in "the greatest country on earth." And, I know it can't be news to you, the answer is not well.

[Craig]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:33pm

Moore could also do a whole documentary on the horrible care for the elderly in both hospitals and nursing homes. Talk about an industry that needs stricter laws (and enforced)

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:35pm

No, I mean that not every hospital has a policy of dumping uninsured people on Skid Row, and those that do are under investigation by the law--this is not a US healthcare policy, but illegal actions.

Poor people aren't treated well in any country, healthcare-wise. In the US, at least everyone, even those without insurance, is treated without having to wait, and emergencies are expedited. Michael Moore just points out the worst examples in the US and the best examples in other countries. "Sicko" does not give both sides to the issue. Moore is not trying to fix healthcare; he does not want to combine the best aspects of each system--he is trying to establish his political agenda of socialist healthcare.

I note that when HD showed pictures of a Cuban hospital's wretched conditions, people were like "Oh, that's just one hospital." They did not give that story in the US the same consideration. Oh, and just because I did not hear about the story does not mean that I don't care about poor people.

Updated On: 7/17/07 at 11:35 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:39pm

I don't understand all this harping on "universal health care is NOT FREE!" (no duh) and tossing around That '60s Buzzword "socialism" as if it has any relevance in today's world.

I don't give a crap if my taxes go up if it means something like everybody in the country gets decent health care. Don't people care about their fellow citizens? I mean, where is the sense of us all being in this together? I just don't understand what the problem is?

Why don't the people who spend their lives and tons of money to get elected so that they can prove "government doesn't work" just step down and get out of the way, and let people who DO think government can work take a shot at it? It's not like Bush didn't oversee the HUGEST growth in American beauracracy in history. And yet, they couldn't handle a frigging hurricane. I think anybody associated with this adminsitration (including those civilians who defend it) surrender their right to complain that "government doesn't work" and shouldn't take a crack at healthcare because THEIR adminstration doesn't want it to work. It's the worst most self-fulfilling prophecy ever and the joke's on us. Only it's not funny.

ETA: "Poor people aren't treated well in any country,"

Spork, good god. I thought the US was supposed to be not only better than ANY country but THE BEST? I thought we were supposed to be the shining example. I am so weary of this false equivalency. In the construct of American jingoism, EVERY country is supposed to be worse than America in everything they do. Do you actually feel any sense of ethical queasiness when you write something like that? Isn't "but we should do better" what should logically come next? I don't think you should kid yourself into thinking that just because SOME people avail themselves of emergency room services when their personal situations get dire enough to mean that poor people in general have access to care. Let alone PREVENTION, which would save the country BILLIONS.

Updated On: 7/17/07 at 11:39 PM

[Craig]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:44pm

Well Namo, I think that in general, one could say that we live in a selfish country.

In many other countries, the family unit is very important and homes are filled with multi-generations. Not so here..

And Will Rogers said years ago - "We'll be the first nation in the world to go to the poor house in an automobile"

still quite relevant...

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:46pm

Truly. And it's really disheartening. Really discouraging. And makes me feel ashamed when I think of the billions of dollars that have been squandered in Iraq.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:47pm

Universal healthcare is socialist healthcare. It's a proper term for it, whether you like it or not. And, yes, it does have relevance in today's world. Socialism is a form of government that still exists, and there are people who advocate it.

Taxes aren't the only issue. Poor quality of care, ridiculous amounts of waiting time, lack of funding, the hampering of medical research, doctors who are paid more to do less work, these ARE issues. Issues that Moore ignores in his film.

Hurricane Katrina can't be compared because it was the failure of the state, not the federal government. But it is a prime example of the government's ineffiency. Do you not see, then, why many of us do not want our healthcare in their hands? And it doesn't have to do with a specific administration. We do not want the government to have that much power, no matter who is in charge. Their interference in healthcare has much to do with the US system's problems. Bush, btw, has done more for the idea of government-supported healthcare than any true conservative would like, so you can't just loop him in with us.

Edit: I am not saying that poor people shouldn't get good healthcare. I am pointing out that Moore claims that other systems are superior to ours for the way they treat poor people, when really they treat them just as badly, if not worse.

Updated On: 7/17/07 at 11:47 PM

[Craig]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:52pm

"Hurricane Katrina can't be compared because it was the failure of the state, not the federal government. "

That doesn't seem quite factual. Are you sure that the Federal government didn't fail Lousiana - at the very least by their lack of immediate response?