Sicko

I thought I'd make a topic about a movie I watched a couple hours ago.

Imdb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386032/


I have never been this horrified, moved, disgusted, touched and "impacted" by a movie as I have with this one.

It is directed by Micheal Moore and is about the American Healthcare System. It's an inside look on how horrible things have become and it made me so thankful that I'm Canadian.

He basically takes you through many interviews of Americans whom have been completely screwed over by the American Healthcare system. Some of the interviews included:

A woman who, HAVING healthcare insurance, took her daughter to the hospital but they refused to treat her because she was covered by a different hospital. The daughter continued having seziures IN the emergency room, and after 45 minutes was finally brang to the right hospital, just in time to die in her mothers arms.

A man cut off the top of his two fingers, not even the whole thing, and was given the choice of replacing his middle finger for $60,000 dollars, or his ring finger for $12,000 dollars. This man had to choose which finger he wanted to keep, he chose the ring finger and lost his middle one.

A husband and father of 1, who had kidney cancer and died because the couples healthcare insurance company denied all the medicine because it was considered experimental.

It may not sound like much, and those aren't even all of the interviews, but when you see them on the T.V., it really makes you just want to feel sad.

After this Micheal Moore travels to all the place in the world that have free healthcare including Canada and Most of Europe. It makes America look like absoulte shit (No i'm not country bashing, i'm talking about the HMO's).


Some facts from the movie:

In America, whichever doctors DENY the most patients, get a large bonus added to their salary. In Britan and the UK, doctors are given large bonuses for helping the most patients.

The only place in all of America that has free healthcare is the prison in Guantonomo Bay, Cuba. (Considered American Soil) That's right, the people responsible for 9/11, bomb makers, murders, terrorists and the most hardcore prisoners you can imagine get free healthcare, better healthcare, then the normal American citizen.

The average senior citizen in American spends $7,000 dollars a year on prescription pills. In Britan and the UK, it averages out to 10 dollars for ANY amount of medication. If your under 16 and over 60, it's free.



Truly an amazing movie and a definatly must see. If you have SOD (Shaw on Demand) you can get it for free under Movies ---> Movies again ---> scroll down to it.

Yeah..a lot of things about America are great, but the current health care system does not fall into that category. It is complete shit. It really makes me wonder why some nutcases are fighting so intensely against the proposed health care overhaul here.

7000 $ a year ? Taht is a lot. Now I appreciate I am living in Europe.
All I usually pay is about 3 € for medicine and 10 € for dental caries

I saw it back in 2007 but I return to it regularly.
Can't wait for Moore's next movie.
He's brilliant.

I feel very sorry for Americans.

its about the money.

insurance companies don't want to help, they want your money to use for their own personal gains.

Wow. The healthcare over here in the UK SUCKS BALLS but when I compare it to America it's like first class treatment

I feel sorry for the Americans. Maybe America beats the UK in terms of education, music and weather but health care is not up there.

Wow, that's eye-opening. Thought our's was bad!

Fact about Guantonomo Bay is ridiculous =s

I find Michael Moore to be kind of ignorant, half way through the movie hes like " I gave this one guy who hates me an anonymous donation to keep his wife alive" He ias the owner of "THIS" buisness and i am saying it anonymously in this movie, zomg........


don't like him, his movies are decent, but he's such a fool i can't bear to listen to him or his movies.....

Isn't Michael Moore that nutjob that thinks 9/11 was a conspiracy? :S

Meh people can find scenarios for everything. I know the healthcare system needs an overhaul but 1 trillion $$ Just to get it started is a bit scary :S. I have a liberal aunt that is a nurse and she even thinks that the gov't should keep their hands out of healthcare (Well they shouldn't get more involved, because they are to an extent obviously.) She just says if they changed a few key things in the system they can make it much better than just having a flat out public option. I'll take her word for it because she actually is a doctor, unlike many of these poloticians.

And correct me if I'm wrong but don't Europeans pay next to nothing or nothing for healthcare because you pay a fuckload in taxes for it? Compared to America anyways. So even though you're not paying alot for it directly, you're still paying it through taxes :|.

About 1,000,000 people make over $200,000 a year in America. Now by my calculations that would mean that would come out to be about $1,000,000 per person to pay off the initial $1,000,000,000,000 needed to just get this off of the ground. Granted that gets spread out over a much larger income bracket, over a longer amount of time, but basically those making over $200,000 a year will be taking the brunt of it tax wise. Please tell me if I calculated wrong, something doesn't seem right -.-. But yeah, and there is like a 3.5 trillion dollar budget for just the year 2010 :S. It all comes down to money.

Wow, I read just the first paragraph (haven't watched it, so didn't want to spoil the movie), but that is just ridiculous.

When a person's life is at risk, the money & all that other crap should come later, after they are safe.

Now I view the NHS (British Health Service) in a better light, they actually help anyone.

Still, booking for an appointment, waiting like 3 days, then your illness is gone, you no longer need to go to the appointment =.=
But the NHS is free. (Well, it comes out of taxes of course, lol)

But yeah, I shall watch this movie/documentary.

~Abs

Pretty good movie. It makes me hate America though.

I'd rather pay a tiny percent of my salary in tax monthly for unlimited free health care for life, than when/if I actually get seriously ill having to shell out £20000+ in a lump sum.

I nearly died at the door of the ER when I was ten. I was passed out with a severe asthma attack; my Mom drove right up to the drop-off spot outside the windows in front of the ER front desk and honked her horn non-stop. Nurses even looked out at her but no one came out to help, a random guy RAN across the parking lot from the side walk a hundred yards away and carried me in, then the nurses were like "oh, that looks serious." They put false statements on my admission papers that my parents signed so we had no grounds to sue.

To this day I have no idea who carried me into that hospital but I hope he's having as good a life as he deserves for saving mine.

American Social Security doesn't even pay what they should to elderly people, with a free medicare system in the US, it could only get worse, honestly, get rid of social security and use it for healthcare imo ...... social security is a joke in itself, people by the age of 55 should learn to actually have saved some of their money.

This was made by Michael Moore. That should clear things up.

Why should I pay taxes so everyone can get healthcare, when they have just as much oppurtunity to work as I do? I don't support a government-run healthcare system for EVERYONE. Disabled people, elderly people, families in tight spots (for example, a child that needs a certain operation that is extremely expensive, or a cancer patient that needs chemo) and children in foster homes/orphanages are the oly ones I think should receive healthcare from the Government. Other than that, if they can't afford basic medical care, they need to get a job and stop asking for handouts.


NO HANDOUTS.

watched the movie. to tell you the truth. its quite interesting how true it is.

i've personally have a lazy right eye. haven't been able to get 100% vision and i believe as time passes my condition might worsen.


maybe i should go to canada

Don't forget worker's unions Colin.

True story..My grandpa passed away a few weeks ago from Cancer.
My grandmother received a notice from the insurance agency that they were going to pay the hospital over 100,000 for his surgery.

He didn't have surgery. We talked it over and decided to just not bother calling to striaghten it out.

You guys are buying into a movie that shows some real life screw ups. The US health cares system is bad. If you have the money and coverage its great but if not you will not get the same level of care as a payer. The system is free market and the screws ups are a reflection of the system. How long would you have watched if the movie just showed a normal emergency room where they see the critically ill first and make others wait. Absent an emergency you would get pretty bored watching someone just sit there which has happened to me at times. People with gun shot wounds would go ahead but eventually I was treated. Now, I understand that in other countries medicine is socialized but it still has to be paid for and I understand that taxes are higher as a result so it is a trade off. Cheaper care when you need it at lower cost but higher taxes. In the US lower taxes but very expensive care and the possibility that the care will be inferior because you live in a place where the quality is less because of economics. A situation that may be addressed by the Congress. The long term trend is that the US system is moving towards that of Europe but the system in Europe is strained and there are signs that it is moving toward the system in the US. In short systems are evolving and in the US I hope for the better.

Woah, when did this thread get interesting? *flips back a few pages and starts to read*

// edit //

Nvm, just a bunch of overzealous stereotyping. I was hopeful there for a minute.

I agree extremism is a constant in all religions and should be dealt with accordingly, but there is no evidence that Jews staged 9/11 and even though you claimed there is such evidence you are yet to state it.

You state some Jews have gotten past the fact that the Talmud says that. That's how it is with every religion and the holy book they hold so dear. Every holy book I know of from Mormonism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all preach extreme intolerance of other faiths, races, creeds, and sexes or sexual orientation. The only difference is that some people choose to move past this, and others do not. Whether somebody admits what their holy books states or not is not proof of it, since I can do a google search and come up with intolerant and violent quotes from the Quran in a matter of minutes.

This is why I can't stand anybody that takes the word of their holy books as literal because all it does is lead to violence, hate, prejudice, and hurt.

For starters try searching "Qur'an -" substituting the numbers I post for the - on google and look at what the quotes are:

Quotes against infidels:
9:3
8:55

Sexist quotes:
Surah 2:228
Surah 4:34

Those are just a few I found in about five minutes. I can do that for just about any religious book you want, all I ask is that you don't take holy books seriously or literally or it leads to things like sexism in the Middle East, the Crusades, and allowing slavery to last well into the 19th century in western countries.

I'm so over this debate.
These internet debates don't ever do any change.
People die, we talk about it, a few of us think its fine, and we bicker.
No change will happen from idle discussion.

Someone has to get up and be active about the issues.

It's a good movie. Saw it in theaters when it first came out and was shocked by quite a bit of the facts. Apart from the Canadian health care system being somewhat slow and unorganized at times, I do prefer a free one as apposed to what Americans must pay out of their pocket for.

Another thing, implementing a universal health care system doesn't happen overnight. Sure 1,000,000 people in the USA make 200,000+ per year. But by 2010 the USA is gonna have spent 1 trillion on the middle eastern war campaign they have going on. That's been going on since 2001. So 9 years later. So in 9 years the USA could have universal healthcare. That's not a bad trade off if you ask me. Or they could just do what they always do, lend some more money and save some lives. But ya know, instead they would rather spend their money on the quest for "who can gather the most oil".

My two cents, time for bed

You know... we may have a poor system, but Canada's system is a bit worse. I live an hour or two from the Canadian border, and both from my own experience and from a guy I know who works with hospital stuff right near the border, all the US hospitals near the border have a good number of Canadian patients. Mind you, these people aren't getting health care for free, they are having to pay for it. If our health care is so horrible, how come Canadians are coming here, instead of the other way around?

The sad thing about this is how since I live in the States, I am raised up to the system being that way. I am used to all the healthcare junk and problems, I myself have even been turned away from hospitals just because it wasn't covered with my insurance. What is this garbage? So instead of having the right health insurance you die, the medical treatment in the US is bad enough even with a healthcare plan. When I get my perscribed medicine, even with insurance I pay about $40 average, and when its like serious medicine it can go up to the hundreds. Its a serious issue in the states and needs to be fixed. Fortunatly, it is the main issue currently in American politics, hopefully we don't just push it aside.

I didn't get the point somebody made on the first page that 1m Americans make over 200k a year, and they will be the most taxed. As if that's a horrible thing? One million Americans out of the total population of about 250-300m people. Are you kidding me? So the few rich people in this country can't spare the extra few k so that other people don't die or go broke because of private insurance.

Sum, that's a point I've always found strange. Many conservatives are strongly anti-government (unless of course people they like are in office), but they LOVE LOVE LOVE to give the military more money and don't mind spending billions of dollars on a war if it makes them feel safer.

Robbie some people go across to the US to get coverage and some people go over to Canada to get coverage. The deal is that in hospitals in Canada injuries are treated in order of severity, so somebody who has been shot for instance would be way ahead of somebody with say a mild case of pneumonia. Those are the people coming to the US for the most part from what I can tell. Systems always have their flaws, it's just a matter of which has less and how extreme they are imo.

Personally I even have an insurance story although it isn't as insane as a lot I've heard. Early last year I got my wisdom teeth removed. Of course this involves lots of medicine, and the anesthesia to numb you and put you to sleep during the operation. After I got better my dad told me that the insurance company after weeks was still not willing to pay for my anesthesia because according to them it wasn't necessary. So I guess I was supposed to have four wisdom teeth removed with no numbing or anything according to the insurance company. After a month or so we finally got them to pay for it....fucking ridiculous.

Healthcare should not be a business.

/end

Now, I understand that the costs of healthcare are rising rapidly. I agree that healthcare should not be a "business", but by having he government run, it will effectively be a business run by the government.

What really needs to happen is a law that puts a heavy CAP on premiums and rates. Deviation and/or charging more than the cap should come with hefty, hefty fines.

Sorry for double post.

^ This

Oh shit, big debate going on

I agree with the free healthcare side of things aka British.

There's no such thing as free healthcare, it's just a bunch of taxes taken from everyone.

I really don't agree with any kind of tax, I work for my money, not the government, but that's a different thing entirely.

The economy is in bad shape, and people are losing jobs. Insurance costs continue to rise. The government needs to palce a cap on premiums.

Are you guys arguing for simply a governemnt run healthcare system that still incurs payments, or a "free" healthcare system that comes back at us almost fully in taxes?


I'll say this now-If someone is dying, fine. But no one should pay for anyone else's non life threatening health care. If you have cancer and need chemo, or if you need a triple bypass, fine. I don't mind helpin you. Broke your arm? Get your own insurance, a policy that pays for one visit to get it re-set and casted and another to have the cats removed is cheap as hell.

Wow did anyone watch Obama adress congress last night? He was adressing this exact thing.

He literally just made history.

I didn't catch it all because like all political speeches they are so confusing with enormous words rofl.

But what I got from it:

It will now be ILLEGAL too:

Drop a patient's healthcare insurance when they are in the middle of being sick (Aka chemotherapy or something like that)

Drop a patients healthcare because of finding a illness in the past that they did not mention to the insurance company (This was in "Sicko" alot.)

Quotes directly from Obama's speech:

"The president said his plan would provide health insurance for those who don’t have it while ensuring that Americans with insurance won’t have to change their coverage. Obama said his plan also calls for laws prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage due to a preexisting medical condition and requiring insurance companies to cover routine checkups for no extra cost. It also has provisions such as tax credits that the president said will enable small businesses and individuals to purchase insurance at lower rates.

Obama’s plan would also require the majority of Americans to carry basic health insurance. Companies, with the exception of some small businesses, will be required to provide insurance or help cover health care costs of their workers. About two-thirds of Americans receive health insurance through their employer."

This is HUGE guys, this is the first actual "action" instead of bickering about it in over like, close to 5 decades.

THE TIME FOR CHANGE IS NOW. LOLZ

Omg Chad, I just read that speech off BBC News (Well it was too long, so I read like a quarter) and it sounds like Obama will change Health forever in the USA#

I knew this Obama was gud.
Funniest part of the speech:

Obama: "It will not apply for illegal immigrants"

Random: "THAT'S A LIE!"

Obama: No U (Just kidding, he actually said "That's not true", same fing)

~Abs