After watching the documentary SiCKO last night, Troy announced we needed to do everything possible to be WeLLO. (The documentary could have been what convinced him that we need to be more proactive with our health or it could have been the phone call yesterday from our insurance guy who said if one of us [not saying which one] sheds about 10 pounds our life insurance bill would drop $40/month.)SiCKO made me sad for lots of reasons. It made me sad to hear the stories. What this documentary does best is tell stories, lots of stories about people who die because their insurance companies deny coverage or necessary drugs. I've always believed in the power of narrative statistics versus quantitative statistics. Narrative numbers preach. They can also be deceptive about what is and is not real, which is the criticism of this documentary. (Is our health insurance really that bad or did Moore just find some rare cases? Cast your vote in my poll on this page.) I had a deeper sadness after watching this movie that might be better described as feeling helpless. Our society is so polarized politically it is hard to know the difference from fact and fiction and truth and shipoopie. It's hard to discuss any issue in our society before people square off and want to roll up their sleeves. And, it is so hard to really get solid information to make an informed opinion. (Another recent topic for me has been the sale of TXU. Is selling TXU good for the customer or is it really selling our power to the devil?)
The point Moore makes at the end of the documentary, regardless of whether you believe he is a guru or an ass, is worth hearing: what it all comes to is whether we are in this game of life for "us" or for "me." Do we live to take care of one another or do we live just to take care of ourselves? Moore asked the right questions to our Canadian and English friends: (my paraphrase) "So you are willing to give money out of your own pocket for another person's care? If that person wasn't wise enough to take care of himself, then why should you have to take care of him?" I will be honest--It startled my ears to hear humans say medicine is a right and not a privilege. Their words reframed the issue for me and I could not help but to think about all the things in history that humans tried to make a privilege until some brave person stepped forward to proclaim that this isn't a matter of privilege, this is a matter of what's right.
You don't have to go far in Texas to say the name Moore and have someone dismiss him as a fat, uneducated, attention-hogging, biased, liberal jerk. Most of my Methodist preachers who try to paint the Bible in its Biblical context through word pictures every Sunday morning say similar things about a man named John the Baptist: he was hairy, probably smelly, lived in the wilderness, and said things that most people probably didn't want to hear in the first place. Hmmm...Moore resembles that picture.
By the way, we watched a full-length version of SiCKO that Troy downloaded from the Internet. A copy of the documentary was leaked on June 27, 2007. Critics argue that it was Moore himself who leaked the video. Denying this action, Moore did say that he believed all people should see this film, regardless of whether they can pay $9.50 to go to the movies. Hmmm...$9.50. Almost the cost of a prescription in England.
The trailer from youtube is linked below.
4 comments:
Probably the main problem with health insurance is that so many are without, causing the U.S. quality of life to continue its plummet. Go research where the U.S. stands in the world with respect to standard of living.
* 47 million Americans were without health insurance in 2005 and the number is increasing by over a million per year.
* More than 80% of the uninsured people come from working families.
* People with employer-sponsered health coverage available to them dropped from 70% in 1987 to 60% in 2004.
* 11% of all children in the U.S. are uninsured.
Democrats (led by Ted Kennedy) have been fighting for universal health care for 40 years and Republicans have continuously thwarted their efforts. JiM
"If you think wealth care is expensive now wait until you what it costs when it's free."
P.J. O'Rourke
" A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."
Thomas Jefferson
correction: it is health care not wealth care.
Oh, my gosh, where do I start?
Giving the most unaccountable, uncontrollable, and incompetent monopoly full jurisdiction over a vital service is somehow an improvement? Only if mediocrity for everybody is the right solution.
And the comparison between Moore and John the Baptist??? John wasn't an entertainer posing as a journalist. John probably wouldn't have conveniently failed to cover dissatisfaction with socialized medicine. You try waiting 18 months for a hip replacement and tell me how you feel.
Moore's morbid obesity is a living example of a big part of what's wrong with US health care: people who choose not to take care of themselves. Maybe if Moore would actually be an example...
Sure, the US health care system needs fixes. But the right solution isn't to create yet a new entitlement for all citizens.
No, thank you, Moore.
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