Dr. Mercola June 25 2007 45,578 views
If you haven't seen Sicko yet you simply MUST. It is, without a doubt, one of the BEST films I have ever seen.
To make it easier for you I have provided the link to the film FREE in Google Video below.
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee has joined other nursing organizations that are hosting 3,000 screenings Michael Moore's film Sicko, which premiered June 29.
The film argues that for-profit insurance companies should be eliminated, as they are financially motivated not to provide the best medical care, but instead to deny claims and withhold care as often as possible.
A press conference held on Capitol Hill featured clips from the film, along with testimony from congressmen who favor greater government involvement in medicine.
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
Michael Moore's Sicko is a powerful expose of what is wrong with our health care system This is simply a must see for everyone, even if you think you are fully insured. While I don't agree with his solution, I have never seen a better portrayal of what is wrong with the US health care system.
The movie chronicles Moore's interpretations of the problems with the conventional health care industry. And no matter what Moore's critics may argue, there can be no debate that the current medical system, run by multi national corporations with an eye on their profits rather than on your health, is fatally flawed.
What I would caution you though is to ignore Moore's solutions. He would have the US government pay for all the care for the uninsured. While the movie makes some compelling arguments and it might make sense for acute traumas, the bulk of the disease in this country are chronic degenerative diseases.
With the government NOT paying for these expenses the US is already paying more than two trillion dollars a year for "health care" and headed to three trillion per year by the end of the decade.
If the government assumes these costs it will bankrupt the country even faster.
The real solution to all the non trauma disasters that Michael documents is to revert back to natural healing that treats the cause of the disease. I carefully document a comprehensive plan in my ne book, Take Control of Your Health.
A 2001 U.S. study showed that about half of all bankruptcies in 2001 were the result of medical problems -- and most of those who went bankrupt for this reason (more than three-quarters) were covered by health insurance at the start of the illness. Medical bankruptcies affect more than 2 million annually.
It is true that the guaranteed health care practiced by almost all other industrialized nations isn't always perfect. It costs money in taxes, and there can be long waits, especially for problems that are not critical. But most people are already shelling out thousands of dollars each year in insurance premiums, and long waits are infinitely preferable to simply being denied care because the insurance company doesn't want to pay out -- a situation that happens far more often than you might think.
There is no question that we have an ever-increasing insurance crisis in this country for medical coverage. Please don't let the media persuade you otherwise -- this problem is only going to get worse. The solution is to change the entire system. Unless we change the system, drug companies will continue to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from our economy with virtually no benefit -- other than making themselves richer.
The solution is to redirect the spending to care that will build the health of the country. When our nation is focused on health achievement, rather than disease treatment, the total cost of providing medical care would dramatically decline, because healthy people require less medical resources.
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Right on!
Folks, notice she said "republic" not "democracy". This country is a constitutional republic not a democracy.
The difference being that in a republic, people have inalienable rights that cannot be voted away by a majority of voters.
Unlike a pure democracy, in a constitutional republic, citizens are not governed by the majority of the people, but by the rule of law. Constitutional Republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy thereby protecting dissenting individuals and minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
A Constitutional Republic: Voting on dinner is expressly forbidden, and the sheep are armed.
There is an unfortunate, but natural, tendency to look for solutions outside ourselves, when actually our own behaviors are to blame. It’s pretty convenient. Doctors have to exist. According to Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Magical Child and many other books, in the early days of medicine, it was understood that pediatricians – while assisting during childbirth – by wearing white, then spanking the baby – and be the first person that the newborn baby sees would guarantee that baby would be a willing medical patient for the rest of their life. It is called bonding. Just like a baby duck will bond to you, if you are the first person it sees and is denied contact with its mother. So, for many, the rest of their lives, whenever they get into trouble with the body, or go through a transition, their first (maybe their only) thought is see the doctor. The doctor, remember, is the true mother, he/she is the one who birthed you, spanked you, gave you life. Its an infantile addiction to medicos in white coats who have a free pass to hurt us and be appreciated for it. It’s an infantile unconscious bonding pattern. In my own case, I got very angry at doctors while growing up, they always hurt me. Thanks to that anger, I broke the bonding. I feel no draw, and now go only reluctantly with tremendous skepticism. Thank you, Dr. Mercola, for the wonderful education you are giving us.
Here’s some more food for thought.
There are actually two health care systems, broadly speaking: acute and chronic.
The acute system is world class, usually helpful, and worth supporting. This system treats things like car crashes, gunshot wounds, broken bones, and various accidents. The treatments most often restore the patient to some semblance of previous health.
The chronic system is apparently staffed with MDs who barely made it through med school, usually detrimental to current and long term health, and generally a leech upon society. This system treats things like diabetes, blood pressure, cancer, cholesterol, blood lipids, aging(!), sleep, weight, etc. The treatments, largely drug based, almost never address the underlying causes (the causes are either ignored, totally wrong, or unknown), and commonly create additional chronic illnesses, one or more of which may quickly lead to death.
The acute care system is basically alright, though there certainly are problems there as well. It is the chronic care system that needs to be abolished and completely restructured. Yet, I would venture it is the chronic care system that creates the lion’s share of medical expenses and is also growing rapidly. Medical system improvement needs to be focused there foremost.
Bob2 Thank you a million times over! You just echoed my thoughts for the past 15 to 20 years, but much more eloquently-and specifically-than I've ever articulated! From my experience, I cannot understand what all the doctors and their medical practices that dot the landscape throughout my general area in Maryland do to alleviate health problems as they race from room to room, writing prescriptions while barely listening to what's being said to them. And they don't even pretend to be cordial.
This situation has recently worsened with the integration of computers in the exam rooms. I fully understand the magnitude of paperwork that apparently is required in the medical profession. However, I really do miss the few minutes "extra" that the doctors gave me in the past while they were handwriting whatever they needed to write down in their little folders. At least they could still listen and speak. Now, conversation is completely impossible because they are doing data entry, which requires much more concentration to integrate both their medical thoughts and the requirements that their computer imposes on them. The result is that I'm talking to a doctor for a precious few minutes and then I'm sitting idly by while he/she becomes a mute data entry clerk, generating pages (usually prescriptions), complete with typos and other errors! (I often wonder if most docs in family practice and internal medicine aren't completely disillusioned by their work days and all the clerical foolishness they're involved in.) And they typically regard that action as their last one and dash from the room without going over the papers they've typed. It is a joke and a hoax. I'm beginning to feel sorry for them, since they are as much a pawn in the behemoth as I, the consumer, am.
Also, where I reside, I've noticed in the past 10 years or so that most medical practices consist of numerous doctors, 6 to 10 admin staff, physicians assistants, and nurses. This grow
The Forgotten Man
The "forgotten man" was a term coined by a great conservative pro-market, pro-growth professor named William Graham Sumner. In an 1883 essay, he asserted: "As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine . . . what A, B, and C shall do for X."
Sumner wanted to know about C, the one he called "the forgotten man." As [Amity] Shlaes [in "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression,"] explains, "[t]here was nothing wrong with A and B helping X. What was wrong was the law, and the indenturing of C, his forgotten man, to the cause." Sumner wrote of the forgotten man: "He works, he votes, generally he prays -- but he always pays -- yes, above all, he pays."