03 June 2008
I Finally Saw "SICKO"
I've avoided watching it for about a year, I guess, but last night Netflix led me into Michael Moore's film SICKO. The only thing that surprised me while watching it was the idea that moving to France rather than to Italy is a viable alternative. The French bureaucracy is more daunting and more efficient than the Italians' and I would not have to learn a new language from its beginning. That was the only unexpected, new thought. I have lived the rest of the circumstances, dealt with the disbeliefs and disgust with the US healthcare economy and I have been an executive within the administration of two hospitals, a faculty practice clinic, a bloodbank, two non-profit service agencies and, as a veteran, a registrant in the Veterans Health Service (until their means test excluded me.) I also was a personal care manager for six men with AIDS (1982-1998), a middle-aged woman with breast cancer and have experienced the loss of innumerable friends and acquaintances to cancer or AIDS.
So, SICKO was not an eye-opener. It was, however, a trigger for my PTSD that kept me writing for hours afterward. I went to bed at 5:45 AM.
Given the above, it was providential to receive an email from Congress.org this morning asking if I am satisfied with my health care. Congress.org is an opinion gatherer that sends my comments to, in this case, the President, the Secretary of HHS, both California senators and my representative in Congress. I chose to have my remarks sent in letter form primarily because letters must be handled and emails can disappear without being read. Here are my comments sent out this morning:
"The US healthcare economy is discriminatory, negligent and immoral. The individual person is not accountable for his or her efforts to remain healthy, to recover from trauma or wounds, or to assist others in their own communities with efforts to maintain a healthy diet and living environment. How do I know this? Because someone else is the customer in the healthcare market place. Providers (hospitals, clinics, physicians, etc.) refer to individuals as 'patients'. This is by definition a passive role in a system in which others dictate the terms of care and treatment.
The only way to change our healthcare economy is to remove it from the marketplace paradigm completely. Already, the supply side of this economy is regulated by licensure, accreditation, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement algorithms. Private insurers collect premiums as income with the market motivation of retaining as much income as possible, so reducing expenditures through the tax code and through gatekeeping.
As a fundamental function of government, the US should establish a national health service paid from income tax revenues and provide care and treatment for everyone--as the other "first world" countries do,
What am I going to do? I will be emigrating to Italy or France and begin to live with enthusiasm rather than being inhibited by fear of losing my savings and home due to prospective medical expenses."
Why live in fear?
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So, SICKO was not an eye-opener. It was, however, a trigger for my PTSD that kept me writing for hours afterward. I went to bed at 5:45 AM.
Given the above, it was providential to receive an email from Congress.org this morning asking if I am satisfied with my health care. Congress.org is an opinion gatherer that sends my comments to, in this case, the President, the Secretary of HHS, both California senators and my representative in Congress. I chose to have my remarks sent in letter form primarily because letters must be handled and emails can disappear without being read. Here are my comments sent out this morning:
"The US healthcare economy is discriminatory, negligent and immoral. The individual person is not accountable for his or her efforts to remain healthy, to recover from trauma or wounds, or to assist others in their own communities with efforts to maintain a healthy diet and living environment. How do I know this? Because someone else is the customer in the healthcare market place. Providers (hospitals, clinics, physicians, etc.) refer to individuals as 'patients'. This is by definition a passive role in a system in which others dictate the terms of care and treatment.
The only way to change our healthcare economy is to remove it from the marketplace paradigm completely. Already, the supply side of this economy is regulated by licensure, accreditation, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement algorithms. Private insurers collect premiums as income with the market motivation of retaining as much income as possible, so reducing expenditures through the tax code and through gatekeeping.
As a fundamental function of government, the US should establish a national health service paid from income tax revenues and provide care and treatment for everyone--as the other "first world" countries do,
What am I going to do? I will be emigrating to Italy or France and begin to live with enthusiasm rather than being inhibited by fear of losing my savings and home due to prospective medical expenses."
Why live in fear?
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