Controversial Michael Moore Flick 'Sicko' Will Compare U.S. Health Care with Cuba's

Nurses Activism

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Health care advances in Cuba

According to the Associated Press as cited in the Post article, "Cuba has made recent advancements in biotechnology and exports its treatments to 40 countries around the world, raking in an estimated $100 million a year. ... In 2004, the U.S. government granted an exception to its economic embargo against Cuba and allowed a California drug company to test three cancer vaccines developed in Havana."

http://alternet.org/envirohealth/50911/?page=1

Specializes in Cardiac.

This is the sort of thing that gives nursing unions a bad name........

Yep, it does.

Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

ny times: movie review | 'sicko': open wide and say 'shame'

..."sicko," which contends that the american system of private medical insurance is a disaster, and that a state-run system, such as exists nearly everywhere else in the industrialized world, would be better. this argument is illustrated with anecdotes and statistics-terrible stories about americans denied medical care or forced into bankruptcy to pay for it; grim actuarial data about life expectancy and infant mortality; damning tallies of dollars donated to political campaigns-but it is grounded in a basic philosophical assumption about the proper relationship between a government and its citizens....

...if you listen to what the leaders of both political parties are saying, it seems unlikely that the diagnosis offered by "sicko" will be contested. i haven't heard many speeches lately boasting about how well our health care system works. in this sense "sicko" is the least controversial and most broadly appealing of mr. moore's movies. (it is also, perhaps improbably, the funniest and the most tightly edited.) the argument it inspires will mainly be about the nature of the cure, and it is here that mr. moore's contribution will be most provocative and also, therefore, most useful.

"sicko" is not a fine-grained analysis of policy alternatives. (you can find some of those in a recently published book called "sick," by jonathan cohn, and also in the wonkier precincts of the political blogosphere.) this film presents, instead, a simple compare-and-contrast exercise. here is our way, and here is another way, variously applied in canada, france, britain and yes, cuba. the salient difference is that, in those countries, where much of the second half of "sicko" takes place, the state provides free medical care.

i'd like to hear others ideas on improving our healthcare system if you do not desire universal coverage

Specializes in Cardiac Surg, IR, Peds ICU, Emergency.
...If you listen to what the leaders of both political parties are saying, it seems unlikely that the diagnosis offered by "Sicko" will be contested.

http://www.southflorida.com/news/la-na-movie22jun22,0,7442208.story?coll=sfe-news-headlines

Instead of greeting the film with hosannas or challenging it head-on, however, the leading Democratic presidential candidates have sidestepped direct comment on Moore's proposals.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of South Carolina all have staked out positions sharply at odds with Moore's approach. But none of them is eager to have that fact dragged into the spotlight.

Specializes in burn, geriatric, rehab, wound care, ER.

I like the John Edwards approach to healthcare. I heard him talking about it on the Tom Hartman radio show the other day. It caters to the free market crowd in that Medicare will be offered to the general public alongside the private health insurance programs that are offered now. The private insurance companies will have a hard time competing with Medicare price-wise as they have greater administrative costs, have to pay the CEO millions of dollars and also satisfy the shareholders. Sounds good to me.

Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.
The private insurance companies will have a hard time competing with Medicare price-wise as they have greater administrative costs, have to pay the CEO millions of dollars and also satisfy the shareholders. Sounds good to me.

Don't forget John Edward's own role in the astronomical cost of health care in this country. I find it a little amusing that he fails to mention tort reform in his plan.

I got the same thing in the mail a couple days ago, and was immediately put off.:angryfire I lived in California many years ago but have never in my life practiced nursing there, so why is their nurses' union sending me this piece of propaganda urging me to promote a movie, just because I have the initials "RN" after my name?

This is the sort of thing that gives nursing unions a bad name........I happen to be a VERY strong supporter of universal health care, but does embracing a far-left agenda and promoting Michael Moore's film have to be part of the package? I'd like to think there's room at the discussion table for nurses with ALL kinds of viewpoints, not just those who worship the quicksand MM walks on.

But, that's just me.:madface:

May I ask how you have supported universal health care for this country?

I have met many people who say they do, yet there are no actions behind their words. May I suggest you e-mail your congress person and say to them that you support universal health care --that would be HR676 (a bill modeled along the same lines as medicare).

Specializes in ICU;CCU;Telemetry;L&D;Hospice;ER/Trauma;.

I don't know if it is still true that in China, you don't pay the doctor if you become sick....ie, the focus is in prevention. So, say you visit your doctor in China once a month, for the prescribed medications, herbs, and alternative therapy treatments, and you are compliant with his/her recommendations, and one month later, you are sicker, or not improved, you do not pay for the visit, or the treatments, or the medications.....

This seems backwards to us....but, believe me, it puts the onus on the the diagnostician to be not only careful, but correct....if he/she wants to eat the next day!

The AMA will fight any kind of universal health care system, because they have the very real fear that the drug company bedfellows and other interested lobbyists will no longer be raking in billions of dollars off the backs of the have nots....

There are four lobbyists for drug companies in Wash. DC for every congressperson....seems to me that the people who need to be talking are WE THE PEOPLE!!

How delightful if we, as a group of nurses, would help unite an effort to bring this country into the current century, and show the world just how adaptable and willing to change for the better we can be....

I, for one, would prefer my patients didn't have to chose between taking their heart medication or eating, or having their child seen by a bonafide pediatrician specialist, as opposed to a stressed out ER doc who just wants to go home.....

We spend hours complaining....we have spent hours complaining....

but many are faint of heart when it comes to putting rubber to the road and effecting change.....

It is a David and Goliath fight. I would be happy to take on this effort, but I am fresh out of rocks to throw....

Personally, I am glad Mr. Moore has cast a few, at least he's showing us what the situation really is for many people....whether we like to look at it or not, it exists.

Like many who have written here, this situation has been steamrollered by the Iraq war. It's time for all of us to write some letters to our congressperson, and start setting the groundwork for better change in this country...

We are so vulnerable right now....our government couldn't even get their heads out in an organized fashion to handle Katrina for crying out loud!

What do you suppose the world sees when they look at our health care system that ignores or rejects a third of it's population? What do you think terrorists think when they realize that a country that cannot, or will not, put money toward infrastructure in it's own self, is by far the easiest target?

We can have the most sophisticated weaponry in the world, but if we fail to provide even the basic needs for our citizens, our most vulnerable citizens, then what the heck are we DEFENDING with those weapons???

I am thankful that we are known as benevolent to those in need around the world.....but I think it's time we take care of some business here at home....crni

Specializes in burn, geriatric, rehab, wound care, ER.
Don't forget John Edward's own role in the astronomical cost of health care in this country. I find it a little amusing that he fails to mention tort reform in his plan.

yeh,yeh,yeh

but what do you think about the CONCEPT???

"Sicko" Campaign Asks: Who Will Fix U.S. Health Care System?

Former newspaper and magazine editor Michael Moore's "Sicko" is a staggeringly powerful piece of journalism -- yes, journalism, in the truest sense of what the craft can and should do.

What makes the documentary on the nightmarish failure of the American health care system such effective journalism is Moore's determination not merely to meticulously illustrate what is wrong with the system -- something that has been done a thousand times by a thousand media outlets, if never quite so entertainingly -- but also his certainty that there is a solution. ...

...Moore's not making any endorsements. But he is telling audiences in the key first primary state of New Hampshire -- most recently at a packed event in Manchester that had the filmmaker answering questions along with representatives of Physicians for a National Health Program and the Massachusetts Nurses Association -- that Kucinich "is 100 percent on board" for real reform.

Moore is also explaining why the proposed reforms of leading candidates -- including John Edwards and Barack Obama -- won't work.

And he is bluntly suggesting that the flaws in many of the plans proposed by Democratic presidential contenders could have something to do with the fact that those candidates have raised more than $3 million so far this year from individuals and political action committees associated with the for-profit corporations of the health care industry.

Moore wants candidates to sign a pledge to support free, universal health care "as a human right for every resident of the United States," and to work to remove private insurance companies from providing health care....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070624/cm_thenation/45207718_1

People may not be aware but Senator Ted Kennedy tried to get a bill passed 35 years ago regarding universal health insurance.[/size]

If we do nothing about this situation in American healthcare nothing will change and it is the working class who will suffer the most! RN's unite!!

I got the same thing in the mail a couple days ago, and was immediately put off.:angryfire I lived in California many years ago but have never in my life practiced nursing there, so why is their nurses' union sending me this piece of propaganda urging me to promote a movie, just because I have the initials "RN" after my name?

This is the sort of thing that gives nursing unions a bad name........I happen to be a VERY strong supporter of universal health care, but does embracing a far-left agenda and promoting Michael Moore's film have to be part of the package? I'd like to think there's room at the discussion table for nurses with ALL kinds of viewpoints, not just those who worship the quicksand MM walks on.

But, that's just me.:madface:

I saw the movie last night at a sneak preview in Sacramento. For a Michael Moore movie, it's really not that liberal. I mean he does have occasional comments about Iraq or Bush, but his main targets are the health insurance companies and drug companies. He even targets Hillary Clinton in part of the movie(for trying to get universal health care when she was the first lady and now getting the second highest amount of money from the insurance lobby.) He even talks to people abroad who are conservative and in favor of their universal health care systems.

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