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

[HM2VikingRN]

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

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

Its very easy to exhaust the medical coverage for auto insurance. 100,000 for a major medical case is nothing. After the auto insurance medical is exhausted who will pay for care? By then many patients will have lost their jobs and their health coverage. At that time cost of care defaults to a combination of medicaid, and cost shifting to the insured by raising fees for other patients. Short answer is that we end up paying more for less under our current system.

[DarrenWright]

By then many patients will have lost their jobs and their health coverage. quote]

Any research or reference to support this?

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

If you have to misrepresent a position to spur discussion, then you need to leave the issue to more honest and qualified people. Especially if all you can do to justify the millions you will make is claim morality on the basis of 'spurring discussion.'

That's MM's strategy; he criticizes the system from a pulpit of activism, and then when MM or his crowd are called out for their disinenuity, they attempt to claim the cover of "satire."

It's blatantly unethical. If we practiced medicine with the same set of morals that MM applies, we'd be able to justify anything we did based on outcome alone, without worrying much about the equally important process. i.e. who cares if that nurse stole the leftover morphine instead of wasting it? The patient got theirs, and the nurse didn't hurt anyone.

This is exactly the point!

There is a huge discussion going on in this country about healthcare already. There are many discussions just here on allnurses.

I don't need MM's twisted viewpoints based on spinning, misrepresenting, and outright lying.

steph

[Jennyw45013]

again, has anyone seen the movie??? i will not criticize until i have.....

[dria]

i have not yet seen the movie, nor do i plan to.

i am sure it is more far left conspiracy theory ala farenheit 911.

hm2...i'm sure you will enjoy the movie.

i do hope that michael moore is bought up on charges for breaking the us travel ban to cuba...but that is another thread entirely.

[ZASHAGALKA, RN]

i do hope that michael moore is bought up on charges for breaking the us travel ban to cuba...but that is another thread entirely.

journalists are exempt from the travel ban. if he had enough press credentials to get into the 2004 republican national convention (and he did), then he has enough credentials to escape any sort of prosecution for going to cuba.

besides, if we really wanted to see healthcare dramatically improved, i'm all in favor of lifting the ban on cuba entirely. you'd see a remarkable improvement in healthcare in a short time. in cuba, of course.

remember, you don't have to be an unbiased journalist to be a journalist.

as much as i dislike mm, i'm not for violating a free press to get him. let him have his say.

~faith,

timothy.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

As much as I dislike MM, I'm not for violating a free press to get him. Let him have his say.

~faith,

Timothy.

Oh absolutely . . . . . I would never say he isn't allowed to have his say. I just get to comment on his "say".

steph

[pickledpepperRN]

Timothy & Steph, I agree!

Soon we will be able to just click "Thanks":

If you havent seen the preview yet.https://allnurses.com/forums/f207/discuss-2-0-preview-video-allnurses-redesign-229036.html

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

Mockraking journalists are what make American Journalism great. We need a press that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable......

[RN4MERCY]

Nurse Alert: Michael Moore's documentary SiCKO opens in theaters nationwide the weekend of June 29th and I believe it's imperative that all nurses see this film. It is a graphic and transparent documentary that exposes the most heinous of crimes against humanity...HMOs and insurers who torture the vulnerable people who should be our patients, by denying them the care they need to satisfy their monstrous and evil greed!

What have we become as a society, when in the richest nation on earth, we allow insurance companies to profit by denying care and hospitals to "dump" disoriented, sick and dependent patients on the street? Why does the question, "What kind of insurance do you have?" preceed, "Why are you here and what can we do to help?" in hospitals and emergency rooms, and clinics?

I watched the film with nurses from Maine, Illinois, Texas, Missouri, Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont; as well as other members of the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee which has members in every state. We all agreed, this film not only broke our hearts, but it ignited our passion for health care reform: Guaranteed healthcare for all! We don't need more insurance. We need to enact a single-payer system similar to what exists in Canada, France, and England.

We don't have to reinvent the wheel to make universal health care a reality in our country. It's going to take all of us as patient advocates and social advocates to remove the barriers and restore our public health system so that we can provide safe, therapeutic and effective care for our patients. What we do as nurses was described by Florence Nightingale as, "the finest of the fine arts." With education, experience and passion, Michael Moore has created a work of art that nurses will recognize as brilliant, sweet and funny, incredibly sad at times. Mr. Moore has poured his heart and soul into his art, in the same way nurses care for their patients. Ultimately, we'll all be better for his advocacy.

There's a Dutch proverb that says, "if it's wrong today, it won't be right tomorrow!" Incremental reforms and individual mandates that leave insurance companies in place will only serve to enrich the insurers and will do nothing to solve the crisis. As nurses we understand that there's no room for profit in health care. As nurses we understand that we cannot separate patient advocacy from social advocacy. As nurses we understand that we need to take control of our profession and engage in participatory democracy, like our historical forebearers, Lavinia Dock, Lillian Wald, and Florence Nightingale, in order to control the delivery of healthcare. We should not delegate that responsibility to someone else.

If you've seen the film, please post your thoughts and comments. If you haven't, please make plans to go opening weekend and join in!

http://www.michaelmoore.com

http://www.singlepayer.com

[Ludlow]

I also saw the preview of SICKO yesterday in Sacramento. What an incredible movie! What an honest look at our health care system! And what an embarrassment when we compare ourselves to other nations of the world!

We pay twice as much per person as Canada or France or England---where medical care is available to everyone, and yet we have over 47 million people who cannot get access to timely medical care. Sure the diabetic who is med-evaced into the ER in coma with kidney failure gets care---but what if he could have had diabetic teaching and the testing equipment and the medicines so that he could have kept his blood sugar within normal limits to begin with? For him there would be no catastophic life suffering and for the system there would be no catastrophic charges.

I had to think, as the movie SICKO pointed out, "What kind of person am I? That won't even let CHILDREN get all the health care they need?"

As Americans, we are good-hearted, generous. We just have lost our way a little here, being misdirected and deceived by those who make literally billions off of human suffering: the for-profit insurers; pharmaceutical companies who take way more profit than ought to be allowed; and health care profiteers who game the system sheerly for the almighty dollar. They get rich, we get denied and loan-sharked and dead.

I want to get my neighbors and coworkers out to see this film that opens on June 29th. When we all see how much we are being bilked and taken for, we will all rise up and demand a better way for health care! We will all want to get profit OUT of our health care system and finally let it be a health system that cares and that is there to keep us all healthy and well.

YES and THANK YOU to Michael Moore and YES to HR 676 (the Conyers/Kucinich (Improved) Medicare for All bill) and SB 840 (Shiela Kuehl's California Universal Healthcare Act)!

[DarrenWright]

For some reason, I'm seeing M. Moore chuckling all the way to the bank with these endorsements.

Does one not see the irony in enriching M. Moore for a message of activism while he criticizes others for making a profit for actually providing care?

Did the numbers on uninsured and per-capita expenditures come from M. Moore's movie?

Did M. Moore's film happen to mention that the Canadian Supreme Court is unable to serve all it's people?

"...prohibiting...ordinary Canadians to access health care...the government is failing to deliver health care in a reasonable manner, thereby increasing the risk of complications and death."