I am watching Michael Moore's "Sicko" for the first time....

Shaunna · Mar 25, 2009

Absolutely. I have not seen the movie yet, but I know how awful it is to be uninsured in this country. I'm still a student, but would gladly pay much higher taxes once I have a job in order to make sure that EVERYONE has access to medical care. It drives me crazy when people (who have usually been privileged all their lives) act as if it is an affront to suggest that healthcare should be a right instead of a privilege.

WalkieTalkie, RN · Mar 25, 2009

This movie made me cry. I know Michael Moore can embellish things a bit, but still...

I basically agree with the OP.

dalgal, ASN, RN · Mar 25, 2009

Yes, how scary is it that we are one job change/injury/major illness away from being treated this way? In our town, a man had to have his very reattachable arm amputated because he couldn't pay for the reattachment. This movie was eye opening...

bouncer13 · Mar 25, 2009

I do not want to pay higher taxes for a system implememted by the government!!! Everything that the government touches results in higher cost and less service....of course that is just my opinion - maybe thehealth care system should ask for a bail out!!!

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1563758/story.jhtml

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1623337,00.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2169454/

"Michael Moore's ...Sicko...puts forward a policy prescription. Moore thinks the United States should adopt a free, single-payer, national health system like Canada, the United Kingdom, France, or Cuba--socialized medicine, For Moore, the answer is having the government run it all.

He sets out on a worldwide tour to show us how great a single-payer system is in countries that have it.

And here's where his policy prescription goes into overdrive.

At the most simplistic level, giving free health care to everyone costs a lot of money.

Especially since people tend to use things more frequently when they are free

Nor do these countries have the same costs associated with malpractice lawsuits that we do. A single-payer system here would have to also include some truly major rearrangment of the tort system to bring those costs down.

lucky1RN · Mar 25, 2009

and i am just blown away. i am incredulous.
we really should be ashamed that gtmo bay prisoners get free (and very good quality, from the looks of it) health care and 9/11 rescue workers are suffering from 9/11 related health conditions and have no coverage.
it's no just gtmo bay prisoners that get free healthcare. any u.s. prisoner gets free healthcare courtesy of u.s. taxpayers. i had a prisoner-patient recently who was getting his chemo courtesy of the county correctional facility. this, while my sil who was laid off from her job 4 months ago...and diagnosed with colon cancer 3 months ago...has about $80 a month after paying for her chemo and rent due to her pathetic excuse for a disability payment.
i am very fortunate that i have good health insurance, but this could change at any time. i am willing to pay more taxes so that all us citizens can get free or low-cost health care that is not connected with a job, and can move with the citizen and cover them wherever they are and whatever their circumstances are.
are you?
what do you think?

i'd like to see a system that recognizes healthcare as a right, encourages/rewards prevention and health maintenance, susidizes healthcare costs with some type of sliding-scale by income, and insures people against catastrophic loss when they are temporarily or permanently disabled. but how to pay for it? i'm just not sure i think higher taxes is the answer. especially considering recent mismanagement of our tax dollars.

Flare, ASN, BSN · Mar 25, 2009

I am willing to pay more taxes so that all US citizens can get free or low-cost health care that is not connected with a job, and can move with the citizen and cover them wherever they are and whatever their circumstances are.
Are you?
What do you think?

I would if the key word is citizens. I know this attitude will not be popular, but i believe that people need to have some incentive for becoming citizens of this country rather than coming here (sometimes less than legally) and nursing off the social services teat. People want to come into this country illegally, then fine. But you better not expect anything in return. My mother in law came here from England over 50 years ago. She is probably one of the most outspoken when it comes to the illegals that learn how to work the system.

leadesign · Mar 25, 2009

I would have to disagree with the statement that people would use Nationalized Healthcare just because it is free. It may be utilized frequently in the beginning but I think it would level off after people started getting preventive and regular care. It certainly seems that it would reduce trips to the ER(which is very costly).

We are the only civilized country without a National Healthcare system in place and I hope that changes soon.

I have Canadian relatives and UK relatives who are very pleased with their healthcare. Those of us with insurance (albeit crummy healthcare insurance) have to pay a padded bill to make up for those without which is already a form of socialized care isn't it? I'd rather have my tax dollars go directly for healthcare rather than go thru a corrupt private health insurance provider.

How many nurses have we all worked with that were unable to pay for insurance because it was too expensive? Are you saying nurses don't deserve healthcare if they can't afford it?

Rhone · Mar 25, 2009

I do not want to pay higher taxes for a system implememted by the government!!! Everything that the government touches results in higher cost and less service.

Yeah, I'd sure hate to lose the high quality, low cost service we have now.... :rolleyes:

At the most simplistic level, giving free health care to everyone costs a lot of money.
Especially since people tend to use things more frequently when they are free

Isn't that part of the point? People who don't frequently get health care end up in the emergency room with an expensive problem (that the rest of us still end up paying for) that could have been cheaply prevented with frequent check-ups.

Nor do these countries have the same costs associated with malpractice lawsuits that we do. A single-payer system here would have to also include some truly major rearrangment of the tort system to bring those costs down.

If fixing one broken system means we fix other broken systems along with it, that's fine with me.

oramar · Mar 25, 2009

It really bothered me that some of the people in this show were EMTs and firemen that were on the job 911 and were denied coverage for medications and disability. Where did that zillion dollars the public donated to the fund go? It was for just that sort of thing.

CharmedJ7 · Mar 25, 2009

I'd like to add that while public healthcare would be expensive, at the moment our healthcare costs more (and covers less people) than other nations with public healthcare. It's something I've heard quoted a lot, here's one article that mentions this fact: http://www.kentucky.com/216/story/723248.html. It's probably worth noting too that Canadian taxes aren't particularly higher than in the US, in fact they're frequently lower (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html) so it would be a mistake to connect public health care absolutely with higher taxes.

Too, to the idea that people will use it more if it's free, I've found from living in Canada that people tend to go more the other way, feel bad about using it and not go often enough (it's a problem here with people waiting too long to see a physician out of guilt).

No country has found the ideal system for health care, but I don't see why the fact that other countries aren't perfect = the idea that our system is just as good - they may not be ideal, but they're on the right track at least. I think it's funny how "socialist" is such a bogeyman term, some systems should be socialized, the fiercely independent get-rich American dream mentality need not be applied across the board (I might argue it shouldn't be applied at all, but that's another discussion)

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Mar 25, 2009

I'm fairly conservative politically, but in this one area I am unabashedly in favor of abolishing our current patchwork "system" of healthcare and allowing government to collect the funds for universal health care---NOT health "insurance". I want to see the insurance industry completely OUT of the picture. Insurance companies are why costs are out of control, why our paperwork is ridiculous, why average people don't get care until they're so sick they wind up in the ER, why so many desperately needed procedures are never done (consider weight-loss surgery) even though they would save lives and money in the long run.

I wouldn't want politicians to oversee the actual system, especially not at the federal level. Instead I'd have panels made up of healthcare professionals (INCLUDING nurses!), financial and legal experts, and knowledgeable laypersons to administer health programs at the state level. Who better than the states themselves to determine the needs specific to their populations?

But however we get there, we MUST establish access to basic medical services for every citizen of this nation and get the profiteers out of health care. Nothing less will suffice. And that's all I have to say about that.