It was FABULOUS, seldom do I like movies.... more so now than ever, but this was FAB. I laughed really, really loudly and I cried with full blown tears three times, if not more....Don't get me wrong, this movie was NUANCED as well. I think it will open a lot of eyes and raise a lot of questions about hyper-capitalism and corporate interests.
IT WAS GOOD! GO WATCH IT! NOW!
And in case you were wondering - most DRs in Canada also live in million dollar homes and sadly we aren't all socialists. Hell, they even showed a conservative canadian wax poetic about Tommy Douglas (in case you don't know of him already - you'll learn), that's how much the average Canadian citizen cares about healthcare as an issue.
ETA: I realized I rushed to write this post last night, and I should add a few things. There are a few problems with Canadian Healthcare (NOT the 'longer wait times'):
1) In the past 5 years tuition for Drs has increased to about $10K/yr, so it's pretty much only accessible to rich people and it leaves those who aren't rich in a higher debt (but not to worry, the banks offer huge credit loans to potential Drs - cough, cough). When you consider most 'non-professional' programs only cost $4500K a year for tuition - $10k is A LOT of money.
2) Physiotherapy, Optometry and dentistry (all needed things) are not covered. BUT most dentists do offer a sliding scale for people who don't have health coverage from their empolyers. Students usually only have to pay 70% of their dentist's/prescription expense because you pay a small medical fee when you pay your tuition. In the past physio and optometry were covered, slowly the government has been chipping away and 'streamlining' our healthcare system - which is very scary. A visit to the physio costs roughly $80-100/hour. A visit to the opt costs roughly $100-160.
3) Drug and Glasses Prescriptions are not covered. This is especially troublesome when you factor in the working poor and the growing senior population...
4) To book a specialist can often take months. BUT they do prioritize patients, if you are very ill, you can get an appointment much faster.
5) Most lab testing is covered.
ETA2:
6) There is a shortage of Drs in Ontario
7) There are many Drs with foreign training credentials who aren't given the opportunities that "Canadian trained" Drs are given.
8) When foreign trained Drs are recertified they are the first to get placed in rural towns (they do get higher pay), where they may/may not have racialized communities and interactions (this becomes isolating for them).
But I swear I've never heard someone having to chose between which finger they wanted to save... But under American capitalism that makes sense. How cruel.
From a Canadian perspective, the timing of this movie couldn't be better our new conservative government is okay with privatization, AND the Ontario government has approved 6 new private healthcare facilities in this province...This is a deeply disturbing problem of course. We can't allow this to happen - and having a two-tierd healthcare system is not going to help anyone ... but of course .... the rich!
It was humane, intelligent, funny, touching and very-well done overall. I think many Americans will start questioning who feeds them commie myths and who tells them who their enemies are etc...
The one quip I had about it was that Moore had to refer to Hillary Clinton as 'sexy'. Why? Why do female politicians (or female anythings) have to be sexified?
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7 comments:
I take it Mr. Moore didn't use our "socialist" health care system as a propaganda tool, much like he did in Bowling for Columbine?
Unless you have the dole to pay physicians and specialists by the hour, they have no incentive to give a damn about you. To public practitioners, we are but a pile of paperwork.
Our public health system is a joke: you get to see a physician for free only to have to make a trip to the pharmacy, front the cash for your medication and hope, should you be lucky enough to be a corporate serf with an insurance plan, your claim is accepted.
As I remarked on Yolanda's blog, there is no excuse for one of the richest nations in the world to not look after any of its people. There's always enough money for the latest in killing machines, but never enough for sustaining life.
G., you are right - to fork out so much money for prescriptions is ridiculous. But I swear the kinds of things he said about people having to CHOOSE between which body parts they want to save and which they want to let go was ridiculous - we don't have to do that here. Plus there you have to pay the medical bills AND your prescriptions! In comparison he shows how the Brits only have to pay the pharmacists fee which is the same as our fee here ($13/fill) - but they don't have to pay for their drugs! Moore did use a lot of propoganda - but a lot of it was nuanced. His biggest 'propoganda' (I don't know if it can be called that), was to actually take americans to Cuba to show them that "third world countries" even had socialized health care.
It's so funny, you hadn't seen this movie when you wrote that at Yolanda's but Moore says EXACTLY the samething:
There's always enough money for the latest in killing machines, but never enough for sustaining life.
His trip to Cuba was kind of eerie in the sense that I hope that other Americans don't take that as a push for him advocating third world medical tourism -- something that has been going on in the US ATM.
I only saw the portion of the movie, but was truly horrifying. I was actually sitting in a presentation talking about the quality of US Healthcare systems the other day. After hearing these stories, I would never want to see doctors. US Healthcare system is filled with miss-diagnosis, unneeded operations, and blame on patients, more than disclosed (I am sure you know people who were blamed on their psyche while they were actually sick - these are never in statistics).
If you are poor, you are more likely to get sick due to the lower quality of life. If you get sick, you get treated wrong, hence, get worse. If you get worse, payers will start declining you, then, you get poorer, hence, your sickness will worsen.
At the same time I felt sorry for physicians as well, listening to them. They are very depressed. They can not keep up with too much advancement of medical technologies, but they get sued if they do not use them. They gave up on patient education, after seeing the same cases 1000 times a year, and they are overloaded with paperworks from health plans.
One physician said "I hate patients, I hate my job, but that's what I do. So I just escape to focus on making money to rationalize myself"
You can watch it for free in six parts here.
ty for the link.
yw
(=you're welcome)
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