Sicko

I saw Sicko over the weekend, the Michael Moore movie about health care and the need for socialized medicine. While I think Micheal Moore is more slanted than the 9 iron in my quiver, the movie sure did make you think. It didn't make me rethink my stance on socialized medicine because I still think it's a bad idea, but I did like many of the thoughts he brought out.

The point of the movie is to bring attention to the foulness of the insurance companies. What a bunch of greedy dirtbags. They actually have so called "hit men" to review a case and find ANYTHING applicable to canceling a policy. "Sorry, you didn't disclaim that you went to the clinic for the drips while you were in college so we're going to deny your claim for Leukemia treatment."

There were quite a few sad stories of people who got screwed by insurance. For me, that was a strong message that our system has problems.

However, Michael Moore made socialized medicine look like the best thing since sliced bread when he visited Canada, the UK, France and Cuba. All crap though. All one sided success stories with nobody to gauge a counter argument or question.

As a whole, the US has the best medical treatment anywhere on the planet (of course if you can receive it). That is because the medical industry is a capitalistic concept. There is INCENTIVE to be good. If you are run by the government, incentive and competition are gone and so would be the level of care. In a brief nutshell, that is why I don't like socialized medicine.

On the flip side, it is horrible that people can't get the care they need because of health care costs and corrupt insurance companies. I don't have the answer nor would I know how to go about it. But if you can fix, or control, and then watchdog the insurance companies wouldn't you think things would get better?

I could ramble on and on with other points, opinions etc, but that would take all day. To sum up the point of all points is:

While the thought and intent of a Universal health care program is great and noble, do you REEAAALLLY want the same people who run the DMV and CalTrans to operate how you're going to get operated on?!?!