I agree Senders we are our own worst enemy, we eat too much high cholesterol foods and as a society we're getting more over weight every year. We have too much money to buy illegal drugs which increase the chances of getting HIV, hepatitis, and septicemia from needle use. All of these things greatly lower our length of life. Michael Moore has a bad habit of stretching the truth and bending the facts so much that they make a complete circle. Many of his so called facts have been proven wrong. I also agree that our free time risky sports account for many deaths and yet we still do it.

I would like to know what political machine is behind him. He's from Hollywood right? Well then what political machine is in bed with Hollywood? Well then, there ya have it!!!!

http://www.dailygazette.com

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VIEWPOINT
Insurance system hazardous to health
Moore gets carried away in ‘Sicko,’ but his film points out big problems
BY PAUL SORUM For The Sunday Gazette

   You should see Michael Moore’s “Sicko.” You will both laugh and cry. You will feel disgusted both with our health care system and with Moore. It is, in Moore’s typical style, outrageous, one-sided and contrived.
   But its fundamental message — that the private health insurance industry is dangerous to our health — will resonate loudly with patients and physicians. Here is why: Private insurers impose on medical practitioners and their patients a huge financial and psychological burden of rules, paperwork, delays and denials.
   Even their attempts to improve “quality” scores increase this burden.
   Private insurers add enormous extra costs to our already skyrocketing medical expenditures. These include both insurers’ administrative costs — the salaries of their highly-paid executives and armies of employees, their marketing expenses, and (in the case of forprofit insurers) their profits and the billing-related costs imposed on providers. In 2001, we spent $351 per capita on administrative costs, while the Canadians spent only $54 and the French only $48.
   Soaring health premiums — caused in part by private insurers’ administrative waste — are causing employers to reduce or drop health insurance benefits and preventing individuals from purchasing adequate insurance. Not only are 47 million (15 percent of the population) currently uninsured and many more millions inadequately insured, but these numbers are rising inexorably.
   As long as health insurance is a market commodity, private insurers must reduce their costs as much as possible, i.e., must spend as little as possible of their premiums on actual health care. Even if individual medical directors and other employees are virtuous and well-meaning, they must avoid sick patients and deny care if their companies are to survive in the market.
   Private insurers cannot make the health of the population their top priority. They must, like other businesses, focus on short-term results, not on the long-term health of their enrollees (especially since these people are likely to change insurers and eventually switch to Medicare). Moreover, in marketing their products to select groups, they fragment the population and undermine our already-fragile sense of social solidarity: They reinforce people’s short-sighted inclination to refuse to pay for those with more health needs, and fewer means than themselves. They encourage healthy people to forget that they might one day suffer major illness and injury and that they and society as a whole benefit if all people are as healthy as possible.
SOME ALTERNATIVES
   So what does Moore offer us as a solution? He takes us to other developed countries — Canada, Britain, France — where private insurers have greatly reduced roles.
   These countries have, of course, more problems than Moore shows us; no system can be perfect. But they provide high-quality health care to all residents, at half our cost. They have high levels of patient satisfaction (yes, in spite of complaints in Canada and Britain about waiting in lines). They interfere in patient-physician decisionmaking less than do U.S. managedcare companies.
   Their health systems are based on the principle that all residents should have the health care they need.
   But would a publicly financed system be, in some way, un-American? As Moore points out, we already use public funding for other social goods, like schools and fi re protection. And we already have in this country a health program that is publicly funded, liked by patients and efficient: Medicare. Recently, for-profit Blues spent 26.5 percent of premiums on administrative costs, commercial carriers 19.9 percent, not-for-profit Blues 16.3 percent, and Medicare only 3.1 percent. If we expand Medicare to provide comprehensive coverage for everyone, we will, therefore, not only improve the health of our population and eliminate the scandal of the uninsured, but also end up saving money!
TOO IMPORTANT TO IGNORE
   What then should you do? See “Sicko” and bring our elected officials with you.
   Convince them that Americans’ health is too important to leave in the hands of the private insurance industry. Convince them that, like the Canadians, British and French, we should provide our people with the health care they need, not what they can pay for.

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Even their attempts to improve “quality” scores increase this burden.

This is the meeting for the meeting we had last week for the info we collected the week before from that meeting....here are the 10 binders with all that information....the action shall be forthcoming in the next year or two......

I would like to thank steamroller Spitzer and NYS attorney generals office and all those who complained but did not lend a hand............. >

Can I tell you that I know a young couple who was on medicaid (public, government funded medical care). The husband had just started a new job and there was a 90 day waiting period for private insurance. They had a baby who only after  a few days had seizers. This baby was admitted into the hospital and went through extensive tests. On approx. the 5th day, they found the cause of the seizers. That same day, the hospital's billing rep. came up to the baby's room and told them they were being discharged.

Now, they still hadn't regulated the baby's medication, but due to the fact that they were on medicaid...ya know, that GOVERNMENT medical care.....the hospital basically booted them out. AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE DISGRACEFUL TRUTH!!

So if this is a glimpse of government run health care....we had better start contacting our elected officials NOW with our concern!!! REALLY!

Unfortunatly it looks to me like that is going to be the way the government is going to run health-care system and their way of cutting costs is to keep you out of the hospital anyway they can.

You'll get no argument from me on this one. I don't feel that the government could run the health care for this country. There would be too much wasted money and corruption for it to ever work.

When government steps in to make decisions regarding OUR PERSONAL choices, than perhaps the government has stepped over the line. And I consider my medical care just that .... MY medical care! The government's job is to protect our boarders and to make a safe enviornment for it's citizens. Surely NOT to come into our private lives and dictate how we should or shouldn't live. I believed that to be called 'Freedom'!

I'm with you on that Senders.

Quoted from bumblethru

Can I tell you that I know a young couple who was on medicaid (public, government funded medical care). The husband had just started a new job and there was a 90 day waiting period for private insurance. They had a baby who only after  a few days had seizers. This baby was admitted into the hospital and went through extensive tests. On approx. the 5th day, they found the cause of the seizers. That same day, the hospital's billing rep. came up to the baby's room and told them they were being discharged.

Now, they still hadn't regulated the baby's medication, but due to the fact that they were on medicaid...ya know, that GOVERNMENT medical care.....the hospital basically booted them out. AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE DISGRACEFUL TRUTH!!

So if this is a glimpse of government run health care....we had better start contacting our elected officials NOW with our concern!!! REALLY!

And once the baby's on the private insurance, that will now be considered a pre-existing condition, if applicable, and still not paid for during a period of time.

Get informed about your body....it is after all YOUR BODY....even the most general information minus the 'old wives tales' does a body good.....

WHATEVER WE DO,,,WE MUST TAKE THE DRUG ADVERTISEMENTS WITH A VERY VERY VERY LARGE GRAIN OF SALT.......

The commercials always say "Ask your doctor if XYZ is right for you".......they are looking for a pedler.....and a rat to take the drug

B4 I take any drug prescribed by my doctor or not I always jump on the internet and read all the side effects that the drug may have. In my opinion you should never take any drug unless you absolutely have to. Long term use of drugs is not very good for the liver.

My doctor will not prescribe any medications for me until they have been on the  market for at least 5 years. This doctor said that they will NOT have their patients be the guinea pigs for the pharmacutical companies.