First, let me explain why doctors might be so impotent when it comes to doing anything about a health care system many of them clearly see is wrong. I read a research paper some years ago by a psychologist trying to analyze why physicians allowed themselves to be manipulated into situations that were patently against everyone’s best interests, including their own.
Category: Health Insurance Issues
Q&A: A Question About SICKO
Q I’ve been reading your series on Michael Moore’s movie SiCKO and was wondering: is Medicare the same as national health insurance? My mother and father are covered under Medicare and they seem to get good care from their doctor.
SICKO Part Four
Michael Moore’s SiCKO explores a seamy underside to the American health care system: the self-serving collusion between the US federal government and the immense powers within medical care.
SiCKO Part Three: More on Michael Moore’s Important Documentary
When I was in China this summer, I began a conversation with our group and our Chinese guide. We compared health care in China with that of the US. Most of my fellow travelers were Canadians, Brits, and Australians, with a few Scandinavians tossed in for good measure.
SICKO Part Two
This continues my urging for you to see (and act upon) Michael Moore’s movie SiCKO, his devastating critique of our health care crisis.
Our current health care mess really began in 1971 when President Nixon signed a law that ended further debate about government-funded universal health care. Until that point, doctors had been making good money in the now historical fee-for-service system (the only remaining fee-for-service physicians today are cosmetic surgeons). Doctors were fearful to the point of paranoia about so-called socialized medicine, and very worried about what was being created up in Canada.
SICKO Part One
Three movies in my entire life have moved me to tears, and Michael Moore’s SiCKO was one of them.
(The other two? Walt Disney’s Snow White–I was four, the witch–and at 25, Star Wars, utter boredom).
Last month I saw–twice, in fact–this devastating critique of the American health insurance industry and its collusion with the federal government. Health insurance is a very sensitive issue for me. Every hour of every day the endless confrontation of doctors and their patients with the health insurance industry increases everyone’s stress and interferes with decent medical care.
Health Insurance: Food for Thought
I feel a deep sadness when a patient tells me she’s stuck in a job she loathes–one that’s making her sick with stress–but that she’s staying so she can keep her health insurance.