{"id":2787,"date":"2007-09-10T16:38:54","date_gmt":"2007-09-10T21:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=2787"},"modified":"2021-03-22T21:49:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T02:49:54","slug":"sicko-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/10\/sicko-part-one","title":{"rendered":"SICKO Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here<\/a> for the original post.<\/p>\n

Three movies in my entire life have moved me to tears, and Michael Moore\u2019s SiCKO was one of them.<\/p>\n

(The other two? Walt Disney\u2019s Snow White–I was four, the witch–and at 25, Star Wars, utter boredom).<\/p>\n

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\u2019s stress and interferes with decent medical care.<\/p>\n

Because I believe SiCKO is one of the most important documentaries ever made, I\u2019ll be devoting several health tips to my own suggestions on coping with your health insurance and the incredible greed and unfairness of the healthcare industry.<\/p>\n

For 15 years, before I got into integrative medicine, I was medical director of a very large Chicago medical group, supervising the doctors who cared for almost 20,000 HMO and PPO patients in 16 citywide clinics. As most HMO and PPO members will tell you, the insurance coverage is great as long as you stay healthy, but woe betide your financial future if you develop a serious and\/or chronic medical condition.<\/p>\n

Director Michael Moore wonders aloud why Americans are so fearful of government-funded universal health care, especially when they so easily accept schools, libraries, and police and fire protection, all of which we consider our \u201cright\u201d as citizens.<\/p>\n

In fact, as a good comparison to the current state of our health insurance system, imagine if firefighter service were \u201cprivatized\u201d like health care. Fire houses and firefighters would be in networks (like doctors)–Humana, Cigna, and so forth–and even though your local firehouse was down the street from your home, if you had an emergency you\u2019d have to contact someone in your firehouse network or face serious financial consequences (just like people in HMOs and PPOs).<\/p>\n

Worse yet is your attempt to purchase \u201cfirefighter insurance.\u201d You might be poorly rated or not eligible for coverage at all if you once had a fire in your home even during childhood (\u201cpre-existing condition\u201d). Unable to get individual coverage for firefighter insurance, and certainly unable to afford the thousands of dollars you\u2019d have to pay out-of-pocket were you to need a bevy of fire trucks to extinguish a fire, you go to work for a corporation that offers firefighter insurance as a benefit.<\/p>\n

Then the dark day comes when your house catches fire (you get very sick). You quickly search for your insurance card, call the 800 number, punch through an agonizingly slow phone tree until you get someone who tells you that you\u2019ll have to answer a few questions before you can get pre-approval to release the fire trucks (get medical treatment).<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the fire is spreading.<\/p>\n

Finally, the helpful firefighter insurance person agrees to send trucks from the \u201cnetwork\u201d fire station, but that crew is currently busy with another fire. They\u2019ll be with you in an hour. You scream that there is a fire station down the street and you can see the trucks sitting there. She says that you\u2019ll be going out-of-network and that you run the risk of non-covered benefits (like HMO\/PPO patients), but that the decision is yours. You\u2019ll be obligated, of course, for the higher deductible.<\/p>\n

You race down the street, scribbling a huge check while running. The firefighters arrive, but it\u2019s too late. Your home is in smoldering ruins. A few weeks later, living in a motel, you get more bad news. The out-of-network coverage wasn\u2019t approved because they claim the in-network fire trucks were on the way.<\/p>\n

And so, with a real story of illness instead of a fire, begins SiCKO. A married couple thought they had health insurance, but when a crisis struck they had to pay tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses, lost everything (home, retirement savings), are bankrupt, and moving in with their children.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three movies in my entire life have moved me to tears, and Michael Moore\u2019s SiCKO was one of them.<\/p>\n

(The other two? Walt Disney\u2019s Snow White–I was four, the witch–and at 25, Star Wars, utter boredom).<\/p>\n

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\u2019s stress and interferes with decent medical care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2087,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[214,2,203,3,70],"tags":[468,465],"class_list":["post-2787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-pharma-evils","category-blog","category-health-insurance-issues","category-knowledge-base","category-s","tag-american-health-care-system","tag-sicko"],"yoast_head":"\r\nSICKO Part One - WholeHealth Chicago<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2007\/09\/10\/sicko-part-one\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SICKO Part One - WholeHealth Chicago\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Three movies in my entire life have moved me to tears, and Michael Moore\u2019s SiCKO was one of them. 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