Hacker Cinema
Sicko
2007 · Film · documentary · 123 min
Directed by Michael Moore
A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States whose main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance, the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.
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14 comments on Hacker News
> No, it isn't wrong.
It is though. It’s deeply and profoundly wrong; blatantly wrong; a child could see that it's wrong; every other country in the world can see that it's wrong; and most Americans see it as wrong despite deacdeas of unanimous corporate propaganda.
That’s why there have been many books and documentaries about how US insurers are a huge problem. Luigi's manifesto even called two out by name: Rosenthal [0] and Moore [1].
It would have been nice to see you acknowledge the weakness of your last argument instead of responding by accusing me of "defending a narrative" (that's called 'projection' btw). Asking me to google vague phrases is an even weaker line of argument.
> Insurers are simply not where the costs in our system come from.
Do you realize how many times now you've just stated something as if it were fact when there have been shelves of books written demonstrating the exact opposite? It's not normal tptacek, and intellectually incurious in the extreme.
This particular statement of yours is so obviously wrong it's hard to imagine where to begin: Where do those billions in profit come from? Why was the DoJ launching an antitrust investigation against United? Why were there credible accusations against Brian Thompson of insider trading? ... If you want hundreds more examples, try reading a book about this topic: Maybe 'Delay, Deny, Defend', or 'The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care—and How to Fix It'. There are dozens to choose from, and you don't seem to be able to even acknowledge that they exist; it's almost spooky.
At the very least, please, try to acknowledge that actually there might be something very wrong here. Plugging your fingers in your ears, and making outrageous and aggressive claims as if you were delivering mathematical proofs with certainty, is really disappointing stuff.
0 - https://stanmed.stanford.edu/how-health-insurance-changed-from-protecting-patients-to-seeking-profit/
1 - https://watchdocumentaries.com/sicko/
No, most people do now know this. Michael Moore's Sicko movie did good criticism of the current dysfunctional US HC and it is even worse than that. Government is not doing the job to "govern" to fight monopolies, greed and outright corruption and Medical Industrial Complex has Washington swamp in their pocket (together with other monopolies mafias). So, US is increasingly dysfunctional and there will be consequences from that up to possibly fall of the whole "western civilization" (US+Eu+UK) and 1st chaos, then multipolar opportunistic world.
People vote for "short term sales pitch" instead of what is optimal and right for long term and their kids and grandkids. Key factors are missing: - Political manipulation is dominant. - Fact, logic rational based dialogue is vanishing. (i.e. indirectly and directly stimulated by interests, so left does not talk to right and any rational thought is attacked/labeled/censored and anyone who provides criticism of any or both sides in different ways is painted/pushed "polarized" often each side paints such people both ways whatever suits them, so echo chamber effect gets amplified until the system blows up). - People, through generations, are conditioned to be driven by emotions vs face logic/facts/rational. This starts from the early age kids conditioning them into 'ideal consumers' (some call this "idiots" and I understand it but it will be hard to wake them up by reason only, as past tells the only unfortunate way to wake up is catastrophe/calamity/hinger/war)
I can tell a lot of information to anyone that can be add on to Michael's Moore documentary and can paint the complex truth. It is not black and white at all and from my long life experience, best would be to fix the current US HC by breaking monopolies and unfair practices (such as price gauging, etc,...) and this could get US to way better HC than any socialized system can be. But my predictions is that "populism hustling" in the atmosphere of forbidden rational dialogue and political hustlers will go worse direction. I guess it is that 4th degenerative phase of the empire, where "soul&spirit" of the people's mind falls (obvious all around us). I just hope US does not go the way of Balkan.
I am US Citizen living in CA, while also have lived (and am citizen) of other 3 countries, Canada as one prior to US. To remind all, Michael Moore's Sicko documentary is huge misrepresentation of how good socialized HC is, while it did point huge issues with the current privatized/greed-based private US HC with crooked HC+insurance industry.
So as not all is BW, from my experience with Canadian HC, socialization of the health-care system shall produce the following: 1. significantly lower the quality of services (same or lower number of staff, material, equipment serving higher number of people) 2. waiting lists shall start appearing slowly and then progress over the years 3. HC shall deteriorate slowly (look at the UK and many other countries) 4. Extended/add-on/"bridge" HC shall become popular to fill in the gaps for the working people who demand at least better minimum (in Canada this is the norm, where typical Canadian pays just for this add-on HC similar per paycheck amount as US employer for the whole today's HC!)
Populist government "figures" shall play any card to live for another day and "please voters" including "changing realities" or avoiding the real "put all on the table and have open conversation" approach.
Moore in the movie Sicko displayed this in a funny way (I'm french):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicko
"In France, Moore visits a hospital and interviews the head of obstetrics and gynaecology and a group of American expatriates. Moore rides with the "SOS Médecins", a 24-hour French medical service that provides house calls by physicians. Moore discovers that the French government provides many social services and rights in addition to health care, such as daycare for $1 an hour, free college education, a minimum five weeks paid vacation by law, vacation, and neonatal support that includes cooking, cleaning, and laundry services for new mothers. "
Wendell Potter was a national media figure during the hub-bub about the Micheal Moore film Sicko about ten years ago.
He won the 2003 Oscar for Best Documentary with Bowling for Columbine, and was nominated for that same category in 2008 for Sicko.
France ranks higher in some studies. I did a lot of personal research after "Sicko" the movie was released.
I have cyclothymia and panic attacks, and these issues were worst at 25-27. At that time, I worked for a startup and had no insurance. (Now I have shitty insurance, but that's a world better than none.) Of course, panic attacks are brilliant and creative in their ability to throw weird symptoms (phantom smells were my "favorite") and every time, I'd worry about the (small) chance that "this time" it was a physical health problem, which I couldn't afford to have. I still have a brutal (and, objectively, unreasonable) fear of hospitals. It's not so bad that I wouldn't go if I needed to, but even if it's to visit someone who's fine, it takes serious chemical assistance. I can take on a cross-country plane ride without klonopin (hell, most "normal" people in the professional world can't do that, these days; granted, that has more to do with yuppies being pussies than a real anxiety condition, though) and doctor's offices are fine, but hospitals... fuck. Too many horrible memories.
There are some great individual doctors and nurses, for sure, but our mean-spirited, psychotic medical/insurance system taps into this deep-seated fear that humans have of being abandoned. Abandonment is a more vicious fear than death, for most of us. Death (when it comes peacefully; granted, that's not as common as we'd like to believe) is either nonexistence or something that's probably very interesting.
To answer your question, you can go to the ER and get treatment without insurance, but that's not going to get you preventative heart surgery or cancer treatment. If you get cancer, you can't walk into an ER and demand chemo. For plenty of Americans with cancer, their first medical attention is when the fucking thing throws a clot or causes organ failure and it's past too late.
You won't go to prison for non-payment, but you will get a huge bill, because while insurance companies are good at negotiating medical bills, you can't. If you can't pay it (and U.S. medical bills can easily top $10,000 for a routine ER visit) then you can be taken to court, have a judgment against you, and end up with your credit destroyed (there's nothing on your credit report to say that the cause of your debt or bankruptcy is a black-swan medical event, or even medical at all) and your wages garnished.
It's not like these horror stories are common, but they certainly happen and most Americans know someone who's been involved in one. It's not like 25-year-olds dying on the street due to our bad medical system is a common event, but it is a terrible system that ruins lives on a fairly regular basis. The sword of Damocles hangs over all of us. Even with insurance, it's easy to get fucked. Michael Moore's Sicko (whatever you think of him, that documentary was incredibly well-researched and important) was about people who had insurance.
Citizens United absolutely does not allow for what you're suggesting. Citizens United says that the government cannot limit how people, organized into corporations or otherwise, spend their money supporting particular candidates. It does not say that the government cannot prevent candidates from taking unlimited amounts of money for their campaigns.
That is a key distinction: the first follows from the government's inability to restrict free speech, whether or not it takes money to produce that speech (in this case, a documentary). The second follows from the ability of the government to reasonably regulate the candidates themselves and their activities.
If Lessig wants to overturn Citizens United, I too hope he fails. Because that means the West Virginia legislature can ban Sierra Club from creating videos about the environmental destruction caused by coal mining. It means that the government could ban Sicko (produced by the Weinstein Company).
Citizens United was not a "money is speech case." It was a "movies are speech" case.
I loved the Michael Moore movie Sicko. Regardless of what you think of him in general, he did a good job with it. What surprised me was the fact that 95% of what he found was what insured people have to deal with.
I feel like the only thing that has prevented our health insurance system from touching off a violent revolution is that severely ill people aren't exactly in top shape for carrying AK-47's into executive lobbies.
The whole point of private health insurance is that sick people are the easiest to rob-- they don't fight back-- but they also have no money, so it's best to collect payment while they're young and well.
According to the movie "Sicko", the doctors working in the Health Maintenance Organizations are being told: "You are not preventing care, you are preventing payment" as they are encouraged to deny as many requests as they can.
What Tommy Douglas did was revolutionary, but Canada's healthcare system is no longer something to be proud of. We have some of the highest wait times for Cancer patients in the industrialized world, hurried appointments, cuts in coverage. I don't blame the government, I blame us Canadians. If you've seen the Micheal Moore movie, SICKO, you've seen the average Canadian's view on our system, which is, that it is truly great.
The government is getting a pat on the back for removing essential services because the masses aren't taking notice; we've fanboy-ed our system while ignoring its degradation of the fundamentals. Our current system is not a positive guideline to success.
A Macleans article about the state of our system: http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/01/25/our-health-care-delusion/
Let's be clear on what problem it is you are talking about. Healthcare being not-affordable, or in other words too-much for most citizens or in other words insurance being too much? Or maybe healthcare in the sense that we aren't healthy; needing less healthcare?
The question is too vague for me. If we are talking in terms of "sicko" (the documentary) then one solution I have to say is socialized healthcare. I don't feel that social healthcare is necessarily the same as just any other social industry. Therefore people should not react in the same way. Socializing the auto industry is terribly anti-capitalism but its not the same as health-care because there is (or should) be a moral obligation to help people in need regardless of their financial state. You can't morally need a new car. It might still be possible to have private hospitals, for "premium" treatment. That already sounds rather dirty, but it reminds me of the postal service. Having government-run postal service actually made the industry better as a whole. Everyone can send a letter for 42 cents is it? but if they want it there overnight, there's fedex.
Yes definitely, see Sicko (documentary) for more info about the standard of the american medical system.