SICKO

I saw Michael Moore's new documentary "Sicko" last night and I would highly encourage you (and all of your family and friends) to see it as well. While I have always found Moore's movies entertaining, this one left such a powerful sense of injustice and made such a strong statement about the pathetic morals and application of our present health care system that I believe it will give rise to a long-needed groundswell of righteous indignation about who and what we are as a nation. At least that is my hope. I personally have Kaiser (Santa Rosa, CA) and my doctors and their assistants have always been professional and attentive. The problem does not lie with the caregivers, but rather with a system that puts money and profits above care and compassion. This system denied coverage and care to my otherwise healthy 21 year old son because of a minor pre-existing condition, and denied insurance payments to my mother-in--law for assisted living, even though she fell three times (injuring herself badly the last time), because she wasn't quite frail enough to meet their standards. I would wager that most, if not all, of you reading this know of someone who was similarly denied. Our system is sick and unjust, alright, yet we just sit back and take it.

In much the same way that Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" focused attention and mobilized action on the many climate change issues we now face, SICKO has the potential to do the same for the way we view and run health care in this country. In a highly entertaining and even amusing way at times—if you can laugh through your tears—Moore travels to Canada, England, France and even Cuba to compare their health care systems with ours, and the result not only pokes holes in almost everything we've been told about these other "socialized" health care systems—that they're too slow, poorly run by second and third rate doctors, and that most people are unhappy with them. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the film has an agenda, to be sure, and is laced throughout with Moore's acerbic wit, it becomes clear that it's the United States that is serving up an unfair, unjust and poorly executed health care system. And many other western countries are light years ahead of us in their view of health care as a basic right belonging to everyone, not a privilege belonging only to those who can afford it, and/or to those who don't need health services very often.

I would of course agree that we have some of the best doctors, best hospitals, and best medical technology in the world. So why is our life expectancy lower than most European countries?

I implore you....go to see Sicko and, if you feel like I did after seeing the film, let's rise up together and get things changed. Visit Michael Moore's web site to find out more about what you can do.