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Michael Moore’s Movie “SiCKO” and US Health Care Reform
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This is how Moore opened “SiCKO.” A young man had a deep cut that required stitches; since he had no insurance, he stitched together his cut himself. (I had to close my eyes, because I could not stand watching him.) A middle-aged man accidentally sawed off two finger tips of his left hand, and was given a price tag of reconnecting each one: the middle finger $60,000, and the ring finger $12,000. (You wonder HOW the hospital decided the middle finger was five times more important than the ring finger! I can think of only one reason: you need the middle finger to gesture the f-word.) Things got worse: someone’s young husband died of cancer because he was not allowed to receive certain treatments by the decision of the medical board; some mother lost her little girl because her insurance company insisted that her daughter be treated at a specific hospital in order to be covered by her insurance… They are all Americans, citizens of one of the richest countries in the world!
Why should we care about US health care system, since this is Chinese sciencenet? I think we can learn something from other countries, because sooner or later China will have to reform its own health care system.
I visit China on average once a year for the last 10 years, and I heard one sad medical incident after another, not in the news but from my close friends. Yes, their loved ones died because of poor hospital care or careless medical incidents …
For someone like me who never worried about hospital visit as a child thanks to my mother’s job, it’s hard to comprehend that my mother is now saving all she can because she is concerned about her ability to pay in case of medical emergency. She is better off than most Chinese, because her medical expenses are 80% covered. However, the 20% is such a burden that she doesn’t know if she will have enough saving for the 20%x(unknown medical bills). If a retired medical school professor like her has to worry about health care, what about the average Chinese?
p.s. The US health care system I have been using just before my son’s birth is the so-called HMO (health maintenance organization), the very system criticized by Michael Moore’s movie, “SiCKO.” Do I like HMO? I think I am 85% satisfied with its service. However, I have heard incidents from friends, and horrible ones in the news. If you put the worst cases into a movie, as Moore did, the viewers are going to be shocked and scared, as I was. However, there is hope, even for Americans. To find out the answers, please watch “SiCKO.”
https://wap.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-259454.html
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