SICKO

One of the things I asked for and received this Christmas, was for the movie SICKO by Michael Moore. I watched the movie tonight, hence my reason for the post.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do. You may or may not agree with everything in the movie, but it does get one to ponder the health care issue.

I have a lot of thoughts about "free" healthcare. Some are pro's and some are con's. One of the things that stuck in my mind from the movie was when someone said, I think from Great Britain, that it's interesting how a government can always come up with the money to kill people fighting wars, but there's not enough money to care for their sick. That really stuck in my head.

I don't want to give away too much of the movie, but there was a portion where the 9/11 volunteer workers were denied healthcare because they were volunteers, and not on the governments payroll. Michael takes them on a boat trip to Cuba! They try to get care at Guantamamo Bay since the people who want to kill us are given free health care, why not the 9/11 volunteers? Well, you'll have to see the movie to see how it turns out, but the point being is that our health care system is broken when the 9/11 volunteers who got sick bringing out the dead from the burning rubble can't get health care in America!!!

I really don't like big government, and I don't think the government should be controlling the entire health care system, but there has to be more that can be done to make it a fair system for all.

We normally don't think about health care too much because we are insured, we go to the doctors and take our children to the doctors, and the insurance pays their portion and we pay ours. That's fair and reasonable. But...that's the usual and customary services. What if you had a heart attack, stroke, or get cancer tomorrow? Will you think the system is fair and reasonable then?

I don't like a system where the goal is to deny (expensive) healthcare. We hear all these horror stories about how the free healthcare systems don't work - but who exactly are we hearing it from?

I think we can come up with a way where the government isn't in total control, and yet everyone has access to health care. Maybe it won't be a 100% "free" system, but at least a system where every American citizen can receive health care without being turned away or losing their home, savings and retirment money.

What do you think, and specify if you have seen the movie or not.