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July 14, 2007
i never knew / i never knew that everything was falling through
i saw Sicko (the movie) last night. I was reluctant to see it as I know a lot about the health care situation in this country and knew that the movie would just depress me. And it did. I didn't learn anything new, and actually had some issues with michael moore's extreme one-sided presentation. but it is a movie and I do hope that it opens people's eyes to the mess of insurance system.
The thing that bothers me most about insurance is the for profit aspect. Why do we as a society allow some members to capitalize on other member's bad luck? People don't chose to be sick. I think that all health care should be nonprofit.
Unfortunately, the health care debate is up against people who have insurance through their jobs, therefore the preexisiting conditions and denials of private insurance focused on in the film probably will not ring true. Losing one's house because of co-pays and deductible will. I wish he would have focused on that more.
Moore's focus on the Canadian, French, English, and Cuban nationalist health care system glossed out an important point. Each of these countries have COMPLETELY different systems of governments than ours. Moore did interview a guy who made this point subtly, but it was almost lost on me (with a ton of political theory knowledge), so I am sure it was lost on everyone else. The parliamentary system of the first three allows the poor a lot more power. In fact, the individual voter on average has a lot more power as one can vote for a candidate with goals closer to one's own and it not be a wasted vote as it in is the two party system here in the US. Nationalized health care will never happen because one needs 60 votes in the Senate to get anything passed (with the support of half the house, more if you don't have the support of the president). Legislation (if you have noticed) is virtually impossible. VERY FEW THINGS actually make it into law. It is even rarer that an important, life changing thing makes it in to law. (Of course, this is a good thing in case the people in power are crazy, but bad if one actually needs to make any changes). In parliamentary systems, one only needs half of the votes and so things get changed, like health care.
I do think change is coming. I don't think that "liberals" should think that that change is going to be nationalized health care - i.e. everyone on medicaid. I think if insurance companies were made to be non-profit, it would be a step in the right direction (and a fulfillment of the actual definition of insurance, though what we want is more like insulation and not insurance).
On a personal note, I know way too much about the theory behind insurance. Hence when we were deciding on which plan to go with in the fall, I pushed up toward the HMO as healthy people (in theory) self-select into the less expensive plan, so the premiums are more reflective of your actual risk. Less healthy people self-select into the more expensive plans and therefore your costs probaly outweigh your risks. So we decided on the HMO of a major national company . Then we pick a peditrican and find out that they only take the PPO plan. Of course, just the idea of not being able to see the doctor we want made us change our mind. That and the horror stories of HMOs and my mom's comment that more and more doctors are not accepting the HMOs b/c of issues with payments. We are lucky lucky lucky enough that the extra $60 a month isn't a big deal to us, but to a lot of people, the cost difference b/t the PPO and HMO is a big deal. Of course, we are lucky to even have the choice at all.
Posted by christina at July 14, 2007 11:52 PM