Sicko

Just finished watching Sicko and I highly recommend you check it out. The overwhelming feeling I have after watching it is that Health Care and Capitalism are just not a good mix. Seems like health care should be guaranteed to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Health care should be a human right guaranteed to everyone, just like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.

And NO I'm NOT a communist, a believe in the free market system, I just don't think it should apply to health care! Canada, France, England and just about every other industrialized nation in the world have universal health coverage. Why can't we?

I know, I know, taxes will go sky high. Well, taxes are high now and what do you get for your tax dollars? The biggest military in the history of mankind. With which we can't even control Iraq.

The US has more than doubled it's military spending in the last 10 years, from 289 billion dollars in 1998 to a projected 640 billion in 2008. The six "rogue" states: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and the two other super-powers, Russia and China all COMBINED spent about 139 billion dollars on their military last year, about 25% of what the US spends. I'm not anti-American, I love my adopted homeland, but I think PERHAPS we should begin allocating some of those HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars to more needed necessities.

Back to Sicko, the biggest contrast I saw in the film was between the HUMANA HMO medical reviewer in the US (a doctor by the way!) who got BONUSES for denying medical services to as many patients as possible, and the UK doctor who got bonuses for reducing as many health risk factors as possible from his patients (risk factors such as cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, etc). In the UK, it appears, doctors are rewarded for making patients well and therefore reducing the health care costs of the nation! Wow, what a novel idea!!!!

(for more info on US military spending go to Global Issues.org