¶ … health care system delivery with other nations (European/Canada) with emphasis on its relative strengths and weaknesses?
Michael Moore's Sicko reveals that nearly 50 million U.S. citizens are not insured, whereas many usually fall prey to insurance firm red tape and frauds. Interviews are carried out with individuals believed to be sufficiently covered; in truth, these individuals do not receive health services at all. Ex-workers of insurance firms explain cost-cutting efforts which provide insurance firm physicians and other individuals with excuses to avoid fulfilling the costs of policy holders' essential medical treatments, thereby increasing the companies' profitability (Heart, 2012).
The documentary-maker then moves over to Canada, where he introduces Tommy Douglas, the man voted in 2004 as the best Canadian citizen for the role he played in improving the nation's healthcare structure. The director interviews a Canadian micro-surgeon and emergency room patients at a public hospital in Canada. His interviews in the UK -- a nation where the National Health Service (NHS), an all-inclusive publicly-financed health system, operates -- involve patients. He poses questions regarding in-hospital patient expenses, only to find out that UK patients have no out-of-pocket hospital expenses at all (Heart, 2012).
The filmmaker also drops in on a characteristic British pharmacy, where medicines are provided free of cost to individuals aged below 16 years, or more than 60 years, and is mostly subsidized for all other age groups. They are charged only a set sum of approximately ten dollars (£6.65) per prescription drug regardless of NHS costs. Moreover, NHS healthcare facilities hire cashiers, whose task is partly to compensate poor patients for out-of-pocket traveling expenses (from home to healthcare facilities). The UK interviewees included Tony Benn, an NHS doctor, and a female American citizen living in London....
In France, the filmmaker drops in on a hospital, where he interviews the gynecology and obstetrics departmental head and a number of expats from the U.S. He also accompanies the round-the-clock medical service "SOS Medecins" and its doctors on their house calls (Heart, 2012).
In his French visit, Moore learns that the government of France offers healthcare,
daycare (1 dollar/hour),
vacation,
public education (up to university level), neonatal assistance to new mothers (including cooking, laundry and cleaning services), and various other
social services). Back to the U.S., interviews with Americans revealed that voluntary rescue workers who assisted with 9/11 rescue activity were not granted governmental funds for treating the psychological and physical ailments they ended up developing, including post-traumatic stress disorder-induced bruxism and respiratory disease (Heart, 2012).
Give 5 major health care concerns that were identified in the
film, in reference to
population and
public health, and the
behavior of individuals and other groups that may influence health system.
1. Comprehensive healthcare services coverage: Sicko begins with a collection of interesting patient profiles, including a middle-aged wife and husband who lost their home to hospital bills, and, shockingly, a
carpenter who had to decide on which of his two cut-off fingers to fix back to his hand as he could not afford to pay for having both reattached! The failures of the U.S. private healthcare system…
