Michael Moore's Latest Target: Your HMO

Should be another interesting and controversial release from Moore:

With "Sicko" Filmmaker Seeks To Do To Health Care What He Did With Politics And Gun Violence (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/19/entertainment/main2828102.shtml?source=mostpop_story)

boy, is he really going to step on some toes with this. i have read a while back, that because of his trip to Cuba, this administration was going to try and confiscate this film and keep in from being released. the other films he has i have really enjoyed

Subject matter aside that guy makes me sick. He's a jerk.
My Humble opinion.

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peace

Subject matter aside that guy makes me sick. He's a jerk.
My Humble opinion.

What's worse though... him or the sad state of our nation's health care?

That's thing catch-22 about Michael Moore. You don't want to like the man, but you end up respecting what he does to open your eyes to the world without the rose-colored glasses. I can't stand Moore, but because of his controversy, you tend to see things a little bit differently.

Subject matter aside that guy makes me sick. He's a jerk.
My Humble opinion.

You may now continue OnTopic.

peace
why? he may go about his business alittle unusual, but i like how he mixes truths and half truths

I can't stand Michael Moore because he twists facts and flat out lies to make his point, but I would love to see him to take a shot at the healthcare system because for whatever reason, he ruffles the feathers of the decision makes.

I have a friend who has to take Rhemicade for a condition. Rhemicade is an intravenous drug that he gets every eight weeks and basically allows him to live his life normally(lift weights, rock climb, etc). Without it, he'd be in extreme pain and his joints would lock up. The cost of this wonder drug is $20,000 per treatment, for 32oz of liquid that is very easy to synthesize and mass produce. Fortunately, he has very good insurance that covers it, but what about people with poor or no health insurance? I'd be willing to bet that if you don't have health insurance, you can't afford 60k-120k per year to be able to live like everyone else.

Ugh. I'd love to go toe to toe with this douchebag in a healthcare debate.

First I gotta say that the American healthcare system is pretty busted up. But you can't blame the HMOs or the drug companies for that as Moore does in his film. The HMOs don't pull mad profits from their business. It's a low-margin business.

I can see an argument against pharmaceutical companies to some extent, because they pull in massive profits. But you can't get all up in arms about one particular drug costing an insane amount of money. People like to say oh well that drug only costs $10 to make and they're charging $100 for it. Well that's because they spent $80 researching other possible drugs and vaccines that were deemed either ineffective or unsafe by the FDA. Pharmeceutical R&D is a huge expense and has to be factored into the equation for the drugs that do actually make it to the market.

What's worse though... him or the sad state of our nation's health care?

What's "sad" about our health care system?

What's "sad" about our health care system?

The fact that if you come to my hospital for an emergency appendectomy and you have a PPO or HMO with Aetna, we'll get paid about $3500 by your insurance company.

If you come in with Cigna, your insurer pays us $6000.

If you don't have insurance and you come in for the same emergency appendectomy, we'll charge you $150,000. You probably won't pay it, but we'll probably force you to give us at least $20,000 and call it a day.

All for the same procedure. So the worse your coverage is, the more your insurance company pays us. Then the crappy insurance companies have to pass the cost on to the people. In the end, only white collar employees with PPOs end up with affordable healthcare premiums.

I'm not kidding. It's common for hospitals to do; it seems unscrupulous but you can't even blame them because of the way the system is set up. If the hospitals don't get paid that well by just a few insurance companies, the cost of treating Medicaid patients would put us out of business.