Sicko
posted in - Palmdoc, - Reviews |Michael Moore, the infamous producer of Fahrenheit 911, is at it again, this time the target being the American health care industry. The maverick producer is now taking up the case against private and “for profit” medicine, declaring that he prefers a socialist model instead.
You can watch the official trailer here:
Even if it doesn’t arrive on our shores, apparently the movie has already been (ahem) leaked on Bittorrent sites. The cool thing is that Michael apparently doesn’t mind.
Moore’s stance on file-sharing is that it’s okay so as long people aren’t profiting from it. He feels that the message behind his films are what’s most important, and that he does well enough financially that he’s more concerned with spreading ideas than he is with ensuring that everybody properly pays to hear them.
Anyway the documentary is enjoyable and entertaining mainly because of Michael’s brusque style of dealing with the flaws in the expensive American health care system. Reviews on Sicko are popping up all over the net and you may want to read e.g. this Review by Joe Utichi.
While this is about the American health system, I think some points are relevant to us in Malaysia. Do we want a purely socialist style of medicine where the Government runs everything, and there are only public hospitals and no private medical centres? How efficiently run will such a system be? On the other hand what about the concerns that some private hospitals put profit above patients? What about our local insurance companies declining to insure the elderly, the sick and those with “pre-existing illnesses”? The “denial of claims” in Sicko sound all too familiar to me.
Moore takes us through various health care systems where citizens need not worry about the cost of medicine: Canada, UK, France and Cuba. I am sure many Americans would be ashamed to see their relatively lowly ranking by health care indicators such as infant mortality. I was impressed by the French system where you could even get doctors who perform house calls (SOS Medecins) – so house calls are not extinct after all! It was telling that Moore mentioned something which made an impression on me. Why is it that the Governments like the French provide free health care for their citizens? It’s because the French Government fears the people. The true power lies in the hands of the citizens of the land. It’s when the people are oppressed, be it by debt and almighty corporates/HMOs or other forms of controls and threats, that the system becomes truly sick. I truly pray and hope our health care system won’t slip and slide into what the American one has become.
One upon a time when things were simple, Malaysians had a good health care system with an excellent primary care network which reached into rural areas attending to maternal and childcare needs, vaccination and primary prevention. Government hospitals were well constructed for their day – spread out in well ventilated buildings. Doctors were happy in public service and received a decent remuneration.
Over the years, things have begun to deteriorate. Medicine got more sophisticated and more expensive. The Government began to balk at the increasing medical burden it had to bear and began to slash costs by privatisation and corporatisation of some parts of the health services. Private hospitals boomed but there still is no national health insurance so the public are at the mercy of a hodge podge of insurance companies and HMOs. Many remain uninsured and have to rely on their savings for medical expenses. Public doctors and nurses salaries have not kept up with inflation and now lag far behind market reality. Poor salaries and lack of fair promotion opportunities have led to mass resignations to greener pastures locally and abroad. See Moore’s interview with the NHS GP and it was telling that if you reward your staff adequately for their work, you have people who are quite content to stay in public service!
Corruption and ineffective/incompetent management have led to things like Sick new public hospitals in Malaysia.
Sicko is an entertaining documentary indeed. Well worth the download watch. It makes you think, does Malaysia need a Michael Moore to shake things up?
This documentary has, as you can imagine, created much controversy in America. Michael Moore already has more than his fair share of critics and this movie will bring forth even more, such as Michelle Malkin. Michelle’s rebuttal is also worth a view as it highlight s some points to counter Moore.
So who’s the sicko then? Perhaps as Kevin MD says, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
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July 2nd, 2007 at 6:59 am
CNN reports that most of Michael’s statistics checks out correct
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/28/sicko.fact.check/index.html
November 4th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
“Over the years, things have begun to deteriorate.”
If the government of this country wants, I mean REALLY want, to do something to improve the health care delivery, it definitely can!
It’s a matter of having the will.
Our country is rich in natural resources but like other Asian countries like Indonesia, the Philippine, Thailand etc, the money is being squandered away by successive governments!
If the riches is put to good use for the benefit the people, our situation would be far, far better then what it is today.
I think the people, including the Rulers, are coming to grips with reality NOW!
It may be rather late in the day as the wealth of this country has been more or less depleted.
What I find very troubling is that there are still Malaysians who think that the BN government deserves accolades for doing a good job!
Perhaps it serves us right to have such a government for so long!