Sicko

I caught the film Sicko by Michael Moore on cable some days back. It talked about how screwed up the American health care system was. I have similar sentiments since I had to pay over 300 US dollars for health insurance when I was there and I was limited to only a few approved clinics. The health care system in US is privatised and people have to buy their own insurance. They have to go to hospitals approved by their insurance companies for treatment. For people without any insurance or money, they will be kicked out of the hospitals and left on the streets. Hospitals become for-profit organisations instead of places for healing and doctors routinely cut down on treatment to save costs. This is capitalism at its worst.

The USA is the only country in the Western world without universal health care and so Michael Moore went to other countries to find out how they operated their health care systems. The countries he visited (Canada, England and France) all provided free health care for everything, and nobody had to pay for anything. In France, the welfare can be described as just superb. They have a house call doctor on standby 24 hours a day and people who are sick can just call the number and the doctor will arrive within 15 minutes. And yes, it's absolutely free. The French take socialism to the extreme when it comes to welfare for new mothers. They are entitled to 6 months of maternity leave and what's more, during the first few weeks after giving birth, the government will send someone over everyday to help out, and this can include doing the laundry. The show says that this is because in France, the government is afraid of the people while in the USA, the people are afraid of the government.

There is a place in the USA, though, where there is free health care. It's Guantanamo Bay where they provide free medical care for terrorists. Then, Moore did something which I thought was damn power. He loaded the 911 volunteers (who had gotten diseases while helping out but were neglected by the government) into boats and set off for Guantanamo. He demanded the same free health care for the volunteers but were denied. So, stuck in Cuba, they walked around and they were surprised to find that they provide free health care as well. They subsequently got the medical care they needed at no cost. They must be thinking that their own country, the USA, the most powerful country in the world, is more screwed up than a third world communist country.

Free health care is possible. Even though I think it would be unrealistic to have a system like France's, I wish our healthcare system will look to France for inspiration rather than the US. We are a socialist country after all.