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If you haven't had a chance to see Michael Moore's, "Sicko," by all means, run out now and view this movie. It's non-partisan and touches upon many of the inadequacies of our for-profit health care system, where large corporations care more about the bottom line than your health. Our broken health care system is just one example of many where praying at the alter of Capitalism has beset us with a cancer, metastasizing throughout society.

The movie has been so effective, it's even forced Blue Cross/Blue Shield to acknowledge its power. From Michael Moore's website, we have a confidential memo written by a BCBS executive after seeing the movie, as he attempts to clarify its effectiveness:

You would have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore's movie, he is an effective storyteller. In Sicko Moore presents a collage of injustices by selecting stories, no matter how exceptional to the norm, that present the health insurance industry as a set of organizations and people dedicated to denying claims in the name of profit. Denial for treatments that are considered "experimental" is a common story, along with denial for previous conditions, and denial for application errors or omissions. Individual employees from Humana and other insurers are interviewed who claim to have actively pursued claim denial as an institutionalized goal in the name of profit.

It's a stunning admission by Blue Cross/Blue Shield...

Another resource that details the deficiencies in our health care system is a wonderful book by Jonathan Cohn called, coincidentally, "Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis - And the People Who Pay the Price."

From one review:

Overcrowded emergency rooms force ambulances to drive patients to more distant hospitals; the uninsured crowd emergency rooms for nonemergency health care, adding to the problem as hospitals and patients struggle to balance supply and demand, and profitability. New Republic reporter Cohn offers personal stories of families--and the nation--suffering health-care crises. A man who has lost his health insurance watches his wife die of cancer that might have been detected earlier if he'd had better coverage, a Texas woman fights with her insurer to get her disabled baby therapy that could help him learn to walk. Cohn presents case after case of Americans bereft of adequate health care coverage after losing their jobs, or seeing their employers cut back on coverage, or insurers fight to provide the minimum of coverage. Cohn uses each case study to provide a historical and modern perspective on insurance and health care delivery, and the factors that have led to the current crisis.

C'mon, America, let's stop equating Universal Health Care with Socialized Medicine! It's not...

Most of the Democratic candidates have plans for one form or another of universal or near-universal health care. Here's one, for instance, by Barack Obama.

Let's vote in a Democrat for president next year and get on board with all the other Western, developed nations that have Universal Health Care Coverage for all!

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