Comments on: Sicko (and what to do about it)

By: Siel

Siel — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:32:14 +0000

Wow! I can’t imagine getting a $110,000 bill in the mail — scary! Glad to hear things got resolved.

Jeffrey — Certainly government is not a human being, but government also doesn’t have the demand for bottom-line profits that corporations are required to have.

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 15:27:54 +0000

So, almost 5 years ago, my daughter arrived via emergency C-section (abrupted placenta), and spent 5 days in the NICU (all is fine now). My wife and I had been visiting the same OB/GYN since the third month of the pregnancy, and the insurance had been dutifully covering the $40 office visits. Lo and behold, when the $110,000 bill for the birth arrives (emergency C-section, surgeon, NICU, etc., etc.) the insurance company DENIES coverage, claiming that our doctor (the above-mentioned OB/GYN) is not in the network.

Of course, we fought the decision and, thankfully, they eventually paid. However, I am ABSOLUTELY convinced, because of this and several other shady attempts to screw me, that it is the standard operating procedure of insurance companies to deny coverage. It’s just a numbers game. If they deny coverage and only 10%, even 1%, of the policy holders go along, think of the profit.

RE: the above comment… “This is America, and corporate profit is good, the profit motive forming the basis America’s greatness” is a bit too simplistic I think. America’s greatness, what remains of it, is based on ideas other than profit maximization: equality, justice, support for basic human rights, self-determination, etc. However, too often we fail to live up to the very ideals that make us (potentially) great. The profit motive is not evil per se, but it is easily corrupted and perhaps inevitably damaging absent these more fundamental ideals. However, you are right that corporations (specifically) and the protections they have are largely to blame for many evils.

Brian

By: Jefrey Dach MD

Jefrey Dach MD — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 09:38:57 +0000

What is the real solution, if Michael Moore’s government sponsored universal health care is not the answer? The crux of the "SICKO" documentary is the disconnect between our expectations and the reality of health care. We are expecting compassionate care from another human being, and instead we get a faceless corporation. The person behind the desk or window is an agent of a health care corporation, which is not a human being, whose primary goal is to increase corporate profit. This is America, and corporate profit is good, the profit motive forming the basis America’s greatness. The basic problem is that a corporation is not a human being. Therein lies the fallacy of replacing a corporation with a government agency, neither of which is a human being, when what we really want is a human being to deliver compassionate health care, and assist in serious health care decisions. Review of "SICKO", by Jeffrey Dach MD Jeffrey Dach MD

By: Siel

Siel — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:26:10 +0000

It's great that you at least have a nice doc willing to work with you to work the system. So did you see the film? It's up on Google Video again, for I don't know how long --

By: don hosek

don hosek — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:51:32 +0000

I had a problem with my hearing (otosclerosis) correctible with surgery (stapedectomy) . I started the process of trying to get it fixed in January of last year. I didn’t see the surgeon until August and the first surgery didn’t actually take place until October. And yet people say that there are no waits for surgery in this country. The surgeon had a number of things he went through to game the system to be able to give the care he felt was necessary despite the insurance companies (for example, although I would be spending the night in the hospital, I was admitted as an outpatient and my status changed immediately after the surgery… to make sure that I would get the correct drug for my after-care, he wrote on the prescription that I was allergic to the cheaper drug that the insurance companies would push even though it tended to damage the ear). And this is with the employer-provided insurance that Twentieth Century Fox offers. Heaven forbid my wife and I were trying to do this on individual insurance.