Sicko

I just watched Sicko. Wow! What an eye opener. I don't do movie reviews -- I leave those for the Film Geek -- but I just have to speak out about this one.

Ironically enough, I was stuck at home with a sick kid, which is about the only way I'm going to get time to watch a movie (or be able to wrestle the remote away from those determined to keep it on Spike or Noggin 24/7!) I like Michael Moore's movies, but I do admit, he sometimes exaggerates and omits info in order to make a point. (That's kinda how it goes when you want to make a point, so I don't consider that a bad thing in his work. It's like anything else, you watch it, but it's still up to you to learn all you can and consider all angles of the issue before you make your mind up.) I was really expecting this movie to be a little over-the-top, exaggerated, and making the problem out to be bigger than it really is.

However, I found it all to be a pretty logical take on the healthcare management industry, its corruption, and its ugliness. I'm not completely sold on socialized medicine, but the movie makes a lot of good points about why it works for other countries. (I still think our country is too greedy to make it work. Leave it to America to screw up a great idea.) Moore's movie centers around a group of 9/11 volunteers who have health issues stemming from 9/11, and who have been refused coverage. You won't believe where they finally get treatment they need, and how much it ends up costing them!

Of course, I'm watching this after getting royally screwed by my own insurance company. My middle son, Joseph, recently had to have surgery for an impacted tooth. The insurance company refuses to cover it because the doctor checked the box for "surgical extraction" and not "impaction." Even though he states in his paperwork that it was a badly impacted tooth and that immediate surgical removal of the tooth was medically necessary, because he didn't check that box, the insurance won't cover it. Seriously... that's the explanation I got when I called the insurance company to see why it wasn't covered. It all came down to which box was checked.]

The letter we got said:

Dear Mrs. Burch:

We have recieved a claim for a surgical procedure and are unable to provide coverage for this procedure because it costs us money. We highly recommend that next time your son has a dental issue, you get him to down a bottle of Jim Beam, grab a pair of pliers, and pull his tooth your own damn self.

Good luck with that!

Sincerely,
McHealthcare-Mart

Or something like that. (Good thing he didn't have a life-threatening illness! I would hate to see what they would recommend for a heart transplant!) So, yeah, I'm bitter, especially after so much of the family income goes straight to those bastages who say they can't pay for this sort of thing. I am tempted to take that amount of money each month and save it on my own. Even if our employers didn't match our contributions, we would at least be able to take our money and pay for our own medical expenses. Of course, it would wreck us in the case of catastrophic illness, but if they're not going to cover anything anyway, it's kind of a draw.

But I digress. After watching Moore's movie, I'm even angrier at the fact that this sort of crap goes on all the time and people aren't rioting in the streets. Regardless of how you feel about socialized medicine, I think that one thing should be obvious to everyone -- we need to fix the healthcare problem, and it needs to happen right now.

Even if you're not a Moore fan, I would highly recommend checking out this movie. Then, go out and do the research on your own and decide what you think should happen with our healthcare situation. And then, by all means, get out and do something about it. At the very least, vote. We've got to stop accepting the screwing that we get by politicians and corporations and start making this country a place where the common man (and woman) can afford to live in excellent health and happiness. We have no excuse for accepting anything less. This is America! If we can't afford healthcare, even for people who work fulltime and make decent money, something's definitely wrong.

Insurance Rant

So, BG has to go and get ear tubes put in... again. I thought it would happen. She's got really bad ears and her doctor told us point-blank that we might have to go through a few sets of tubes before she grows out of her problem. I guess I had kind of hoped we would be lucky enough to avoid surgery (and medical bills!) again, but la-la-laaaaaaaa... here we are again. The tubes fell out, her ears are full of fluid again, and she can't hear.

The sad thing is, becasue the insurance companies make all the medical decisions, she has to go on Claritin for a month before the doctor can do the tubes again. For some reason, the insurance won't pay for a second set of tubes unless you try something else in-between. He said he won't prescribe antibiotics because it's not infected, and he doesn't think a decongestant will help much, but we have to do this for a month before we can just get the tubes put in. Meanwhile, BG has to go a month without being able to hear. (I mean, she is REALLY hard of hearing. Unless she's looking at you and you're right in front of her, all she hears is a muffled noise.) Nice.

Thank you, Faceless Insurance Company Executives. It's good that you make all the decisions concerning our medical care because these doctors would certainly prescribe expensive surgery and we would certainly put her through it needlessly, just for something to do. No, don't worry, nothing's going to happen at school that requires my daughter to actually hear what's going on for the next month. Maybe her teacher will want to play charades, instead. Surely she can teach phonics through charades. We'll just wait a month for new ear tubes and try the decongestant because my doctor (who has done literally thousands of these surgeries) could know less about ear tube surgery than you do. Besides, I actually like yanking her out of school, driving an extra two hours, and paying the copay for repeated office visits we could avoid if we just got the surgery over with now. Thank you. Thank you so much. I see the added annoyance as a gift, because when it's over, I'll appreciate how much simpler life is without being tangled up in your red tape.

*headdesk*

Anyway, that's my now-deaf daughter playing at the playground, enjoying her childhood, when she doesn't have to deal with things like insurance and red-tape. Oh, to be five again...