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Senators precisely how I feel about America’s health care system today. my ring finger at $12,000, I’ll choose to have my middle finger sewn on first just so I can visually demonstrate to U.S. And if, like one person featured in the film, I ever have to choose between reconnective surgery for my middle finger at $60,000 vs. It opens on June 29th. Go see it. It’s all true, and it\’s pretty damn scary. In fact, as a person who has been writing about America’s health care problems for four years, I didn’t detect a single false statement in the film. It’s surprisingly even-handed and well grounded, never resorting to unsubstantiated claims merely to shock the audience.

The bottom line on SiCKO It’s a must-see documentary. In fact, it will join a long (and growing) list of civilizations that have risen and fallen, securing its place in the pages of history as yet another imperialist nation that thought it could rule the world while abandoning the needs of its own people. It won’t be the first empire to crumble from arrogance and corruption. I predict America will not survive its health care crisis.

And make no mistake: that’s what’s coming. The Big Business sick care industry has a stranglehold on the American political system, and the whole ugly thing will mostly likely have to collapse and be rebooted before we\’ll see significant change. Personally, I don\’t see that meaningful reform is possible under the current system of politics in America. They\’re only concerned about the next election, and raising campaign reelection funds means kow-towing to the interests of the powerful corporations that really run Washington.

Lawmakers, you see, have no interest in actually saving America from financial demise. I\’ve offered many suggestions in a popular article, The health care reform legislation that Congress should pass, but won\’t. Truly radical changes must be put into place. As Moore points out, however, there is a chance to save America, but only if we make significant changes starting now.

No nation that abandons the health of its people can expect to have a future. Under the current system of massive debt spending, widespread political corruption, war mongering and health care failures, the United States of America will simply not survive another generation. (Click here to see my CounterThink cartoon on this topic.) The future of America looks dim Clearly, something has to change in this country if we\’re going to survive as a nation. The American Cancer Society, in my opinion, is a supremely corrupt, big-business front group that actually takes steps to ensure more cases of future cancer by \”preventing prevention,\” the American Diabetes Association takes money from candy and soda manufacturers, and the American Psychiatric Association is so steeped in Big Pharma money that they\’ve practically become inseparable. Drug advertising has taken over the media, the FDA has suppressed natural alternatives, and the American Medical Association continues to peddle such health nonsense that it\’s amazing the AMA hasn\’t yet been invited to join the Smithsonian\’s Museum of Outdated American History.

Nearly 50 percent of American adults are now taking pharmaceuticals, most of which are utterly unnecessary from a medical point of view. You can\’t \”treat\” your way out of a nation that has become so over-drugged, over-fed and over-diseased that even the little children are now being put on speed (also called \”Ritalin\”). But as I\’ve pointed out in a previous article, Where\’s the Health In Health Care Reform?, almost nobody is considering proposals that would genuinely solve the health care problem in America today. The movie will definitely get America talking about serious health care reforms.

Ron Paul, of course). The truth is, Big Pharma owns virtually all the politicians in Washington (except Rep. Edward Kennedy. Democrats, though, are also on Big Pharma\’s payroll, as was obvious with the recent voting record on the FDA Revitilization Act co-sponsored by Sen. This is a tough call for Republicans, since most Republicans support Big Pharma and the corporate control of modern medicine, usually at the expense of the people.

Those politicians who run on a platform of radical health care reforms are likely to pick up a lot more support than those unwise enough to try to defend the current system. I think SiCKO\’s timing is perfect, and I think the movie will be a significant factor in the upcoming 2008 elections. How will SiCKO play? To learn more, read my article The lawlessness of the FDA, Big Pharma immunity, and crimes against humanity.

That\’s astounding, given that I\’ve solidly established the Food and Drug Administration is far more dangerous to the health and safety of the American people than all the terrorists in the world. A recent poll revealed that nearly 45% of Americans still trust the FDA! But sadly, the truth is that most Americans are sheeple who just follow the herd and do what they\’re told. Moore is an independent thinker who simply refuses to follow the crowd, and with this film, he\’s doing the job that the American people should have been doing all along — questioning the sanity of our health care system.

operates today. Regardless of Moore\’s present physical fitness challenges, he\’s obviously operating with a great degree of healthy skepticism about the way the U.S. That\’s not a joke. doctor is less than a Cuban peasant. The average lifespan of a U.S.

Many aren\’t any healthier than Moore, and they work in the industry! And besides, if you want to argue about the health of \”experts,\” just walk into any hospital and take a look at the health of all the people who work there. Moore is simply pointing out what\’s wrong with America\’s health care system, and he does so brilliantly and convincingly, regardless of his own personal health status. So the critics who attack Moore\’s own personal health are missing the whole point of the film. But he never claims to be.

Of course, it might be tricky for Moore to argue for disease prevention given that he is obviously not the poster boy for ideal physical health. Of course, that\’s not really what SiCKO set out to do, and this topic would require another film all by itself, but personally I wouldn\’t have minded a stronger nod towards solving our nation\’s health care problems through genuine prevention (rather than the current policy which is basically centered around waiting for everybody to get sick and then treating their symptoms while ignoring the true causes of their disease). But there\’s something missing from the film: A serious discussion about how a nation can prevent disease using nutrition, medicinal herbs, sunshine, clean water, avoidance of toxic chemicals, smart dietary choices, banning the advertising of junk foods and pharmaceuticals, and so on. What\’s missing from SiCKO The material that\’s in SiCKO is hard-hitting, and it accomplishes what it sets out to do.

We have a health crisis in this country, and it\’s going to take genuinely radical reforms to turn this around and save America from a financial wipeout exacerbated by runaway health care spending. Most people simply don\’t take care of their own health, and while I could argue for days about the need for more patient responsibility alongside corporate responsibility, the fact is that relentless advertising from drug companies and food manufacturers has bred a mindset of disease, junk food consumption, pharmaceutical dependence and patient victimization. (I posted my health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org if you want to see my blood workup.) At the same time, I realize that not everybody is in such a fortunate health position. I don\’t get annual physical exams, and I have zero risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes or other common health conditions. I have no need for a doctor, or a pharmaceutical, or a health insurance policy.

I\’m a holistic nutritionist, and I exercise, eat right, get lots of sunshine and gorge on superfoods and raw berries. Personally, I opted out of the American health care system long ago. health care system. It\’s so bad that most informed world citizens wouldn\’t be caught dead in this country, unless of course they actually visit America and have an accident that lands them in the U.S. America\’s health care system is an embarrassment to the nation, and to the world.

Because Michael Moore is right. Why? People attack Moore personally, but they won\’t dare debate what he\’s presenting in the movie. Other critics of Moore are either the greedy, corrupt corporations impacted by his film (drug companies, health insurance providers, hospitals and so on) or juvenile stay-at-home back-seat Internet critics who don\’t like Moore for the simple fact that he dares to stand up and say \”The Emperor Has No Clothes!\” Nearly all the criticism leveled against Moore is without substance. Just ask all the scientists who publicly disagree with the Bush Administration\’s hopelessly politicized view on climate change…

Humiliating the King is a quick way to find your head on a chopping block. Moore is clearly being targeted not merely because he took some 9/11 heroes to Cuba and got them health care, but because he dared to make it all public. officials isn\’t appreciated much in police-state America these days, where practically anyone who dares question the wisdom of the government is branded a terrorist. That kind of \”in-yo-face\” embarrassment to U.S.

In fact, Cuba is willing to take care of a few American citizens that America abandoned! The message is hard to miss: Cuba takes better care of its citizens than America does. and brought them to Cuba where they received free, quality health care in a modern Cuban hospital. Because Moore gathered a dozen Americans who were denied health care in the U.S.

And why? government officials are investigating Moore for violating travel restrictions to Cuba. For starters, U.S. Why Moore is being so vicious attacked Moore, as usual, is being targeted by all sorts of critics who would like nothing better than to see this guy disappear and stop rocking the Good \’ol Boys boat that seems to be floating just fine in America (as long as you\’re part of the wealthy elite, anyway).

See my CounterThink cartoon, The Disease Economy, for a visual representation of this mess we\’re in, or read my book Natural Health Solutions and the Conspiracy to Keep You From Knowing About Them to see just how evil and corrupt our modern health care system really is. Only America practices medicine in the Dark Ages, tied to a hopelessly corrupt system of financial exploitation and monopoly price controls, where Big Pharma gets richer, the FDA gets more powerful, and the American people get the shaft. and even some not-so-modern nations. It\’s called universal health care (or \”socialized medicine\”), and it\’s a system followed by nearly every modern nation in the world… all countries where health care is free to everyone.

In contrast to all this, Moore shows us the universal health care systems in countries like Canada, the UK, France and even Cuba… In one segment in the film, he features archival footage of former President Nixon, who strongly approves of a new 1970\’s health care concept called the \”HMO\” where the more patients are denied health care services, the more money the hospitals and health insurance companies rake in! In SiCKO, what Moore does very effectively is tells this story to a mass audience, weaving together the emotionally-charged stories of American citizens who lost husbands, daughters and other family members to preventable disease, all thanks to intentional, well-planned payment denials by health insurance companies. Click here to read my recent report on the American Cancer Society\’s refusal to help prevent 77% of all cancers using affordable, scientifically-proven vitamin D supplements.

There\’s no money in preventing disease, especially in the cancer industry. I\’ve been ranting about America\’s health care failures for years, and as I\’ve consistently stated to the amazement of some, the health care corporations actually have a plan to keep people sick. It reveals the deep-rooted corruption in America\’s health care system and explains why the whole system was actually designed to deny health care to the American people. Watching this movie will leave you either steaming mad or shedding tears (or both). Forget whatever criticism you may have heard about SiCKO — this is a Michael Moore masterpiece: A courageous, impactful and outrageous documentary that exposes the arrogance of modern medicine and the utter failure of America\’s corporate-controlled sick care system to provide decent health care to the people.

SiCKO is a must-see documentary SiCKO creator Michael Moore answers that all-important question in his best documentary yet. (Click here to see our CounterThink cartoon on President Bush\’s price negotiations with drug companies.) What\’s wrong with America\’s health care system? Why are hospitals literally dumping uninsured patients on the street, abandoning the sick to protect profits while our politicians actually negotiate on behalf of Big Pharma to make sure Americans keep paying the highest prices in the world for medications? But if our health care system is really so good, why do 50 million Americans have no health insurance? We spend more on health care than anyone, we pay the highest prices for medications, and we\’re constantly told that we have the best medical technology in the world.

Meanwhile, the American people are the most diseased people in the world among advanced nations. to learn more about this topic. See my CounterThink cartoon, Disease Mongers, Inc. Drug companies are now among the richest corporations in the world, and they got there by inventing fictitious diseases, then selling drugs to people who mostly don\’t need them.

And while the American people get sicker, the drug companies, insurance companies and many health \”care\” providers (it’s really more like \”sick care providers\”) are rolling in cash. The drug companies, surgeons, medical specialists, health insurance companies and private hospitals are making out like bandits, raking in multi-million dollar CEO salaries and — I\’m not making this up — greater than 500,000% markups on prescription drugs. But not everybody’s doing badly. are due to medical expenses.

Meanwhile, 50 percent of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. Multinational corporations are fleeing the United States due to health care costs, taking jobs and economic productivity with them. Just about everybody\’s either financially strained or going broke due to spiraling health care costs: the people, the employers, state governments and even the federal government. America\’s disastrous health care system is heaving the country head-first into near-certain economic collapse.

There are many different types of health insurance, and some of these can seem confusing. Here are types of health coverage, what each type of health coverage means, and how to understand them. (more…)

Information about the limitations placed on pre-existing condition exclusion periods.

An index of Articles for the Health Insurance guide site.

Find out why COBRA premiums may be higher than you thought they would be.

Ultimately all health care is paid for by business activity. Business provides the wages, the return on investment, the insurance, the taxes that pay directly for health care, and the insurance and taxes that fund government programs. When the government manages to provide services at all, it can give you nothing that it does not take from you or others, or from your employer and other employers. The total added value the government creates for your benefit is nothing.

The government now uses your money to pay for 50 percent of health care. That is up from less than 10 percent, forty years ago. The increase in health care costs that has accompanied this process is largely caused by government...the actual origin of the "health care crisis," discovered and proclaimed by Richard Nixon and Edward Kennedy in 1971. Their proposed solution was more government. They got it.

The "crisis" was created by government, not just through its own reckless spending, but through the consequent destruction of much of the free market.

In a free market, if you did not have much to spend on insurance premiums, you could buy a policy that simply covers you for a major illness or a severe injury. Many people worry about the financial ruin that might result from such misfortune and want coverage only for that. They are willing to take their own risk for routine medical expenses if they have reasonable coverage for emergencies.

Such policies are often forbidden by state governments. In California, for example, such policies are not available. Legislators and regulators have imposed 49 specific coverage requirements on all insurance companies. Many states have such requirements. It does not matter if you do not want coverage for chiropractic, or in vitro fertilization, or electronic shock or hypnotherapy for mental illness...you may still have to pay for it. That is, providers in the insurance business are not allowed to offer a policy that you might want and that they would like to offer...they are forbidden. If those restrictions drive the cost of insurance up to more than you can pay, you can thank the government. Insurance policies will get even more expensive in California if the recent proposal of the Governor to require coverage of such "wellness" care as gym and Weight Watcher memberships becomes law.

There are those in the insurance business in other states who could help you with a policy that meets your needs at a cost you can afford. But they cannot, because policies from out-of-state providers are outlawed by your state government. When bills were proposed in Congress to allow for a national market for health insurance, insurance commissioners and other state officials around the country rallied in opposition, because consumers in each state would lose the protection of their state's regulations. It appears that state officials are horrified at that thought of leaving the citizens of their own states to the tender mercy of the regulators in other states.

But relief is on the way. Massachusetts passed a law that you must buy insurance with these expensive regulatory burdens or pay a fine. Isn't that helpful? California now wants to do the same thing and also wants all physicians and hospitals to pay a new tax...not on net income but on gross revenues. That will increase their billings and your insurance premiums further. But who cares?...you would have to buy the insurance, and imposing coverage on everyone is all that matters.

As a consumer, it is your right and responsibility to review what a plan includes to ensure it meets your individual needs and lifestyle.

California residents who are in the market for health insurance make sure they are aware of what they are buying before they make a purchase. If a consumer is buying a plan through their employer or as an individual, they should always be aware of what is covered under the plan and what is. They should have a good estimation of what would happen to them financially in the event of various scenarios such as a chronic illness requiring long-term care or a catastrophic accident. This can be done by making sure you are familiar with the plan’s deductible, covered services, and out-of-pocket limits.

California health insurance consumers should also make sure they are aware of the types of preventive care covered under their plan. For example, at what age does the plan cover a mammogram for women? At what age does it cover a prostrate specific antigen test for men? Does the plan offer a website where you can find information about health conditions and symptoms? What types of prenatal care are offered? Does the plan offer coverage for vision benefits such as visits to the eye doctor, or for dental services?

Other questions to ask include: Does the plan offer prescription drug coverage, and if so does this coverage help pay for birth control pills? What doctors and providers are part of the plan? What will happen if you receive services out of network?

Does the plan offer support services such as counseling, drug and alcohol rehabilitative services, or an 800 number for assistance with personal issues? What types of treatment – for example, homeopathic - are excluded by the plan?

Knowing beforehand what to expect for their health insurance plan can help California health insurance consumers make the best choices.