Posted on 12/22/2004 8:08:50 PM PST by Lando Lincoln
The Los Angeles Times has details on Michael Moore's latest piece of propaganda theater--a hit on the health care/pharmaceutical industry titled "Sicko:"
Rumors are already flying within the industry about Moore's moviemaking tactics. Moore, it is said, has hired actors to portray pharmaceutical salesmen who offer gifts to doctors who promote their products. There's also word that he's offered physicians $50,000 apiece to install secret cameras in their offices in an effort to document alleged corruption.
In September, employees said that Moore was shoving a microphone at people at GlaxoSmithKline, Bloom notes, even though he was in town only for a radio appearance.
"We have six business centers nationwide, all of which report 'sightings,' " Bloom said. "Michael Moore is becoming an urban legend."
Tentatively titled "Sicko," Moore's film will probably be released in the first half of 2006, sometime between the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. No deal has yet been reached, but an announcement is expected after the new year. There's interest in the industry, he says, on the part of some of the major studios and not just their specialty divisions.
Quick aside: My hubby worked in the health care field (both government and pharma) for several years, and I'm well aware of a lot of the crap--kickbacks, marketing violations, pricing shenanigans, etc.--that goes on.
That said, unhinged pharma-bashers like Moore put all the blame for America's health care crisis on greedy drug companies--and none on Americans themselves. One of the biggest factors driving up health care costs and fueling pharma is obesity.
Nearly 130 million adults are overweight in the US alone, and 60 million of them are considered clinically obese. RTI concluded last year that the health care costs associated with obesity now rival those attributable to smoking. Obesity costs in the U.S. totaled up to $92.6 billion last year, and government-funded public insurers Medicare and Medicaid financed about half the bill.
Instead of whingeing (it's my word of the day) about the high cost of cholesterol drugs and diabetes treatments and gastric bypass surgeries, and instead of demonizing the pharma innovators who are rescuing Americans from their destructive vices, Michael Moore could actually do some good for the country by taking personal responsibility and turning the camera on himself.
The demon is in the mirror, dude.
Well let's see here. Spent one night in the hospital -- you make it sound like he was there on vacation. If he spent a night in the hosital, I suppose he was sick -- and I wonder what he was sick with. Let's examine that bill:
Phsycians on call (more than one if it was a complicated case) -- should we not pay those who spent the first 30 years of their life so we could save yours? How about nursing -- again a floor of nurses at your beck and call for every little thing, not to mention medication administration and general observation -- you are right, they do not deserve any renumeration either. Lab tests -- certainly he was not put in the hospital just for grins, we needed pathologists, lab techs, lab machines, phlebotomists and other people to make sure the blood was drawn and analyzed in a proper time. How about radiology for any films, CT scan, or MRI that needed doing. The emergency room (likely route of intake) -- those are the employees who say to a city -- give us your worst and we will take care of them. Never mind the fact that if needed, there was a fully staffed operating room with at least 4 nurses, one anesthesiologist and surgeon also on-call. What if things become unstable? Just a short little walk to that fully staffed intensive care unit for one to one nursing and another physician for your safety.
And for the bonus round -- one bad outcome, and here come the lawyers suing for the medical lottery. Instead of complaining, perhaps you should focus on the most important part of your whole statement -- HE WALKED OUT OF THE HOSPITAL, meaning, I assume, he was treated and returned to his normal function. What do you think this is worth? We are here day and night for your safety and health, and you think we should not be paid. You may get your wish in oncoming years -- I saddled myself and family with a quarter of a million dollars in educational debt to be your doctor, and spent 30 years in formal education so I could treat you and you opine that there is some good a fat commie slob can do with his antiamerican propaganda? Crawl back from under the rock from which you came. Next time, say thanks and thank God your loved one can get the world's best health care for a reasonable price...
Michael Moore...the Evil Rove's secret weapon.
I'll tell what would work...shutting up and going along with a Conservative Agenda, which will never happen 'cuz DemRATS are addicted to an ever-expanding Federal Leviathan!!
So the Left will be discarded to the ashbin of history...MUD
I wish someone would do a movie just about his ways of fabricating his "documentaries" and pay people to have secret cameras to film him filming others- then the squealing would start .By the way- I have a row of bad discs from trying to hoist these huge patients when they come into ICU and there needs to be 4 or 5 people to turn or pull them up safely - good luck- but the only fat people we can talk about are people like Rush Limbaugh in his former shape- then it is perfectly acceptable.
OUTSTANDING RANT AWARD! ;-D
More than one nurse--one for meds, one for supervising) housekeeping, medicare forms to be filled out (34 pages per patient, each and every one) dietary, IV meds and pumps, all the supplies he or any patient might conceivably need including urinals, bedside commodes, catheters, every medication the doctor might conceivably order (pharmacist all day and all night, plus techs) insurance paperwork, payroll department, billing department, hospital attorneys, crash cart up, checked and ready for running 24/7/365 with every medication that might conceivably be needed, respiratory techs on duty 24/7/365--what do they think a hospital is, anyway?
Not to mention a cardiac cath lab, all the equipment for it, staff for it, a helicopter, pad, pilots, personnel, ambulances--one night in the hospital with everything potentially needed at the beck and call of the patient who needs it...
God have mercy on a hospital that has a patient with an unfortunate outcome that doesn't have, not only all that stuff and more, but DOCUMENTATION TO PROVE IT.
Hi gas_dr. Your response is superb. That famous litigator, John Edwards, was offering himself as the saviour of the American health care system. Now a morbidly obese film maker is telling us how to live. Where do they get these guys?
"Medical Economics" & "Hotel Economics" are "Apples & Oranges!"
You need to learn A LOT about the costs of "Hospitalization!"
In SOME RESPECTS your Concerns are Well Founded, but you apparently have NO Concept of the added costs REQUIRED BY "Lawyer-Driven" "Rules & Regulations!"
The "Odds Are," that the "Hospital" you "Stayed in" BARELY BROKE EVEN--or LOST MONEY--on your "Stay!"
Doc
30 years ed???
Let's see
Elementary: 6-7 years
Junior high: 2-3 years
High school: 4 years
Bachelor's: 4 years
Med school: 4 years
Residency: 3-7 years
I assume you're a brain or heart surgeon, since these specialties need a previous residency on internal medicine.
Anyway, that's an awfully long time, and I commend you for that!!!
Exactly!
Kinda like HRC trying to take over health care and then saying in an interview (I believe with Dan Rather) that she had only recently become aware of the importance of diet and nutrition in relation to health.
AMEN1
I have a good friend who was a personal friend of Otto Frank. She said to me "There were no fat people in Concentration Camps" ...Her meaning is clear. The heaviest among us shouldn't lay blame on anyone else. We all have vices of some sort that we struggle with, but they belong to us.
Obesity is in my family. I have a sister who is close to 400 pounds and two family members who have had the gastric bypass surgery. I sympathize with the weight issue, but not the blame game.
Michael Moore will, one day, beg the very same people for his life that he degrades today.
Thanks, i have not had a really good rant in a while. Needless to say, I just got home from being on-call for 7 days in the ICU when I wrote this; I usually am a little more polite. :)
Wouldn't it be cheaper for me to hire my own nurse and rent my own equipment, as needed, than to go to a hospital? Full-time care from a RN doesn't even come close to $1,000 a day.
Maybe that's what I should do next time I get sick.
I mean, to be honest with you, I'm pretty angry about this. I think I'd rather die than pay the charges hospitals are presently making. I don't mind giving doctors a lot of money because they're highly skilled, but this is ridiculous, and I don't think the doctors are getting most of the money.
After all, I'd rather get room service from the Four Seasons than eat at a hospital cafeteria! It boggles the mind that the cafeteria's more expensive.
D
Well, then, you have a Merry Christmas, FRiend. Hope you don't have to work NY. God bless.
Sure, a "Nurse @ the "Four Seasons" does "Wonders" for a Cold, or Sprained Ankle, but THAT SCENARIO falls FAR SHORT of required care for Sepsis, a Cardiac Infarct, a Pulmonary Embolus, Most Cancers, Appendicitis with Peritonitis, an Aortic Aneurism, etc., etc., etc...
"Hospitals" exist to care for the "Deathly Ill."
A Hospital is NOT a Hotel, & Nurses are NOT Doctors----NOT EVEN CLOSE!!
My Post was Partly an Objection to the 100-500% "Cost Overruns" created by the Amoral Intervention of "Liability Lawyers" into the Practice of Medicine in America.
Doc
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