This may a little late, but I finally watched Sicko.

[DUlover2909]

First of all, I love Michael Moore even more for what he did. But my GOD! I have Aetna through my work. After watching that I have NO CONFIDENCE that I will be taken care of if I get REALLY SICK. I'm sure this has been hashed out over and over, but OMG I am afraid! My only hope is to go to another country for comprehensive healthcare? That's what I got from it. I can't pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket. If something happens to me, my healthcare provider has an incentive to fuck me off? My good lord, this is an utter absurdity.

[elleng]

1. Do you have your own policy,

as an employee, or something?

Dunno about aetna, but I have bc/bs thru govt employee, so I don't worry. I may just be stupid, tho.

[DUlover2909]

3. I have no idea what I have, sadly. I got a co-pay card.

I figured that would cover me no matter what. After today I think me and my employer are just wasting the money paid into premiums. They cover simple things so far, but if I get something serious? I have no idea.

[elleng]

4. So you got coverage thru work, right?

What size business?

Prolly doesn't matter,really. I think yu should assume you're covered properly; read the aetna's booklet about coverage, do things pproperly, and don't worry.

Employer should have booklet from aetna explaining the coverage, including 'catastrophic,' doctor visits, hospitalization, everything. Get the booklet and read it.

Good luck.

[lligrd]

2. K&R

[joeybee12]

5. I am a late comer to the movie, and I HATED it!

It pissed me off so much that he made such a terrible movie about such an important topic. It just meandered all over the place without any real focus. I agree that the healthcare system in this country is in tatters, and perhaps that's why I was so angry the movie sucked...it could have been more influential if it had been good.

[Jensen]

6. I loved the movie but it did get me very angry and it was another reason I stopped supporting Hill!

[mac2]

7. Public Citizen will tell you our health system like everything

else is broken. We are 35th in the world for care. Gradually every service, etc. has been out sourced and may not be available to you. Aetna is not a good plan but some have no choice since employers may do as they choose.

http://www.citizen.org/hrg/index.cfm

Even if you have employer health insurance you pay a lot of deductible for each year. Seniors are so confused they have no idea what is good and what is bad.

Doctors treat everything wrong with you (especially over 65) with pills. Some making you worse off than before with their side effects.

I tried to sign up for insurance and needed two forms. One arrived and their other needed from the company is outsourced from India. The insurance called to see where it was. Just walk down to the personnel office she said. We can't do that since we live here and don't know where the personnel office is today. It may be Atlanta. It may be India. She said, she has a pile just like mine waiting for the other form.

Our private information has been outsourced to foreign countries. Little our Congress cares. Our President encourages and probably profits off it.

We are losing business to Canada because of their national health plans. Detroit has lost their automobile businesses to them. We need to do the same to compete with Canada and the rest of the countries such as Britain, France, Germany, etc.

Where do Americans work you bone heads in DC? Your incompetence has ruined our whole health system. It's not Bin Laden who ruined our way of life it's you and your greed.

[Solon]

8. To be honest, our health care system was set up to "fail" most Americans since the 1970s...

You can't really blame Bush for it, it predates him, and as Moore indicated, Nixon is to take a large part of the blame. The problem is two fold, the first is that the insurance companies only make money if they deny care to prospective patients. This is exactly the opposite of how we've been told "free market" systems work, companies are supposed to provide better service or products to make more money, in the case of insurance companies, that's not true.

The second one is the actual "market" which isn't the health care industry, but people, specifically healthy people. The more who are able to pay their premiums and NOT get sick, the more money the insurance companies make. The problem is this, people aren't manufactured on assembly lines, yet, so all insurance companies compete for for a inflexible resource. This means the more insurance companies that exist, the higher the premiums, and service declines. Again, this is completely opposite of how we were told the "free market" system is supposed to work.

Now, the economic decline that has been ushered in under Bush has worsened this problem and therefore made it more obvious, but, to be honest, this problem isn't new, it was just thrown under the rug. If a bunch of poor people die because their insurance company decided not to cover them, why would the rest of America care? Now its beginning to affect people who are in the middle class, so NOW we are taking notice, we should have paid attention years ago, but better late than never, I suppose.

[mac2]

9. Bush allowed the insurance companies to do as they please..

no regulations, over sight, etc. I did pay attention since the 70s but no one worries until they are sick. I worked in the medical field and saw the attitude and regulation drop.

We can't fix it so we should abandon the present system. It is broken. Only National Health Care will bring down costs and give us care for all. Other developed countries do better with less. We are low on the list. Unless you believe all those stories about poor care in Canada, etc. we won't get what we need.

They are stealing our companies left and right because of health care costs. It is good economics to go to a health care plan which is non-profit and government regulated.