The Problem With Money - Part 2 (Universal Healthcare and the US)

I rewatched the brilliant Michael Moore documentary "Sicko" yesterday and it pissed me off just as much as it did first time around. Not because I didn't like the film, as I said, its fantastic. Not because I don't like Michael Moore, I think he makes awesome films that really confront the powers that be.

The reason that it pisses me off is because I cannot believe that in America, the land of the free, that people have become so downtrodden that they accept things the way they are!!! I am disgusted that Americans haven't stood up and said "we want universal health care so that each of us, the great and the least, can be looked after in our times of need!" The concept of universal health care isn't even particularly revolutionary, as Moore so clearly points out during the film. America are the only developed nation in the world to not have Universal Healthcare!

Being an Australian, I grew up hearing things about the US health system. One of my neighbours, who grew up in the US, injured himself during a trip to the land of the free. I remember overhearing him telling my father how much debt he racked up paying his medical bills. But I really didn't understand it, after all, I live in Australia. In Australia we have medicare. You go to the hospital, you give them your medicare number and hey presto they look after you. Our system isn't as good as many seem, however for anything life threatening you're basically covered.

So the US system was always completely foreign to me. The big question is... how the hell do they put up with it! How do those without not march like women did, like the African Americans did. How do those that have it not look at their fellow Americans suffering and say "NO!!!". How can they be so callous, so uncaring. As Moore says in the film, "Who are we?"

At the end of the day it is a problem of money. Profit is the goal of business... to make more money than you lose. But the law dictates that there are certain areas one cannot make a profit. One of these areas is that of illegal drugs. I cannot legally sell drugs for a profit because society has deemed the danger I cause to be of a greater negative than my freedom to make a profit. Another is as a hitman. Yet denying people lifesaving healthcare is considered a good way to make profit!

The rich of the world constantly put profit above people and somehow the rest of us allow it to happen. On this issue, the rest of the world aren't so malicious and uncaring though. We have other failings when it comes to profit before people, but we basically have healthcare right. The Americans sadly continue to allow it to happen.

Micheal Moore brilliantly highlights this disgusting problem in the USA and I reccomend everybody go and see the movie.