I recently watched Michael Moore's SiCKO again and realized that the documentary is still a tear jerker, exposing the awful realities that is our excuse for a national health care system. Of course there are the deniers out there that will dismiss the findings just because Michael Moore has his name on the exposé. Despite anyone's feelings about Mr. Moore, the tragedy that is the reality in the U.S. is hard to escape unless you are ultra-wealthy or live in an area where poverty has been swept away. Perhaps the wealthy Republican elite will dismiss CBS' 60 Minutes as liberal scum, but folks, the camera doesn't lie when you hear about what is going on in the South.
From CBS News:
In a matter of hours, Remote Area Medical set up its massive clinic, for a weekend, in an exhibit hall in Knoxville, Tenn. Tools for dentists were laid out by the yard, optometrists prepared to make hundreds of pairs of glasses, general medical doctors set up for whatever might come though the door. Nearly everything is donated, and everyone is a volunteer. The care is free. But no one could say how many patients might show up.
The first clue came a little before midnight. Stan Brock, the founder of Remote Area Medical, opened the gate outside. The clinic wouldn't open for seven hours, but people in pain didn't want to chance being left out. State guardsmen came in for crowd control. They handed out what would become precious slips of paper - numbered tickets to board what amounted to a medical lifeboat.
It was 27 degrees. The young and the old would spend the night in their cars, running the engine for heat, but not much - not at $3 a gallon. At 5 a.m., Pelley took a walk through the parking lot.
"We got up at three o’clock this morning and we got here about four. We’ve been out where a little while it's cold," Margaret Walls, a hopeful patient from
Tennessee, told Pelley.
"Why did you come so early?" Pelley asked.
"'Cause we wanted to be seen," Walls replied.
That is the reality for the uninsured in America. Moore talks about the insured in SiCKO, this is about the other 45 to 50 million Americans out there. These people can't afford insurance, not at the high premiums that companies like Cigna, Aetna and Blue Cross offer. The worst thing about this story was that not everyone was able to be seen because there were just too many people. A group that donates their time and money to conditions in third world countries don't have to go very far to be helpful, a short trip to Tennessee will do just fine.
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