|
|
|
|
Jeffrey Dach, M.D. NewsLetter
"Sicko" by Michael Moore, and the Health Care Crisis
__________________________________________
Dear Friend or Colleague
Our Expectations of the Health Care System
Don't Match the Reality
Michael Moore’s documentary of the American Healthcare system,
SICKO, opened this week, June 29. Youcould have seen it free on U-Tube until last Monday when pirated copies were shut down. Moore has hidden a copy in a safge place, because the US State Department has threatened to confiscate the film stock accusing him of illegal travel to Cuba.
American movie audiences responded with strong emotional reactions both for and against the film’s message. Right wing Republican Fred Thompson had his own video reaction on U-tube, and its not very friendly to Michael Moore or his message.
SICKO's message, in a nutshell
1) the American for-profit health insurance industry is designed to maximize profit by minimizing the care delivered to patients.
2) the pharmaceutical industry is price gauging and out of control.
Athough there are 45 million Americans who have no Health insurance, Michael Moore's film concentrates on the insured Americans who faithfully pay their stiff health insurance premiums, yet are denied coverage by the insurance companies when they get sick. Prescription drugs are effective and badly needed, but cost too much.
Michael Moore's Manifesto
After the final credits, and the lights go back on, the take home message of the film is a political sales pitch for Michael Moore’s Health Care Proposal, “A prescription for Change”, which consists of three points.
1) Every resident of the US must have free universal health care for life.
2) All health insurance companies must be abolished.
3) Pharmaceutical Companies must be strictly regulated like public utilities.
Namely, the solution to our crisis is a government run, publicly-funded health care system with universal health coverage, like England, France, Canada, and Cuba. The spin meisters have responded quickly, sending out their counter messages warning that government health care is not such a great idea;
Randall E. Gebhardt, president of Quantum Health says,
"If you want to know how government-run healthcare would work, just think back to the last time you stood in line at the post office, or waited on hold for two hours with the IRS or Immigration service to check on the passport application you sent five months ago, or the news coverage you watched of relief efforts after Katrina. Just think, all your healthcare needs could be run this way."
The REAL Solution
What is the solution, if Moore’s government sponsored universal health care is not the answer?
The crux of the Sicko documentary is the disconnect between our expectations and the reality of health care. We are expecting compassionate care from another human being, and instead we get a faceless corporation. The person behind the desk or window is an agent of a health care corporation, which is not a human being, whose primary goal is to increase corporate profit.
This is America, and corporate profit is good, the profit motive forming the basis America’s greatness. The basic problem is that a corporation is not a human being. Therein lies the fallacy of replacing a corporation with a government agency, neither of which is a human being, when what we really want is a human being to deliver compassionate health care, and assist in serious health care decisions.
Michael Moore and Cuba
One scene shows Michael Moore addressing the Guantanamo Naval base from a speedboat containing 9/11 rescue workers. Megaphone in hand, Moore makes a futile attempt to request the same medical care for the rescue workers given to the imprisoned 9/11 suspects. He receives no human reply, and is driven off by screaming sirens. The military, like any branch of government follows the rule book, with no compassionate human to human interaction possible. Of course there are exceptions to all this, when people act like human beings in spite of their rules of the job or government agency, and we come away pleasantly surprised. This doesn’t happen too often.
So, who and where do we find this human being to interface with in the health care system? Where do we find a human being independent from corporate control? He is your doctor or health care worker, or if you are in the hospital, the nurse who changes shift every 8 hours, starts your IV and changes your hospital gown.
That human being is the person at the insurance company who no longer denies your claim based on frivolous details. For example, Moore shows a lady denied ambulance coverage, when driven unconscious to the hospital, because the ambulance ride was not pre-approved. Any human being would look at this and say, wait a minute, this isn’t right, there is no way an unconscious lady can pre-approve anything. This type of disconnect would not happen if interacting with a human being, rather than a corporation. That is the solution we are really looking for.
Who Decides How to Ration Health Care?
Where will the money come from to pay for these human beings who care more for people than corporate profit? Can the nation afford it? Can we afford all the dialysis offered to those with failing kidneys, heart transplants to all those with failing hearts, Liver transplants for all in need, a Lipitor pill for all those with cholesterols above 200?, a Fosamax pill for millions of women with osteopenia? An antidepressant pill for all those who are blue or unhappy?
Obviously, at some point we will reach the end of our resources and need to ration health care, whether it’s our current system with care rationed by insurance companies, or whether rationed by the government in a universal system, we will still be denying life saving care to some while approving it for others. We can’t pay for everything for everybody. How will we decide who should get what?
Its NOT the Cost, Its the Information, Stupid
Michael Moore’s "SICKO" documentary looks at America and the drug industry and identifies the problem as cost of drugs. We Americans need and want drugs, but they are too expensive and we can’t pay for them. If only the costs were lower, perhaps by government cost controls or government sponsored price negotiations, we could have all these drugs at reasonable prices and things would be fine. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. This is a superficial view, which is explained nicely by the Harvard trained MD, John Abramson’s book,"Overdosed America, The Broken Promise of American Medicine" which says:
“At the heart of the crisis lies the changed purpose of medical knowledge, changed from seeking to optimize health to searching for the greatest profits. The lack of transparency that has become normal in commercially sponsored medical research now taints the scientific evidence published in even our most prestigious medical journals.”
“Commercial distortion now pervades the information that doctors rely upon to guide the prevention and treatment of common health problems, from heart disease to stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes, and osteoarthritis.”
The real problem, according to Abramson, is that we have been handed a whole series of bad drugs, based on manipulated medical research, and then brainwashed into wanting the drugs by direct-to-consumer television advertising. And this has been going on for 35 years.
The real crisis is a medical information crisis. The information is controlled and distorted by the drug companies, and the trusted medical journals are no longer trust-worthy. Their research articles are funded and ghostwritten by the drug companies, and the data massaged and spun until the desired results are obtained.
Not only that, but the centralized funding of medical research has also been controlled and manipulated by market forces in bed with the government agencies and NIH, as described in The Government Grant System Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation? by Donald W. Miller, Jr.
Why We Don't Take Insurance
The Michael Moore documentary explains in a very eloquent way why our TrueMedMD office remains independent from the health insurance industry and government health programs. This is the only way we can offer compassionate health care from one human being to another. And we intend to keep it that way.
Did you see the film and find it interesting, email your comments and post them on our BLOG.
Did you find this newsletter interesting?
Feel free to email this to a friend with the button on the bar at the
bottom of the page.
Regards,
Jeffrey Dach, M.D.
BLOG
TrueMedMD
Newsletter
4700 Sheridan, Suite T.
Hollywood Florida, 33021
954 983 1443
More Reviews for Michael Moore's "SICKO"
Michael Moore Destroys Wolf Blitzer Live On CNN!
"Why Don't You Tell the American People the Truth" [VIDEO]
Michael Moore vs. Wolf Blitzer Dr Gupta onCNN at The Nation
Rolling Stone Magazine review Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
Time Magazine review Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
Alternet
Insurance Company Plan to Attack "Sicko"
Alberta nurses
give away tickets to Sicko documentary CBC News.
'Sicko': Heavily Doctored, By Kurt Loder
Is Michael Moore's prescription worse than the disease?
Review at Screen Rant
Michael Moore Official Web Site
LA Times
Michael Moore's 'Sicko' confronts American public.
Trailer for Sicko on U-Tube
San Francisco Chronicle
Need a doctor? That's too bad
Baltimore Sun Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
LA Times
Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
Hollywood Reporter Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
Austin Chronicle Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
NY Daily NewsMichael Moore's 'Sicko'
USA TodayMichael Moore's 'Sicko'
Philadelphia InquirerMichael Moore's 'Sicko'
Boston Globe Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
Christian Science Monitor Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
New York TimesMichael Moore's 'Sicko'
NewsWeekMichael Moore's 'Sicko'
Washington Post Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
a Listing of more reviews at MetaCriticMichael Moore's 'Sicko'
Time MagazineMichael Moore's 'Sicko'
“Biggest Anti-Moore Web Site on the Internet”Michael Moore's 'Sicko'
The Government Grant System Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation? by Donald W. Miller, Jr.
|
|
|
|
|
Jeffrey Dach, M.D. TrueMedMD
Catalog of NewsLetters
_______________________________________________________________
Enter your email address to subscribe to newsletter.
Your email is safe and will never be shared.
_______________________________________________________________
|
(1)
My Vitamins Are Killing Me by Jeffrey Dach MD !!!
(2)
Stroke Prevention and Vitamin C by Jeffrey Dach MD
(3)
Testosterone Risks and Benefits by Jeffrey Dach MD
(4)
Medical School Days and SSRI Research by Jeffrey Dach MD
(5)
Iodine and Breast Cancer Prevention by Jeffrey Dach MD
(6)
Hypothyroidism Part One by Jeffrey Dach MD
(7)
Hypothyroidism Part Two Thryroflex by Jeffrey Dach MD
(8)
Guard Your Daughter from Gardisil, Virginia Tech Rampage Seung-Hui Cho by
Jeffrey Dach MD
(9) Orthomolecular Medicine Meeting in Toronto 2007 by Jeffrey Dach
MD
(10) B12 Deficiency by Jeffrey Dach MD
(11) Rachel Carson and Silent Spring by Jeffrey Dach MD
(12) Vitamin D Deficiency by Jeffrey Dach MD
(13) Andrew Weil AARP, and Human Growth Hormone HGH by Jeffrey Dach MD
_______________________________________________________________
Catalog of Articles Published on Hank Barnes World,
You Bet Your Life, by Jeffrey Dach MD
_______________________________________________________________
(1)
Lipitor and "The Dracula of Modern Technology" by Jeffrey Dach MD
(2)
Osteoporosis, Bisphosphonate Drugs and Toulouse Lautrec by Jeffrey Dach
MD
(3)
Prozac, Paxil and SSRI Drugs - Part One by Jeffrey Dach MD
(4)
Prozac, Paxil and SSRI Drugs - Part Two by Jeffrey Dach MD
(5)
Max Essex and Virological Failure in the NEJM by Jeffrey Dach MD
(6)
The Origins of HIV by Jeffrey Dach MD
A Medical Article that I Published in 1980:
(7)
Dach J, Patel N, Patel S, Petasnick J. Peritoneal mesothelioma: CT,
sonography, and gallium-67 scan. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 1980 Sep;135(3):614
Jeffrey Dach, M.D.
Member of the Board of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
Board Certified by the American Board of Radiology
4700 Sheridan, Suite T
Hollywood Fl 33021
office phone 954-983-1443
_______________________________________________________________
Don't forget to visit
my web site for more information, and we you might like to attend
one of our free seminars on Wednesday Nights. Please call for
reservations for the seminar, though.
Do you have a testimonial, or a question for the newsletter? Send it in
via email reply.
Sincerely Yours
Jeffrey Dach, M.D.
4700 Sheridan Suite T.
Hollywood, Fl 33021
954-983-1443
_______________________________________________________________
Dr. Dach is Board Certified by the American Board of Radiology and a
member of the Board of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.
He has 25 years experience in the Memorial Hospital System as an
interventional radiologist. His current practice focuses on Bio-identical
hormone supplementation for men and women, menopause, andropause, HGH,
testosterone, natural thyroid and the use of natural substances rather
than drugs in the appropriate setting.
Conflict of Interest Disclaimer: We receive no money from the
pharmaceutical industry or from the NIH. We do not sell any products to
the public at large. We do however, make available selected nutritional
supplements to our office clients at a small markup to cover our costs.
If this email is sent to you in error, please accept our apology, and
simply remove your email from the list with the unsubscribe button on the
bar below this text. Sorry for the inconvenience.
(c) 2007 all right reserved Jeffrey Dach MD
disclaimer
|
|
|
Jeffrey Dach
MD, TrueMedMD · 4700 Sheridan Suite T · Hollywood · FL · 33021
report
spam
|
