shakeybrainsurgeon
Contributor
Tomeck
Never saw it. From what I have read, good and bad points. There is no question that the insurance industry in this country has inequities.
However, the issues involved are very complex and can be easily manipulated by a biased documentary maker.
Example; I saw an excerpt of the film in which an insurance company is blasted for not paying for a bone marrow transplant (BMT) for a cancer patient. It is assumed that the expense of the transplant meant more to the company than the patient's life.
IN REALITY, BMT for cancer, except for certain leukemias, does NOT work. a recent book, I believe it's called "False hope" or something along those lines, outlines in detail how BMT was hyped by news outlets and advocates long before any scientific data validated its worth. In this case, the insurance companies were RIGHT to demand that these painful and costly procedures be evaluated fully before being unleashed wholesale on the general public. Nevertheless, advocates browbeat insurers into paying for them and we now know, years later, that BMT is largely worthless in tumors like renal, lung and breast cancer.
The documentary I'd like to see by Michael Moore, not to change the subject, is one on the HIGHER EDUCATION industry. The average person will consume about 200K of health care in their lives...the cost of many college degrees is approaching that and will soon surpass it. And a college degree is every bit as necessary to many people's quality of life as is health care and should be as accessible to all income groups.
But now, we want our health care paid for, but the response of the government to 45K a year tuition? Borrow the money. Can you see if they told a cancer patient that? Need chemo? Here's a subsidized loan. I know it isn't the same thing, exactly, but right now colleges and universities have been given free rein while every other industry, from oil to autos to health car, have been ridden like pack mules by the feds.
Is a current college degree worth 100, 160, even 200K? Why is college going up faster than inflation, faster than health care? Is the technology of teaching Sartre or calculus that much more costly now than when I paid 700 bucks a term in the late 1970s???
That would be a documentary I would pay to see...
Never saw it. From what I have read, good and bad points. There is no question that the insurance industry in this country has inequities.
However, the issues involved are very complex and can be easily manipulated by a biased documentary maker.
Example; I saw an excerpt of the film in which an insurance company is blasted for not paying for a bone marrow transplant (BMT) for a cancer patient. It is assumed that the expense of the transplant meant more to the company than the patient's life.
IN REALITY, BMT for cancer, except for certain leukemias, does NOT work. a recent book, I believe it's called "False hope" or something along those lines, outlines in detail how BMT was hyped by news outlets and advocates long before any scientific data validated its worth. In this case, the insurance companies were RIGHT to demand that these painful and costly procedures be evaluated fully before being unleashed wholesale on the general public. Nevertheless, advocates browbeat insurers into paying for them and we now know, years later, that BMT is largely worthless in tumors like renal, lung and breast cancer.
The documentary I'd like to see by Michael Moore, not to change the subject, is one on the HIGHER EDUCATION industry. The average person will consume about 200K of health care in their lives...the cost of many college degrees is approaching that and will soon surpass it. And a college degree is every bit as necessary to many people's quality of life as is health care and should be as accessible to all income groups.
But now, we want our health care paid for, but the response of the government to 45K a year tuition? Borrow the money. Can you see if they told a cancer patient that? Need chemo? Here's a subsidized loan. I know it isn't the same thing, exactly, but right now colleges and universities have been given free rein while every other industry, from oil to autos to health car, have been ridden like pack mules by the feds.
Is a current college degree worth 100, 160, even 200K? Why is college going up faster than inflation, faster than health care? Is the technology of teaching Sartre or calculus that much more costly now than when I paid 700 bucks a term in the late 1970s???
That would be a documentary I would pay to see...
