...So I could watch and the part a LOVED Most was when Oprah told the insurance bully to let Michael finish his thought.

I am soooooooo sick of the big-mouthed bullies who won't let anyone finish an idea they're afraid to hear and insist on talking them over in an effort to bury their message.

Thank You Oprah and Thank You Michael! America needs more people like you so our citizens finally be heard.

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Just as Oprah says, we have been propagandized into believing that Socialism is a bad word. We need to look at the morality of the American people... do we care about our neighbor, do we want equality of care among all citizens from the investment banker to the gas station attendant.

Unless we all work together on the same track, we will never have equality of care. We need to put the right people in charge and change the political system to rid the Capitol of lobbyists and profit minded politicians who are interested in making sure their pockets are lined with the right color, green. We need to band together for a true democracy that takes care of all its citizens on the basis of need. Listen to what the candidates for office have to say and cast your vote for the candidate with the best plan.

I am seventy years old and recently spent three days in the hospital with an intestinal influenza that affected the chemical balance in my system and created a low heart rate. The doctors admitted me for Observation. Those three days cost $21,000... $7,000 per day. Is this a fair charge for someone laying in a bed (over a weekend) receiving IV's and being monitored periodically by a nurse?

Hospitals should be charging based covering only the cost of the patient care. When a hospital builds a new building or additional facilities, they put out a plea for foundation and private donations. Why the need for such an enormous profit margin? The same hospital has two rows of parking in front of the hospital for doctors parking. Those two rows are filled with some of the most expensive cars on the market, including many gas guzzling SUV's. If we paid for the education of doctors instead of asking them to cover the cost on their own, that would be a step in the right direction. I don't deny any person from becoming financially wealthy, I only ask that we equalize the spread of the wealth to eliminate poverty and hunger and homelessness and inability to receive medical care.

That is socialism or in another term, "social responsibility."

Bravo Michael Moore for making the movie. Brava Oprah for promoting the message.

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"22-year-old wonders if cancer is back, but finances keep the answer hidden

By DIANE COCHRAN
Of The Gazette Staff
Trey Owens might have cancer, but he can't afford to find out for sure.

An X-ray recently revealed a suspicious spot on the Billings man's left femur.

The spot is near the place where 15 inches of bone was removed from his leg five years ago after he was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma.

"I asked (the doctor) about the spot, and he told me he wouldn't get worked up about it," Owens said. "But he hasn't given us anything else it could be."
"It's still possible I have cancer," he said.

Because the spot was deemed not to be life-threatening, the medical center in Salt Lake City where Owens was treated in 2002 is not obligated to treat him, Owens said.

In fact, because he doesn't have health insurance, the hospital won't see him unless he makes a $15,000 down payment, he said. He also must make a $3,000 down payment to his Salt Lake City orthopedic surgeon.

Owens, who is 22 and works at a group home, doesn't have the money.

"Not only do you have to fight the most stressful thing in life - death - you also have to fight the other most stressful thing in life - money," he said.

Owens wants to have the spot on his leg biopsied to ensure it is not cancer, and he needs to undergo a surgical procedure to reattach a titanium prosthesis that replaced his bone.

The prosthesis has become detached from his femur and is painful, Owens said.

Owens was a 17-year-old high school student when he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. After surgery to remove the cancerous bone, he underwent nine months of chemotherapy.

He missed too much school to graduate, but he went back the following year and got his diploma.

At the time, he was covered by his father's health insurance. As an adult, he no longer qualifies for his dad's plan, and he couldn't afford to buy his own coverage.

His history of cancer increased the amount he would have to pay for insurance, Owens said.

His mother, Deb Raden, spent hours on the phone trying to find financial assistance or other resources to help Owens afford the biopsy and surgery, but nothing panned out.

"We wanted to get him there right away," Raden said. "Every door I went to, everywhere I went, it was no, no, no."

"Trey learned a real lesson at 22 - it's all about money," Raden said.

She and Owens' father, Fred Owens, are hosting a fundraiser for Owens on Sunday.

"Every day we wait, it's time for the cancer to spread," Fred Owens said.

- - If you go - -

A benefit dance and auction for Trey Owens is planned Sunday at the Moose Lodge, 171 Calhoun Lane. The event is set for 2 to 5:30 p.m. Tunes will be provided by Cooper and the Crowdthinners. Donations can also be made to the Trey Owens Fund at any Stockman Bank or dropped off at Ferguson Enterprises, 1734 Lampman Drive. For information, call Lori Bella or Michelle Lockwood at 252-4442.

Published on Saturday, September 29, 2007.
Last modified on 9/29/2007 at 7:02 am"

I hope that it is acceptable to paste this article here. It appeared in this mornings Billings Gazette in Billings, Montana. This story says it all. Should a 22 year old have to face this problem?

Thank you Oprah for using your program to bring this to the attention of your viewers, and thank you Michael Moore. Sadly, most of the movie theatres in Montana have not offered "Sicko" to the public.

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Michael Moore is continually demonized by the the "Right" who recognize him as a threat to the status quo. He raises issues that require critical thinking and action.
Now that Oprah Winfrey has added the weight of her considerable influence, will she be demonized, as well? Be watching for attacks on her credibility.
I sincerely thank them both for discussing the issue in formats that allow public scrutiny of the problems, including the fundamental one. Is access to treatment a right, or a commodity for sale to only those who can afford it? None of the politicians I've heard speak on health care dare to broach this subject.
We, as citizens should demand that the spending of tax revenues be prioritized according to OUR determination of the greatest good. We seem to paying a considerable amount to the government for fewer and fewer services.
Were the government to raise taxes for universal care, and the collection of insurance premiums for individuals and businesses be eliminated, the system could provide for everyone.
There is no conscionable reason for our health care system to provide profits to anyone. I am not arguing against reimbursement to people and institutions who actually provide services to patients. There are salaries and overhead associated with providing care. Doctors receive only 10% of each dollar paid for medical services. The insurers receive much more. How does the baggage of insurance industry personnel, executive salaries, advertising,
lobbying expenses, dividends to investors, etc, said to consume more than 30% of each dollar, add value?
Because of Michael Moore and Oprah Winfey, the candidates who mouth solutions to health care wont be able to disguise
diverting more profits to insurers, who are clearly unnecessary middlemen, as the best solution.
Are you listening Hillary?

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We do not have health CARE in this country; we have a health insurance industry. The corporate insurance biz took the "care" out of health.

There is only one candidate who has fought for universal Medicare for everyone, and that's Dennis Kucinich. Hillary and Edwards and the rest of the Democratic field have health insurance industry plans. Hillary and Edwards' plan forces some americans to purchase health insurance, again, supplimenting health insurance bottom lines. Who created that plan? Lobbyists!

I have two adult children who cannot afford health care. It's insanity and it's, as Michael Moore says, immoral. Vote your conscience: Vote Kucinich!

Peace

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Bravo to Oprah for having this show.
I would like to correct her, however. A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS NOT SOCIALISM. We can keep the delivery system we currently enjoy, namely that we can choose our doctor, choose our hospital, etc. We are looking for a single payer system, namely that we all pay a tax to the government to cover the cost of our national health care system. Like Medicare. That is NOT socialism. Doctors and hospitals will be paid by the government instead of you and me and dodgey insurance companies.
Those of us with health insurance already pay huge amounts of money to access the health care system and to support folks with no insurance (often because the have pre-existing conditions, don't have a job, or don't have money for individual policies). Why not pay it as taxes and cut out the insurance companies AND get 30% more bang for the buck?
Also, I agree with Mr. Moore that the idea of using tax money to make the fat cats at the insurance companies rich is ludicrous. No way is 30% of my tax money going to fund them. It is just a layer of fat that our politicos are afraid to cut out.
Please contact your representative and your senators and ask them to support a plan that is not employer based and is not administered by insurance companies. PLEASE!

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I kind of wish someone had said specifically is that it's not doctors or hospitals that need the profit -it's the medical insurance industry that does. Their sole reason to exist is to play middle-man between us and the medical resources and take their cut as they do so. If we changed to the system that's been shown to work best - one where the medical insurance companies are left out - that's an awful lot of people out of work, and that's not insignificant. I think we should make the change, but THAT's the elephant in the room that I think people are reluctant to point to.

However, economies have changed before. Humans tend to adjust, especially when provided with job placement and retraining programs, which the government does more efficiently than anybody (despite constant attempts by Bush to push that into the private sector also). Yes, more government, not less. The important thing is that the government serve us, not the other way around.

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None of us lives in a vacuum. The "every man for himself" theory doesn't work for society. My neighbors health affects my quality of life, too. I don't want people to suffer. I want people to get the care that they need. The idea that huge companies are making huge profits while people go without medicine and other necessary care is outrageous. This is exactly the sort of thing government should do. It was organized to provide for the general welfare of the people, not to let a few elites make money off the rest of us while we go without what we need to live.

Thank heaven we have Michael and Oprah working on this. We need results on this issue now - people are dying. Dennis has the only health care plan that doesn't require a large income, applies to everyone, costs less than we are paying now, and isn't connected to employment. We need that kind of vision in the White House - a vision that includes all the people, not just Bush's corporate owners.

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health insurance lobbyist Karen Ignanai, tries to regulate the price for lets say a bone marrow transplant but as was brought out they can not regulate the price for everyone. Health service needs to be reg so it is not a business haggled out by some but should be a system for all.

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Oprah did a show with Michael Moore on predatory healthcare! I find this very interesting. I understand why Michael Moore went on Oprah's show - she has a huge audience and a large measure of power and influence. But you may want to ask yourselves, "Why now?" Moore's film "Sicko" has been our for months. He's already long finished his talkshow blitz to promote the film. Why didn't she have him as a guest and give him the exposure back then? Perhaps it's because she's cozied up to Obama lately. And, as I recall, he's all for corporate health care. Perhaps she can change his mind about his own proposal for "universal health care."

Forgive me for not jumping up and down because Oprah told me to. The best thing I can say for her is, "Better late than never, I guess." For someone who claims to speak out on behalf of women and children, why hasn't she embraced this healthcare position earlier and championed this cause before now? Besides all that, it's fascinating that everyone seemed to give the credit to Oprah, when it was Michael Moore who has done all the work on this issue! She's just a Johnny-come-lately jumping on his bandwagon! I don't buy her "altruism."

But I know and believe Moore will continue to be ahead of the curve on social and political issues and will continue to put out timely and thoughtful films, and for that I am very glad. As for Oprah and her show... I couldn't care less.

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I'll frame it this way- Medicine, Law and the News Press/Media are professions.

That means they have a greater loyalty to principles of healing, justice and truth than return of profits to stockholders.That means they are on a salary.

Unfortunately they have all become businesses.

Anyway putting Moore and Winfrey aside for a moment, although I think they are helping, I fervently believe that the ONLY way out of this health care mess for the US and all other nations is both individual AND institutional prevention.

Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com

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...that every year the companies whom occupy the no.1 and no.2 spots are the American Medical Association and the American Dental Association.......yes, they're are considered a business!!!!!

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Private health insurance is without a doubt, a big scam.

Giving government money to pay for private insurance for those who aren't covered is a terrible idea that is tantamount to corporate welfare.

But government run medical care does not sit well with me for one fundamental reason, it denies medical professionals such as doctors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc, the right to decide for themselves how much they want to charge for their services.

Unless medical professionals have the right to set the prices for their services, government health care will not have my support.

That said, if government medical care or health insurance covered the total cost of medical procedures, there would be no incentive for these professionals to lower prices since the government would pick up any bill.

This is a very complex issue and no candidate has come up with a serious well thought out plan ensuring medical professionals the right to set their own prices while at the same time not covering any and all expenses medical professionals might charge.

All we have had to date is politicians stating they will use tax payer money to buy private insurance for the uninsured (which will be a big rip-off to the tax payer and corporate welfare for the private insurance industry)

AND

others like Moore and Kucinich advocating government single payer insurance but very vague on the details of how it will encourage cost reductions and yet ensure medical professionals the right to charge what they want to.


We need a serious overarching proposal on how to fix the health care system and we still do not have one.

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The difference between communism and socialism vs Jewish or Christian communities and the benefits they would give their neighbors or constituents are that the first two left out the love for our Creator and our brothers and sisters, that is why they simply do not work. What they included was absolute power in the hands of the few monopolized power elite to dole out a miniscule amount of what they took from us taxpayers and padded their own profits and medical portfolios, thereby enriching themselves at the public's expense. This is unconscionable. Soon by means of laws and taxation, we will al become their slaves, and like the ant to the aphid, they will come and milk us at their pleasure.

Our public school system does not work because Big Brother is forcing the views of the UN through UNESCO upon us, by a flimsy excuse of them paying for it, by our very own taxes. They have set the education cirriculum at such a low level in order to produce the dumbest slaves possible. Forcing unwanted injections to kill one pathogen and introduce 15 others to bring about sustainable development by killing children and causing autism by their injections. We don't need these unwanted but mandated shots or the bureaucrats who are getting rich off of them in their medical portfolios. We can all go to the library and vote on each issue directly, thereby saving us the 100% funded pensions, control by lobbyist of monopolistic companies, and then take care of our own people instead of other countries people's with subsidies for foreign policies to control the world's populace.

We need to take care of all social needs on a local level and throw the Federal Government out of State and Local affairs, such as education, jobs, medical care and such.

The local level is much more in tune with the local level's affairs and interests and does not have a global hidden agenda, such as controlling the populace by means of withholding benefits.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so let's trim the budgets of the Feds, and return control to the State, County, and City levels, who can do a much better job in all the above concerns.

While we are at it, we can get rid of the FTC, FDA, NIH, DEA and such as they only protect vested interests of trillionaires by monopolies, laws against the private sector vs big business.

Sincerely,
David Harvey
Columbus, OH

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but everything else that make up the system and profit greatly. Pharmaceutical companies that charge outragious amounts; medical supply companies; etc. Lots of people are involved in health care costs.

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Anthropologists we use the cross cultural approach in order to understand cultural differences. Here in the USA our culture core ideally emphasizes individualism by "independence training" while in other cultures like the Japanese ideally emphasize "socialism" by "dependence training". It's easy to understand why the Japanese are the healthiest people while the French have the best health care system for its citizens. And why Americans have been conditioned to avoid anything that has the "socio-" prefix- from socialized medicine to sociomobiles.............

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These people are getting financially rewarded for damaging the health of individuals and society.

Here in the UK, you can have an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (Asbo) placed on you for any conduct which the state takes to be anti-social. Of course, the Asbos are always awarded against the wrong people (those who aren't coping well) and not those who are anti-social on a huge scale (pollution, war, commodification, etc).

We need a punishable criminal offense of unjustified enrichment or immmorally profiting from the suffering of others. Profits are carrots and the public needs sticks. These companies are killing us by degrees.

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Oprah is alittle late with this interview as "Sicko" is no longer playing in my area at least(Delaware Valley-Phila./South Jersey). But I must commend her for at last commenting on an issue that is important, instead of her usual pandering to, what appears to me at least, her quite beautiful, well dressed, well coifed, well make-upped, ladies with leisure time, audience.

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Sounds like PROPAGANDA for the medical industry to me!!
Re: FORGET SOCIALISM- MEDICINE, LAW AND THE NEWS PRESS ARE PROFESSIONS!
[Report this comment] [Ignore this user] Posted by: drricklippin on Sep 30, 2007 10:21 AM
Current rating: 5 [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
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I'll frame it this way- Medicine, Law and the News Press/Media are professions.

That means they have a greater loyalty to principles of healing, justice and truth than return of profits to stockholders.That means they are on a salary.

Unfortunately they have all become businesses.

Anyway putting Moore and Winfrey aside for a moment, although I think they are helping, I fervently believe that the ONLY way out of this health care mess for the US and all other nations is both individual AND institutional prevention.

Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com

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RE: FORGET SOCIALISM- MEDICINE, LAW AND THE NEWS PRESS ARE PROFESSIONS!
[Report this comment] [Ignore this user] Posted by: batteredup on Oct 1, 2007 11:59 AM
Current rating: Not yet rated [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]

Lumping medicine with law and media is a warped perspective; the latter two have little or no impact on a person's physical well-being, unless you make unwanted political comments at a Kerry or Bush rally. Law enforcement, teaching and fire protection are all professions too; do we make their accessibility financially out of reach for our citizens? Of course not, that would be inhumane. But medical treatment is out of reach for many of us because of cost. I thought medical people took an oath to heal first and foremost, not focus their primary concerns on the bottom line, which by the way is very much in the black for all but the most incompetent doctors. They live very well, thank you and how many lose everything they own from malpractice suits? Very few compared to people who lose everything they own due to medical bills they can't handle. The only doctors who fail are ones that have been proved totally negligent or predatory on their clients. Personally, I've suffered back problems for more than 10 years; I can't afford health care and suffer continually, compromising my quality of life severely, but I fight on, working two jobs to pay my bills to keep my home. If (or more likely WHEN) I wake up some day and cannot muster the strength to overcome my pain and am forced out of work, I will likewise be forced out of my home. How about a little human compassion, a little freaking caring for the general well-being of everyone, instead of your own goddamn bottom line, Doctor?

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I've been drinking socialized, pure water for 82 years, attended 16 years of socialized, public schools, fly in and out of socialized airports using socialized weather information and socialized traffic control, watch barges go through socialized canal locks on the Ohio and vacation in socialized National Parks. Oh, of course I forgot the socialized Interstate highway system sold to us as a "national defense" necessity. So who's afraid of a national, socialized Medicare for All health care system? Certainly not all those of you who have read this far on a socialized internet communications system. At ease.

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You are a National Treasure. HOW I wish someone like you could be our President.

Once we get national health care for everyone-we have to work on what is making us all so sick and fat-namely-the destruction of our clean air and water-and the poisoned chemical junk food we eat. And the stress of living under such a corrupt system of war mongering and work work work to MAKE THE RICH RICHER ABOVE ALL ELSE-dog eat dog outdated Capitalistic system.

Thank you Oprah for having him on your show. I think that took guts considering how the rich rulers of this country may try to punish you for it.
On the show you kept saying "No matter what you think of him " (Michael Moore).
Well no matter what I think of you-I thank you for having Michael Moore on your show. Now how about Alice Walker? How about a show on Leonard Peltier? How about some EarthFirsters and Greenpeace?
How about some Wobblies???

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An affordable health insurance is possible if insurers and medical providers do everything possible to prevent illness in the first place, if the emphasis is on educating people how to be and stay healthy. This would turn the tide. Reality is that we have a disease care system, where a number of diseases and disorders are too lucrative to cure. And there is hardly any area where our freedom is more at stake than in healthcare. A natonial health care system could make disease mongering even more profitable, corporations and medical professionals get richer while the nation gets sicker.
A huge amount of very costly conditions, like autism and Alzheimer's are iatrogenic i.e they are caused by medical doctors and dentists. Both autism and Alzheimer's are mainly caused by mercury poisoning from dental amalgam and thimerosal in vaccines, both are preventable illnesses. In both conditions there is a genetic factor involved.
See Teri Small's interview with Prof. Boyd Haley linked text and read Robert F. Kennedy Jr's article Deadly Immunity and his excellent study Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal. linked text
Medicine is the continuation of the Inquisition, whose three principles were cutting, burning and poisoning. In cancer treatment and in psychiatry you find all three together. (Operations, radiation, chemotherapy and Lobotomy (now electrodes implanted into the brain), electric shock therapy and toxic mind altering drugs).
If a national health care system is established on present medical power structures then it can only lead to "hells care".
The first principle of a nationl health insurance should be be the freedom to chose the treatment you want, the choice between non-invasive herbal medicine, homeopathy, anthroposphical medicine etc or violent mainstream medicine. Today, environmental doctors like Dr Rea may be in danger of losing their license if insurance companies have a say.
Without wakening up to how far medicine, with medical doctors as the henchmen of a greed-driven pharmaceutical industry, has already damaged society, a nightmare of medical dictatorship awaits us. Psychiatry completey ingnores environmental (mercury, pesticides and other neurotoxins like fluoride, radioactivity, aspartame, microwave radiation etc), nutritional factors, and the role of physical conditions (liver infection, thyroid disfunctions etc), autistic and hyperactive children are drugged and even killed. although they only need a detox, vitamins and mineral supplements to improve or even recover. Eli Lilly, the original producer of thimerosal has close connections to the Bush Regime which exempted them from litigation for compensation claims.
Watch Rima Laibow's lecture "Nutricide" and learn how far the secret Codex Alimentarius agenda has already advanced. National health insurance, yes, but only if health freedom is guaranteed.

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I amazed at Oprah's comment that she thought since her health care needs were being met that those of others were as well. Has she forgotten her roots? Has she forgotten that at an earlier time in her life her family didn't have health care? Has her wealth given her amnesia?

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JOHN EDWARDS' PLAN COVERS EACH AND EVERYONE. OPRAH AND MIKE MUST KNOW THAT! PEOPLE WHO NEED HEALTH CARE OR ANY OTHER VITAL ITEM, DO NOT MISS JOHN EDWARDS' PLAN.

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in your friendly local theatre is that the owners have received a large cash payment to not do so. Its not even illegal. Do you doubt me?

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Name ONE thing the government does well...

Drawing a blank?

Time's up. The answer: NOTHING.

The problems we face in healthcare are the direct result of government intervention in the marketplace. Less government leads to more choices and better value. Abolish the FDA, CDC, NIH and all the rest of these harmful organizations, and the healthcare industry will be transformed virtually overnight. Nearly everyone will be able to afordable healthcare for themselves and their families. Those who cannot will find far more charitable choices.

The chief beneficiary of truly free markets are the POOR. Why? Capitalism leads to wealth creation like no other system yet devised. More wealth leads to more charity.

Remember, everything the government does it does through force. When you advocate for socialism, you're an advocate of violence.

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Honorable Friends:

This article pretty well sums up what we should do to get a "Single Payer Universal Healthcare for all of u.s." I really encourage all of you to read this article, SICKO and the comments. I spent 35 years in the labor movement fighting for the rights of working people and became disabled, cast away & put out of work, without any health insurance coverage! Yes, this can happen to you! I now pay over a thousand dollars a month for coverage for myself and wife leaving me economically & physically unable to do anything but to spread my disabling experience here on the WEB. I like many of you believed that if you work hard in life you'll reap the benefits. I found out the hard way that benefits can be taken away by the corporate & governing greedy. Even now, bankruptcy is not an option, just as insurance is not security! If you don't have your health, work, love, life - all become hopeless & meaningless!

Consider this, we have socialized national healthcare for all government, Federal, State, County, military, and the disappearing UNION jobs only if your ABLE TO WORK. There is coverage for the very young and the very old thru Medicare and MediCal and other programs if your unable to work. Those in-between (>50 million) have no coverage or overpay for private coverage if they are disabled on the job! No one, I repeat, no one should profit from sickness or illness but we allow them too! They (the medical/insurance industry) should all be non profits doing charitable humanitarian good works, not obtaining greedy profits on life or death! The VA hospitals are SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and outperform all for-profit hospitals and are the model of nationalized health care! We have it now, only for our Veterans of War, but what about our Veterans of LABOR? Well, well trained soldiers can take things by force, laborers can only negotiate in good faith! Health Care should be a universal human right superceding HAPPINESS in our CONSTITUTION!! For, without good health, life becomes death, a choice really, really worth fighting for.

Now, is the time to become aware of the frailty of our economic position in the face of future economic disaster. Employers dump their workers, dump their health and pension plans, and Insurance companies make money by denying coverage! The Loop hole is always in the fine print that those governing allow. This Single Payer National Healthcare is the ONE ISSUE that will determine my decision as to who will be elected to lead our great union of fifty states. I'm not going to Canada or Europe to obtain a basic human right, called national healthcare. The European UNION is not greater than the American Union? In this point in my life, it has become a life or death matter, and as a human being you too, will sooner or later, meet this same crossroad with which I find my life now on the line.

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All I care about is that every American get access to healthcare without making the greedy insurance companies rich off the suffering of those who can't afford it! Everytime there's some proposal aimed toward the greater good of ALL in this country, the rightwing lunatic fringe come out of the woodwork and throw around the SCARY WORDS: COMMUNISM or SOCIALISM!!! Is everyone quaking in their boots? Gimmee a break! Those scare tactics don't work with clear-headed thinking people! We aren't really as stupid as the right think we are and can't be cowtowed by fear any longer. What's so scary about healthy US citizens? What's so scary about the fact that Medicaid and Medicare (single payer systems that already exist) have 30% less overhead than private insurance companies? What makes you break into a cold sweat at the mere thought of everyone being entitled to be healthy in the richest country in the world?

Jeeze... you guys need to chill out!

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I was impressed with the film "Sicko," and its strong message about the devastating problems with the health care system in this country. However, there was an article in the recent issue of Editors Guild Magazine (September/October 2007) about the status of union health care, and I was appalled to learn that "the same health care that "Sicko" laments as being in short supply is denied to Michael Moore's crew because they are working non-union." I can understand that when Michael Moore began making documentaries, he might have been able to make the case that he couldn't afford to work union. However, since he has become an established filmmaker and his documentaries are grossing millions at the box office, continuing to hire non-union crews is unacceptable. When Michael Moore hires non-union workers on his films, he is part of the health care problem in this country, and his outrage with the system rings hollow.

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this is america folks get over it. americans dont care about others and their medical care. capitalism has created a national behaviour of profits from the sick.

this is a country based on greed. until we come to understand what unchecked capitalism has done to this country we will continue to have health care problems, war for profits, illegals at our doorstep, and most of all the decline of the middle class.

so middle class stay in love with your two party system as they are selling you down the drain to lower class status.

"A nation that spends more year after year on military offense (and I mean offense) than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death". (Gunnels)

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Why are certain people exempt from the "nasty profiteers" list?

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Do any of you liberals live in areas where your socialized experimentation takes place. I do. All it does is lead to a continuing cycle of dependence on government. I have a feeling most of you live far away from the places and conditions that make your "hearts bleed". I see it for myself, it doesn't work. If you had to put in some effort instead of relying on the government to take care of the problems of the world maybe you might succeed. Why can't Mike Moore and Oprah and the other Hollywood celebrities get together and start an insurance company for the poor subsidized by their money. And the "bleeding hearts" can subsidize it also. They don't because they don't feel like it, they rather have the government do it. The only thing they are good at is nagging, complaining and criticizing. Put some demands on them instead of the government. What's that saying, "It's not what the government can do for you but what you can do for the government". Why can't they do something. They have all that money, all those connections across the world.

Look at the the "100 dollar laptop for children" as an example where you can pay double and a child gets a free laptop. But I'm willing to bet most of the bleeding hearts could care less. Only if it can be forced by the government do you start to care.

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