Moore visits the NHS hospital of Hammersmith in London, and deploying many a gasp and double-take, refuses to believe that the sick folks aren't charged hundreds and thousands of dollars. He doesn't mention the waiting lists, the filth, the degrading mixed wards and the MRSA that are a staple of all media coverage of the National Health Service. So perhaps he's got a starry-eyed view of our healthcare. But isn't it obtuse to focus so excitably on what goes wrong with our health service, when so much more routinely goes right and when, incidentally, there are those with a vested interest in promoting these scare stories as an excuse for privatising it? Isn't it, for all its faults, exactly the miracle that Michael Moore portrays it?CLiCK here to read more of The Guardian's review
The corporations, Humana, Aetna and UnitedHealth, are featured heavily in Michael Moore's new film Sicko, to be launched at the London Film Festival on 24 October, which exposes the practices used by healthcare companies to deny treatments in the US.CLICK here to read more and check out their website: Keep Our NHS Public
Former Health Secretary Frank Dobson is tabling questions in Parliament today 22 October, which ask Alan Johnson if he "will ensure that no healthcare organisations indicted for fraud against the federal or state governments in the US are given contracts to provide services for the NHS or NHS patients."
"This is a story not just of tragic medical outcomes, but of a health plan that did not prevent them..."
As far back as 2002, a physician review committee at the hospital concluded that Safari provided "inappropriate" care and that his "conduct needed significant improvement," according to a lawsuit later filed by two of his peers. Still, the doctor continues to work at Kaiser Fresno, practicing under restrictions that staffers say have not been explained to patients...CLiCK here to read more
The board also has faulted Kaiser, the nation's largest HMO with 6.5 million members in California. The health plan made the board's investigation of Safari "protracted and difficult" by providing incomplete medical records, a spokeswoman said...
Labels: hmo, kaiser permanente
The for-profit U.S. health care system is failing America's children- even those who have health insurance! This, according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"American children receive recommended health-care procedures only 46% of the time...The children in the study were predominantly from white, middle- or upper-middle-class families; 82% were covered by private insurance. Children without insurance likely fare far worse, the researchers noted..."CLiCK here for the full report in the New England Journal of Medicine
"Miles has now been admitted to the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas to treat an infection, but desperately needs a kidney transplant. The parent’s of Miles paid a partial payment and missed $30 of that payment. Because of this, their insurance company dropped them and with that dropped Miles from the transplant list. In order for Miles to be put back on the list his parent’s must come up with the $2500 deductible."
Labels: Children's Health Care, Kidney Transplant, New England Journal of Medicine
Labels: fred thompson, george w. bush, giuliani, mccain, romney, schip
69% of American's Want to Reduce or Stop Funding Wars
Labels: afghanistan, health care, iraq, poll
