Sicko By Michael Moore Essay

The United States health care system ranks 37th in the world. Statistically, it’s bizarre how United States is amongst one of the most advanced nations in the world and the fact that it spends more on its healthcare

The United States is known as one of the greatest world powers: however it is held back by its weak healthcare system. As of 2010 the US healthcare system currently ranks the 37th best out of 190 countries (Murray). Before the introduction of the Affordable Care Ac in 2010, the United States had an individual insurance market. It was the responsibility of the individual or their employer to take care of their healthcare costs. On top of this, millions of people could be denied insurance by different agencies due to pre-existing claims. Healthcare was expensive, but the costs were nothing compared to the medical bills owed by an uninsured person. Universal healthcare is a basic right not a privilege. Everyone should be given the

I think Michael Moore’s movie Sicko educates audience on not to take too kindly, not to look too positive on notorious America’s health care system. I think it reveals that America’s health care is market-driven, profit-oriented health insurance and health providers where as in Canada, United Kingdom, Cuba, and France, health care is free. But, I also think that the movie overall looks too much negative aspects of USA health care system and too positive on health care system in other countries, UK, France, Cuba, and Canada. In USA, health care is not basic fundamental right, not social justice. For instance, the film shows audience that a group of September 11 heroes, who are suffering from devastating and debilitating ailments, have been denied medical care or denied treatment by health insurance companies that they require in America. The documentary also reveals the defective, unreliable, cruel America’s health care system that has been so subscribed to and fixated on making huge profits and large sum of money out of the sick and injured patients rather than saving their lives. For example, the movie shows that America insurance process claims not to pay beneficiary’s ailing claims or the medical claims but dismiss them as evidenced by confession of a former employee of an insurance company. This does not only impact uninsured but also insured people who are covered by insurance whether through employer based or self-purchase.

According to Joe Conason, "America 's current health care system wastes considerably more than a trillion dollars every year. We know that because countries such as France, Germany, Japan and Finland, with comparable standards of living to ours, spend roughly half what the United States spends annually on health care per citizen, while covering everyone and achieving better results." (Conason, 2009) The United States healthcare financial systems are severely flawed - affecting the overall cost control, services, and care made accessible to its clients. The rising costs in healthcare are reaching new highs, and with rising costs, there doesn 't seem to be much change in the quality of the care being given. Clients coming in and out of these

Throughout the last half of the 20th century, employers have acted on their own to regulate health costs by requiring employees to join health maintenance organizations (HMOs). More than 100 million Americans are under managed care. However, many patients and doctors complain that HMOs impose too many regulations and sacrifice healthcare quality. HMOs are undergoing a high level of scrutiny due to criticisms that the network is controlling and jeopardizing the healthcare system of the nation.

Many people believe that the current of health care in the United States is the best health care in the world however it has major shortcomings that has become more visible for the whole world to see. The United States has the most expensive health care system in the world based on health expenditure per capita and on

The documentary "Sicko" provides an extensive analysis of the different drawbacks of the American healthcare framework. Michael Moore, the director, is upfront with regards to the dissipation of statistical data and portrayal of real-life stories of the healthcare in other nations is better in comparison to that of the US. It is interesting to see the director careful utilize experiences from the Cuba, France, and the UK. A lot of film critics have issued a lot of reviews regarding the significance of the movie in highlighting the real image of the healthcare framework (Zaccagnini & White, 2015, p.110). For example, the illustration of Cuba's health system seems a bit far-fetched to the critics. All in all, Michael Moore does an adequate job in drawing comparisons from the other significant healthcare plans as a way of depicting the ailing form of America's health system.

The United States has a very unique healthcare system. Does this mean that we are simply leagues ahead of the rest of the world in healthcare? Unfortunately, not at all. The ideal of American exceptionalism is apt to describe our healthcare system. That is, our current system is exceptionally bad. Per capita, the United States spends “twice the average of other developed countries” on healthcare ("United States Per Capita Healthcare Spending Is More Than Twice The Average Of Other Developed Countries"). Yet, in the World Health Organization’s ranking of healthcare systems by nation, the U.S. comes in at a dismal 37th place, despite spending the most per person of any country on Earth on healthcare ("World Health Organization’s Ranking of the World’s Health Systems").

While the United States delivers some of the best medical care in the world, there are major inefficiencies in our healthcare system. We have high rates of medical errors, millions without health insurance coverage, and lower utilization of advanced health information technology than most western European nations. It seems every time you turn on the evening news, you hear something about the healthcare system in American and how it is in shambles. Without question, one of the biggest challenges facing American citizens is our dysfunctional healthcare system.

America: The Land of the Free. Or, as someone who is familiar with the US health care system would call it, America: The Land of Overpriced Health Care That Covers a Fraction of it’s People. The US spends more money on their health care than any other country, yet there is a myriad of problems that exist within the system preventing it from being efficient. Billions of dollars are poured into the system for medication and treatment, when a lot of this spending is unnecessary.

According to data presented by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US health care cost exceeded $ 8,000 per capita, in 2010, comparing to the next most expensive system (Norway) $5,000 per capita (OECD Health Data, 2012). Despite being the most expensive system in the word, US healthcare system has failed on many areas of performance and quality. According to OECD data, US has much lower life expectancy than other industrialized countries, also the infant mortality rate is higher than those countries. Moreover, the US is the only industrialized country that does not provide its citizens a protection of a universal health care coverage.

The American healthcare system is an ongoing ailment that is at the forefront of issues plaguing America. Unlike the rest of the world, the American healthcare system is a combination of several models that caters for distinct classes of people. Other countries, such as China and Switzerland, have adopted a one-size-fits-all model in which everyone falls under. This model is a more straightforward as well as cheaper approach to America's healthcare system.

When it comes to the U.S. healthcare system, there are two sides of the argument. Some Americans may argue that the U.S. healthcare system is the best in the world given the many state-of-the-art healthcare facilities and innovative and advanced medical technology available, and there are those who argue that it is too costly and inefficient on many different levels (Chua, 2006). Despite the large amount of spending invested on their healthcare system, the U.S. consistently underperforms on most indicators of performance compared to other countries (Davis, Stremikis, Squires, & Schoen, 2014). Healthcare costs such as doctor visits, hospital stays, and prescription drugs are more expensive in the U.S. than any other country in the world.

America, said to be the land of the free and opportunity, home of the brave, and yet the country of healthcare inequality. America is ruled by a principle “law of the land”, but the criterias that fall under the dominant law does not faithfully support American citizens. Moberg argues that the U.S does not have the best healthcare system in the world despite its best researchers, doctors and facilities. (“Rx for U.S. Health"). This is an issue because if the country has the best aspects of an effective healthcare system, why are the outcomes bad? Why are there still some people without healthcare and some people dying because they were unable to receive immediate attention for their health issues from medics? The editorial board of the New York Times published an article, journalists basically argued that the current American healthcare system, “Obamacare” is not efficient; in fact the American healthcare system is currently doing worse than many other industrialized countries such as Switzerland, Sweden, Britain and Canada. This is a large issue because healthcare is crucial for the American society because it should keep in mind the well-being of citizens. Specifically, “Some 37 percent of American adults went without recommended care, did not see a doctor when sick or failed to fill prescriptions in the past year because of costs, compared with 4 percent in Britain and 6 percent in Sweden. Nearly a quarter of

Life in the United States has become hard for the majority of people living within its borders. A practical and affordable healthcare system is something that every person should have