Even though lots of unlucky Americans have suffered harshly at the hands of the U.S. health care system, few have done much more than complain about what's been happening. It's not just the poor and unemployed who lack quality care; employers aren't required to give their employees health care, thus many don't. The uninsured then have to deal with private insurance companies on their own and hope for the best. Ever chase a rainbow to the leprechaun? Promises, promises with very little return.
As someone said in Michael Moore's latest flick Sicko, the health care industry is not only allowing people to fall into the cracks, but it's creating new cracks and sweeping people into them. In honor of the movie, I reported on how this affects us here in Tampa Bay (including my own personal sobby medical tale) in Creative Loafing's latest cover story (at newsstands and online 6.27.07).
I saw a sneak peek of Moore's film last Saturday in Sarasota, then stood outside the theater with a microphone asking people what they thought. After 6 or so hours of cutting it all down into a neat little package, it played last night on WMNF's Evening News. (If the sound file is not active yet, it will be shortly. It will also be available on Creative Loafing's website mid-Wednesday.)
As I began my journey into the cave known as the U.S. health care system, I started with a book called Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis—-and the People Who Pay the Price by Johnathan Cohn (a Senior Editor at The New Republic). Through stories of people who battled both illness and the broken system, Sick goes briefly through the history of health care up to its myriad current problems.
My friend and co-volunteer at WMNF Arielle I'm-the-only-17-year-old-with-Jim-Davis'-press-secretary's-number-in-my-cell-phone Stevenson read the book Healthy Competition. It advocates less taxes going into the defunct health care system and less government regulation on insurance companies. Author Michael Cannon (Director of Health Care Studies, The Cato Institute) believes the result will be a more competitive market where citizens have ample choices to purchase the insurance that they want.
Arielle and I interviewed our respective authors and the interviews will be on the WMNF Evening News later this week as well as available for podcast on Creative Loafing's website.
Reporting about the health care crisis is the oddest health kick I've ever been on.
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2007.