What's up, Sicko?

NewFNP and her Punjabi boyfriend hit the theater and checked out the new Michael Moore film, Sicko. NewFNP is hesitant to call it a documentary as it certainly was envisioned to do more than increase knowledge, but it certainly was not created solely to entertain its audience and therefore falls outside newNFP's definition of a movie.

Like the NYer, newFNP wishes that Sicko would have dealt more with the faults of insurance coverage and with how many Americans actually support universal health care rather than on some of the theatrics, but newFNP is a one-trick pony in this arena and her documentary about the subject would be boring as shit and would have had lots of swears and no one would want to watch it. Moore's film, on the other hand, showcased two very compelling stories about regular working folk who had HMO coverage and who died as a result of red tape and cheap, cheap, cheap decision makers who denied necessary care.

NewFNP is not wholly opposed to the idea of an HMO - an insurance designed in response to the over-consumption of medical care and the ordering of excessive tests in the fee-for-service system. However, who cannot deny that it is fucking rotten to have rewards for flat out denying care. And emergencies are emergencies - people need to get to the closest ED, not the closest in-network ED.

Shit, newFNP could make billions if she were just more of an asshole. She denies care on a daily basis just so that she can selfishly leave clinic on time instead of taking a walk-in pap test, but she never denies someone care, even at 5PM, if they really need it. So maybe newFNP couldn't make such bank after all. Damn, newFNP just shattered her own dreams of riches in the course of two sentences!

NewFNP dealt with her own "denial" moment today when an administrator at the clinic told her that she couldn't refer a patient to a partnering organization for post-partum depression because this organization wasn't a part of the right collaborative. What the fuck? There is exactly one resource in newFNP's area for uninsured women with post-partum depression and newFNP used it. No, this normally very with-it administrator was adamant that the patient wait and go through the referral process. Referral to where? The fucking Hubble Space Station? Disneyland? Buckingham Palace? The hospital that let a patient die on the floor of the emergency room?

NewFNP knows that universal health care isn't "the" answer, but it sure as hell seems like a better solution to what we have now and, call newFNP a leftie, but it seems like the ethically right thing to do. A wealthy nation should care for its people, should protect the health of the nation at the individual level as well as the community level, and should acknowledge that people cannot be productive members of society if they are unwell. For Pete's sake, newFNP is less productive if she has a fucking pimple! Imagine if she had pink eye! Or diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia.

So, anyway, after you all see Knocked Up, see Sicko. They both have to do with health care, in a way, so maybe you can get your popcorn reimbursed and call the time spent "continuing education."