I recently saw Michael Moore's movie "Sicko", which made me pretty sick! Although he said a lot of what I already knew, the film made me much more aware of how seriously flawed our health care system really is. As if it isn't bad enough that 50 million Americans don't have health insurance, the 250 million who do belong to HMOs which are limiting their choices in the name of maximizing their profits. It is truly shameful that the United States is the richest country in the world and yet the only developed country in the world withough universal health coverage. We need to fix our broken system!
The United States needs to use Europe and Canada as a model. In 1948, the British government decided to grant free health care to all its citizens, stating that if the government can afford to spend money to kill people, it can afford to spend money to help people. We need to do the same. Our government was meant to help its citizens, and our health is one of our most basic needs.
American citizens need to be more aware of the problem and our need for universal health care. Many Americans have been scared into thinking that socialized medicine is a bad thing, like socialism or communism in general. However, this is certainly not the case. Canada, for instance, has socialized medicine but their government is quite conservative in other ways. Although many Western European nations have several socialized programs besides medicine, their citizens are quite content. Americans can remain as devoted to capitalism as they want, but is it too much to ask for socialized medicine, which benefits all?
