It was a great honor to have "Health, Money and Fear" included in the July edition of Ironweed Films. In the few months since I completed the film, I have been spending untold hours trying to distribute it with the goal of contributing to the debate.
Along the way, I have found a large number of sympathetic people. In my attempts to reach those who might not already be part of the choir, I have found a small but very vocal subset of apparently very bright people who have a violent reaction to any sense that our health care system calls for more government involvement which threatens "the magic of the marketplace."
To them I say that we have a health care non-system in which major business decisions are driven by the desire to maximize the profits gained from treating disease. There is relatively little money to be made from keeping people healthy. Accordingly, our current system will absolutely ensure that we have the most amount of disease from which we can profit. That's some kind of magic, eh?
As for more government involvement, that scares me too, but I don't think we have any choice. We are accelerating to the financial cliff and people are suffering because they don't have access to affordable health care. We need to develop a system in which somebody is leading the dialog about what medical services we can afford to provide to all our citizens.
I can almost guarantee that we will have a single payer system eventually... just like all our industrial competitors. It's the only way to control costs. Yes, "We are different", but what we have now isn't working.
-- Dr. Paul Hochfeld, Director, Health, Money and Fear (Ironweed Films Volume 32: July 2008)
For more information, visit http://www.ironweedfilms.com/films
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5 comments:
Indeed that IS some kind of magic-- a system that would rather see us sick than well is scary! Great point Paul. Your film was so well done and though I knew that administrative costs were a drain on our system, I didn't know the extent of which until I saw your film. Thanks for the insider perspective.
As a physician who has tried to maintain a solo private practice for the past thirty years (ophthalmology), I can attest from the trenches that the system is broken beyond repair.
Though it is tempting to turn to a government solution, I do not believe that our existing form of unbridled Corporatism can produce any humane or workable answers. Regardless of who occupies the throne in Washington in January, we will only see more of the same - namely, Medicare Part D writ large.
Cui bono? ...Not the common man - only Big Pharma, Big Insurance, our bloated Med-Industrial Complex, and Big Government. Any "solution" that comes from the establishment will only be to the benefit of corporate bottom lines.
I, too, hear the arguments about "letting the marketplace work" (in fact, in my youth, I made the same stupid comments). The marketplace has NOT been free within my lifetime! Instead, we have the charade of "free markets" that are anything but...
We actually live in a form of National (Corporate) Socialism and, consequently, I become quite amused when the public and the controlled media, and my peers run about hysterically shouting "socialism, socialism, socialism" if any collective solutions to the health care problems are debated.
Thanks, Dr. Hochfeld for your efforts...
In Peace, Hope, and Solidarity...
Hi Paul,
I'd like to know if I can show your film at the local community center in Benson Az. Its a great presentation.
Robin Gaura
robinegaura@live.net
Paul Hochfeld here...
Robin, your email address in not functioning. That said, anybody who wants to show this video at any public gathering has my permission to do so. If you contact me, I might be able to find a sympathetic physician to lead a discussion to follow.
"Health, Money and Fear" is intended to be a tool to educate the public. Eventually, it will be available to all on the internet. Prior to that I am still trying to find a way to interest Public Television. Any assistance from people with connections or influence would be appreciated.
phochfeld@msn.com
Genial brief and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Thanks you for your information.
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