I went to see an early screening of Sicko last night. Most memorable moment of the movie for me - causing me to scrabble in my purse for a pen - "If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people." Great quote from Tony Benn, a British politician.

Go see the movie. It is not strident Michael Moore, as people hate him (and some love him), but it certainly shows that Canadians, the British, and the French (who have the premier health care system in the world, according to the World Health Organization), treat everyone based on their need and not on their wallet. They certainly don't dump those who can't pay their medical bills outside homeless shelter - a haunting scene in the movie from the United States, which on that same WHO ranking is 37th, right after Costa Rica and before Slovenia. Sicko makes the point that even the prisoners at Guantanamo get better health care than most Americans and better than rescue workers from the 9/11 World Trade Center site.

The US is the only country in the Western world without a nationalized health system. As Michael Mooore suggests, we grab the coolest cars and wine and everything else from Europe, but not the health system. Why are we constantly fed the myth that all those countries have terrible health systems and people hate them...it's just not the truth. But making us believe that allows someone to make lots of money off our system the way it is. Oh, and that would be the health insurance companies.

Chill while you listen to President Nixon warm up to Ehrlichman explaining the fact that there are going to be "health maintenance organizations like Edward Kaiser's Permanente thing....which Edward Kaiser is running ....for profit....All the incentives are toward less medical care," Ehrlichman explains further to Nixon, "The less care they give them, the more money they make." Kaiser Permanente is now the nation's largest HMO.

People die in this movie because they can't afford care, or because they went to the wrong hospital. A physician testifies that health insurance companies pay bonuses for doctors to deny care - and people die because of it...but the doctors gets the bonuses. Children die because their parents take them in an emergency to a hospital which is not 'in-network', the insurance company denies care, and by the time they are transferred, they die. People who are unconscious from a serious car accident get transported by ambulance to a hospital, and the claim for the ambulance is denied because there was no pre-approval.

Let's stop thinking that we have the best health care system in the world, we don't. We don't live as long as people in many countries in the world mainly because we don't provide preventitive care to all of our population, and we trail 41 countries in infant mortality rate. This, even though we pay more by far than any other country for our care. The money that makes up record-breaking profits for our health insurance companies.

Is this America? We, the people. When did we stop caring about people? All of our people. When did we think it was OK to let people who could be saved, die? Go see the movie and then take to the streets and demand that everyone in this country get health insurance and quality health care.

Stop believing the lies, start standing up for every American. And while we are about it, let's decide what our priorities are as a nation: "If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people."

I vote for helping - but I vote. I wish everyone else of a like mind would do so also and then maybe something might change, although as Sicko shows us there are 4 time more healthcare lobbyists in Washington than there are politicians.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive