Originally published July 2 2007
Nurses launch national "Scrubs for SiCKO" campaign to endorse universal health care following Michael Moore's film
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Starting June 29th, the launch day of the SiCKO documentary, nurses, doctors and other health care practitioners are launching a national campaign to urge support for a shift to a universal health care system. They'll be handing out flyers and recruiting people to support a campaign to shift America away from its current greed-based system of medicine to one that offers universal health care to everyone.
Universal health care is a system where the government provides taxpayer-funded health care to all citizens in the nation, with no exceptions, no pre-existing conditions, no application forms and no service denials. Services are usually paid for by tax dollars or employer contributions that go into a government-administered health care fund. Nearly all advanced nations use this system today, as it removes the profiteering, greed, monopoly pricing and most of the paperwork surrounding health care services. It also eliminates a tremendous amount of stress and worry among the population, greatly enhancing the quality of life of that nation's citizens.
Canada relies on universal health care. So does the U.K., France, Japan, Taiwan and even Cuba, as is pointed out in the SiCKO movie by Michael Moore. Only the United States remains steeped in health care corruption, stuck in a system of greed, run by corporations who are out to make a profit, not to make people well. (And disease pays big bucks, by the way. That's why conventional medicine today has no real interest in preventing disease or curing disease. There's only a focus on treating symptoms and keeping patients addicted to pharmaceuticals for life.)
NaturalNews fully supports universal health care. While the thought of government running health care is rather horrifying, the only thing scarier is the thought of greedy corporations running health care. I'd much rather have health care left up to incompetent bureaucrats than scheming profiteers who have no ethics. The very idea that drug companies and insurance companies are right now profiting from disease and sickness is bewildering. Shouldn't health care be more concerned about the health of the people than the profits of the wealthy elite?
As I said in a previous article, no nation that neglects the health of its people can expect to have a future. America's current system of medicine has clearly abandoned the needs of its people while protecting the profits of influential corporations who run health care today (Big Pharma, insurance companies, hospitals and so on). The end result of all this is now becoming obvious: A collapse of America's health and wealth. Our future is looking increasingly like a future of rampant disease and widespread medical bankruptcy. But it's not too late to stop this from happening. Adopting universal health care now could save us from the national health care disaster now brewing.
If we do nothing and accept the status quo, continuing to financially exploit our sick while denying basic health care services to nearly 50 million Americans, our future is not in doubt: The United States of America will find itself ruined, diseased and bankrupt, with no way out. See my popular health care fable Welcome to the Town of Allopath for a fictional description of how this might work. (Yes, I'm the original author of the Town of Allopath fable. Other websites have used the story for various purposes, but I'm the one who wrote it.)
It's interesting that even nurses and health practitioners are fed up with the current greed-based health care system that operates in America today. Doctors are buried under insurance paperwork (which takes up about 70% - 80% of the staff at a given clinic or hospital), insurance companies play the "we won't pay" game with everybody, and the people end up paying for insurance that won't cover them when they need it anyway. This whole situation creates stress and worry for everyone, and it results in the needless deaths of individuals who are denied lifesaving medical procedures simply because their insurance won't pay. Want a picture of how the industry really operates? Just watch the behavior of the Dr. Kelso character in the popular "Scrubs" television series -- it's more accurate than you might suspect!
Addicted to profit
So if nurses, doctors, employers, state governments and nearly all the people in the country want universal health care, why hasn't it happened yet? The answer is simple: Because the corporations currently profiting from sickness and disease don't want to give up their control over health care. Big Pharma is making billions of dollars selling dangerous drugs to people who largely don't need them. Health insurance companies are raking in billions more by denying payment for medical procedures. Lawmakers are on the food chain too, addicted to health care industry money for their reelection campaigns. The corporations in power today are allied against any switch to universal health care because it would take the profit out of the system and deliver quality health care services on the cheap.
Think about it: Americans pay the most, by far, for health care. We pay monopoly prices for pharmaceuticals. It's a great scam if you're cashing in as a drug company or corrupt FDA official. But the People just get the shaft. Isn't it time we took back our health care and investigated, arrested and prosecuted all the criminals who have been running this health care scam on us for the last few decades? (We can start by making arrests at the FDA, by the way, for their crimes against humanity. See my article The lawlessness of the FDA, Big Pharma immunity, and crimes against humanity for more details.
Below, we reprint the full press release published by "Scrubs for SiCKO." You can learn more information at: http://www.calnurse.org/sicko/
Nurses, Doctors Announce 'Scrubs for SiCKO' Campaign in Conjunction With Debut of Michael Moore's Film to Spark Genuine Healthcare Debate
Planning to spark a fundamental change in national healthcare politics, an unprecedented national coalition of nurses and doctors organizations today announced plans to rally around the openings of Michael Moore's "SiCKO" June 29 to press the campaign for single-payer healthcare, guaranteeing comprehensive, quality healthcare with an expanded and improved Medicare for all.
Calling it the "Scrubs for SiCKO" campaign, organizers will recruit registered nurses and doctors to every theater in the nation where "SiCKO" opens to ensure that caregivers -- in SiCKO scrubs -- are in the audience.
The caregivers will distribute information and urge moviegoers to join the drive for a fundamental overhaul of the nation's dysfunctional healthcare system -- as is so brilliantly described in "SiCKO." They will urge the audience to help pass single-payer/Medicare-for-all-type legislation such as HR 676 now pending in Congress and several states, and make it a central focus of the presidential campaign.
Nurses and doctors are serving as co-hosts of "SiCKO" premieres across the nation.
Participants include the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Physicians for a National Health Program, New York State Nurses Association, Massachusetts Nurses Association, United Steelworkers (USW) Health Care Workers Council, Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, United Nurses and Allied Professionals (Rhode Island), Communications Workers of America, and the New England Nurses Association. The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions is also participating, with other groups to be announced.
A delegation of nurses and doctors from across the country will embark on a tour of East Coast cities beginning today in New York to help energize the nurse grassroots. The tour will mostly take place in a colorfully-wrapped bus encouraging people to see the movie and is being planned in conjunction with premieres of the film in New York, Washington D.C., and other locales.
"SiCKO" profiles a number of Americans with insurance who have been denied needed care by their insurance companies, describes how the insurance-based healthcare system is structured to keep it that way, and provides examples of other industrialized nations where insurance companies do not stand in the way of medical care.
The campaign will highlight the need for reforms that prevent insurance companies from denying care, and send a strong signal to politicians in Congress, state capitals, and the presidential race who are promoting insurance-based reforms.
HR 676 and similar bills in several state legislatures would have one public entity collecting and disbursing all revenues for care delivered by our current, mostly private hospitals, clinics, and doctors, similar to how Medicare works. The system is universal, assures comprehensive benefits, guarantees freedom to choose your provider, and controls costs. It also drastically curbs administrative costs -- and the waste caused by insurance company profits and paperwork.
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