You Sicko!

Like much of the country, we received a lot of snow this weekend. Four inches to be exact. In fact, we barely left our little apartment this weekend. We managed to traverse the snow at one point, to acquire Chinese food goodness, and a couple of movies. We rented Sicko, directed by Michael Moore, which investigates the American health care system, focusing on its for-profit health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the non-universal and for-profit U.S. system with the universal and non-profit systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba. It is quite an eye-opening documentary (I guess that is the point of documentaries—no?) It’s very much worth seeing as it carefully shows why universal health care is so elusive. Basically, Sicko shows that a system that provides health care has too many inherent flaws in it to be effective and just if it is a for-profit business because maximizing profits means denying care to keep costs down. I was also humored at the attempts of those who greatly benefit from the current system (i.e., HMOs, shareholders, members of Congress, corporations) to liken universal health care to socialism. Great comedic value. Check it out if you haven’t already.



In case you were wondering, the Chinese food was not as good as the movie. But, any Chinese is good Chinese in my book.

In other news, today was the annual “Secret Santa” gift exchange here at KF. I received a great gift – a very cool chip and dip set, complete with chips and homemade salsa. It is quite amazing that a place so quiet and taciturn on the whole can become so vibrant and full of cacophony over something as simple as a gift exchange. It goes to show that environments can be shaped, and cultures transformed with intentional efforts.

I’ll be glued to tonight’s Monday Night Football matchup, as it has major implications for my fantasy football title, and thus a considerable amount of money.