Mike and I just came back from seeing the new Michael Moore movie, Sicko.

This time, around. Moore explores the American health care system, and all that is wrong with it. And, as I well know, there is a LOT wrong with it.

It is bad enough that millions of Americans are uninsured. The movie starts with a guy who was injured so badly, that he needed stitches. He had no insurance, so he was shown stitching the wound up himself. This scene is a bit graphic, so if you are squamish, you may want to close your eyes during that part. There was also another man, again with no insurance, who got parts of two of his finders lopped off in an accident. He couldn’t afford to have both sewn back on, so he chose the one that was least expensive. This one was $12,000. The more expensive one had a price tag of $60,000.

But, as Moore says, this movie is not about them. Specifically, it is about the millions of Americans who DO have insurance, but are still either being refused necessary treatment by the insurance companies, or forced to run up so much debt that they go bankrupt.

Here I thought WE had problems with Cigna, our insurance company. What we’ve had to deal with is NOTHING compared to some of the people that Moore featured in this movie. There was the one couple who lost their home due to high medical bills…these people once had good jobs, and thought they were fully insured. They were forced to move into a crappy little storage room in their daughter’s basement. These are hard-working people, and they lost everything they worked for, their entire lives, mostly because of the greed of the insurance companies.

And yes…as I always suspected, the greed is rampant. It is VERY commonplace for insurance reviewers to be paid huge bonuses for turning down claims. It is NOT about caring for the patient…it’s about making as large a profit as possible, no matter what the cost to anyone else.

When you really think about it…is this sort of thing really different from what Kenneth Lay and others did in the Enron case? So many employees lost not only their jobs, but also their entire retirement funds, left with nothing, and often close to retirement age, when it is difficult to get a job. Never mind even hoping to recoup any of that money.

There was also a 79-year-old man who says he will probably NEVER be able to retire, he needs to work to keep his insurance. He works as a janitor at a PathMark grocery store, and he said that the main benefit was that sincwe PathMark has a pharmacy, he gets all of the drugs that he and his wife need for free. He would have never been able to afford them through Medicare, or even a Medicare supplement, should he choose to retire.

Then there was the young woman who was involved in a serious car accident. She had insurance, too, but they decided not to pay for the ambulance because it was not “cleared” ahead of time. WTF??? It’s an AMBULANCE, and this was an EMEREGENCY. She asked, what was she supposed to do? She was unconscious! Sound familiar? Yep, this is right up there with our insurance company refusing to pay for the anethesiologist when Mike had his colonsocopy. The excuse was that this practitioner was “not in the network”. Well, how were WE supposed to know that?

One good story was about the couple whose daughter was born deaf. They fought with Cigna, the Evil Insurance Company From Hell over getting her cochlear implants, so that she can hear. Finally Cigna agreed to pay for one ear, but they felt that the kid shuld have hearing in BOTH ears…especially since she was just learning to talk, and if it was possible for her to hear in both ears, the better she’d learn.

They had been in contact with Moore to appear in the movie…but the husband took the bull by the horns, and wrote a letter to Cigna. He said that he’s currently in touch with Michael Moore, about a film that he is working on. Funny…he got a response, saying that Cigna had reconsidered things, and were now willing to approve cochlear implants in BOTH ears. I’m sure they were hoping that this little story would be kept out of the movie. HAHAHAHA…Moore put it in, anyway. He really does love to stir the shit! I wanted to stand up and cheer at that scene, since I really HATE Cigna.

Moore then travels to Canada, England, and France, to talk to people there about their government health care plans. The systems in these countries are certainly not without their faults, but they certainly seem to me to be a LOT better than what we have here. I’m sure that if we were to move to, say, Canada, there NEVER would have been all of the harassment from Mike’s doctors for any unneccesary surgery. The doctors there are government employees and earn a straight salary…they don’t get paid according to how many people they cut open that week, as it seems that they do here.

In fact, several doctors that he talked to, in these other countries, say that no way would they WANT to practice medicine in America. They like it that they don’t have to spend their time thinking about money, and have more time to actually take care of patients. This should be why people go into medicine in the first place…and NOT to get rich. However, doctors do okay over there…they are not obscenely rich as some are here, but they live comfortably enough. And they can do it without trying to suck their patients and insurance companies for every dime they can squeeze out of them.

Do any of you ever watch “The Young and the Restless”? Oy vey, what they’ve got going on there!

First of all, Victoria Newman is pregnant…and she is not sure if the proud daddy is her estranged husband Brad Carlton (aka George Kaplan), or her new boytoy, J.T. Hellstrom.

And then…Vicki’s brother, Nick, was assumed dead in a plane crash, but has recently come back to Genoa City, alive, but not so well. See…he was married to Sharon, who he cheated on to be with Phyllis. Phyllis got pregnant, but she wasn’t sure who the daddy was, as she’d recently done the nasty with her ex-husband, Jack Abbott. But Nick said that he was the daddy, and he divorced Sharon and married Phyllis. She soon gave birth to a daughter, Summer.

So now, Nick is back…but he has amnesia, and does not remember being involved with Phyllis (who he used to despise, BTW). He thinks he is still married to Sharon, who has since re-married…to none other but Phyllis’s ex, Jack.

I think that Nick is going to doubt his paternity of Summer at this time…as well as the fact that Brad and J.T. are gonna want to know which one of them hit the bull’s eye when it comes to Vicki’s baby. So, the paternity test labs in Genoa City are gonna be very busy over the next few weeks.

What do I think? Well, I think Jack is the father of Phyllis’ baby, Summer, which is what I am hoping for here. I loved Phyllis and Jack together, and hope that they can reunite. Jack is clearly still in love with Phyllis, and he even came out and said that he wished that Summer was his. I’d also love to see Nick and Sharon get back together.

And I hope that J.T. is the father of Vicki’s baby, as I like them together a LOT more than I liked her with Brad the Cad. Brad Carlton needs to go back and slither underneath the rock from which he came!

But I guess they don’t have a Planned Parenthood clinic in Genoa City…that could explain why no one there ever seems to use any birth control!

I was being lazy earlier today, not feeling well, and was watching the lineup of judge shows on channel 25. If you’ve ever watched shows like this, you are aware of the types of commercials they run. Shady lawyers telling you to sue people, tons of medical assistant and other career schools, loan sharks, and some outfit called Local Phone Company, who will provide you with home telephone service even if Verizon shuts you off for non-payment.

Anyway, I saw a new one today that made me feel sad. Remember Gary Coleman, the kid from the 80’s sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes”? Well, now he’s doing ads for some outfit called I-800-CASH-CALL…which is basically a legalized loan shark company…one of those “payday loan” companies that I have so much disdain for.

It’s sad that he has had to sink so low. He made millions from “Diff’rent Strokes”, but ended up suing his parents and manager because they stole his trust fund. He ended up with almost nothing, and never had much of a career after “Diff’rent Strokes”. Also, he has some kind of a weird disease that made him stop growing, so he still looks like a kid. I’m serious…the guy is almost 40 years old now, and doesn’t look that much different than he did on the TV show.
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There is also another commercial for title loans, which drives me nuts. It shows these people happily surrendering their car titles to another leaglized loan shark, so they can borrow money for stuff like going on vacation. They let you keep the car, but if you don’t pay up, they can take the car away.

WHY would anyone take such a risk for something like going on vacation? What if they can’t pay it back…then they lose their car and can’t get to work? If you can’t afford to go on vacation, then you shouldn’t be going in the first place. It’s one thing to put it on a credit card, if you can afford to make the payments, but to risk your CAR for a vacation? And at what are no doubt insane interest rates? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Also, in these commercials, they show the guy walking out of the loan shark store with a wad of cash in his hand, and the bimbo with him is lookiing very impressed that he cold score this cash. And they show him getting into a late model car…who has a late model car with a title? We sure as hell dont! If someone is rich enough to pay cash for a car, then they should be rich enough not to have to go to loan sharks.

I can’t believe people go in for this stuff!

Ever watch this TV talk show called “The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet”? It’s on FOX, and it comes on at 9 AM, right after the FOX Morning News. Since I usaually watch that news show, I often keep the TV on to watch M & J. I like them, I think they are much better than Regis and Kelly. I like Reege fine, but Kelly can get very annoying.

Anyway, today, M & J had Richard Simmons on the show. My goodness, that guy has been around forever! I remember back when he played himself on “General Hospital”; I think this even pre-dates the original Luke & Laura storyline.

Richard says that the weight loss industry can be very comfusing to most, as there is so much out there…different kinds of diets and programs, exercise tapes/DVDs, pills. What is right for you? I don’t feel that there is any one right or wrong weight loss plan for most people…what works well for one may not work so well for another.

Diet pills can be scary for some people, due to the dangers of Ephedra. Steve Bechler, who was a pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, actually died from it! Is this one of the ones that has been taken off the market? If not, it should be!

Right now, I have the 80’s channel playing on XM radio. Michael Bolton is doing a cover version of “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay”. How did I miss this when it first came out?

No matter. I am just glad I did. This is AWFUL!

I like a lot of 80’s music, but Michael Bolton was truly a travesty. Gack!

That is all.

I saw on the news today that Lindsay Lohan is out of rehab. And reportedly partying again, according to the news story. It’s really sad, as she is so young and has her whole life ahead of her. How old is she anyway…20? In any case, I don’t think she’s not even old enough to be drinking in the first place!

We see it over and over again with young Hollywood…they let all of the fame and money go to their heads, and they go crazy with drugs and alcohol. Where are their parents, anyway? Why are these kids not getting any guidance from them? Are the parents so wrapped up in the celebrity lifestyle, as well, that they turn a blind eye to what their kids are doing?

So many of them, like Lindsay, end up in alcohol or drug rehab centers. If they are truly determined to make changes, and get the help they need, this works.

Ms. Lohan is such a beautiful young woman, and a good little actress, too. It would be a shame to see her throw her life away with all of this partying. I really hope she learned something from her stint in rehab.

For the first time in my life, I watched American Idol. Mike thinks this show is as stupid as all hell, but I didn’t force him to watch it. I was watching it on the kitchen TV while I was making dinner (we eat kind of late around here). he was sitting up in bed watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy…I bought him that and the sequel, Smiley’s People, for Christmas 2005. He’s already bored with being home, and feels like re-watching stuph he’s seen before.

Anyway, on AI, how about that old guy, who sang “You Belong To Me” for his late wife? Paula wasn’t the only one broght to tears by that! The guy was actually a very good singer, and even though he was too old to be a contestant on the show (you can’t be older than 28, and this guy was 60-something), it was nice of them to let him audition, at least. That was all he really wanted, and expected. I was happy that he got his special wish.