Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point
The average American family of four incurs an annual healthcare insurance tab of $23,000. In many cases, this astronomical sum doesn't afford them nearly enough coverage for emergency medical care. That's just one of the startling realities presented in Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point, a distressing examination of the country's badly broken healthcare system.
Whether you're a senior citizen, a young and vital member of the workforce, or a business owner desperate to provide the most basic benefits to your employees, you are not immune from the damages inflicted by these rising costs. The film presents impassioned viewpoints from each of these segments of the population in the United States.
Their insights clearly implicate a system which is operating in full crisis mode, and failing the people it's designed to protect. In the past decade alone, premium costs have doubled. Businesses have felt the crunch, and in some cases have had to decrease their employee base just to keep their head above water. Even in the wake of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, citizens have seen their life savings dwindle simply because a member of their family has become ill.
The effects on the economy as a whole is equally devastating as fewer people possess the disposable income that allows commerce to thrive. Wages stagnate, infrastructure crumbles, and more people become sick from the added stress and anxiety. For many citizens and small to medium businesses, the hurdles presented by the current healthcare system cannot be overcome.
The filmmakers speak with doctors, business owners, healthcare reform advocates and ordinary members of the working class in an attempt to not only diagnose the problem, but to uncover pragmatic solutions for it as well. Collectively, their narrative illustrates the pitfalls of a private insurance industry that values rising profits above all else. The film also looks to other countries whose populations receive exemplary care for a fraction of the cost.
Can America change the course of its wildly dysfunctional healthcare system? The ideas presented in Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point could serve a strong dose of inspiration if they choose to try.
Directed by: Vincent Mondillo
Frankly I don't give a damn about what it costs if we can afford to give the top 10% several trillion dollars in tax cuts who already avoid paying taxes through all types of loop holes. After the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO BAIL THEM OUT IN 2008! To top it all off we add billions more to an obese military budget. Then suddenly it comes to health care and social security and we HAVE NO MONEY? WE'RE GOING TO BANKRUPT THE COUNTRY? WE CAN'T AFFORD IT?
Then pharmaceutical companies are going to have to adjust their prices. They apparently don't adjust for quantity because their lobbyists bribed Congress whores to do their bidding!
I like the Canadians concept, however, you must remember the ruling elite in the U.S. who get the kick backs from all their underhanded law making BS and who approve of the DRUG ADDICT manufactures and the FDA is, after all for the greater good. In the united states, the ruling elite considers the greater good as the 1%, and they have excellent health care, It's not like they make these laws for the 99%. To have been educated in the good 'ol USA, one must realize they have been lied to all their lives, and the BS continues to this day, and will continue until they start making laws a VOTE. not behind closed doors in the middle of the night, like a thief!!!
I don't understand exactly how this health insurance thing works and stuff. But one thing is sure. Insurance Company is an insurance that they will continue making big business by offering people insurance. Do you need their insurance?
A documentary that doesn't show the downside to a miracle solution is in itself propaganda. The increased life expectancies in Canadians vs. Americans is multifactorial (diet, exercise, etc.) and saying it's due to the single-payer health system is complete deception. The incurring health care costs in the US are also multifactorial. Bureaucratic private hospitals, health care waste, pharmaceutical companies, lack of price transparencies for patients, for-profit insurance companies; there's a multitude of reasons why health care costs so much. To say it will all be solved with a single-payer system is just ignorant. To make the cost health care go down, make insurance companies and hospital systems non-profit. Invoke price transparency for patients. Educate the community and give incentives for primary care physicians.
Hey doc, the gov does'nt"manage" healthcare under single payer systems .
It pays the bill, get it?
The same system of docs hospitals and so forth do the "managing.
Don't any of you read or research how the world works before you whine!?
The US government is incapable of managing a national healthcare program, so just give citizens the money they need to pay the premiums that Congress receives (same plan, same provider, same cost) and leave the current medial system alone
Health care in this country has been tied to 'if you don't agree with us [do the math on who us is] then you're a Communist at worst Socialist at best'' the usual scare tactic that over-hauling the HC system will some how lead it to be 'un-american' while the whole time all it really does is line the pockets of a few.
A single payer system would not change most people's take home pay, as the taxes fees taken out now for medical care, would just be shifted to a single agency. Those currently with no insurance would see an increase on purchase prices of goods and services as businesses adjust the additional tax burdens. But even that would not be much of a burden.
However, those who depend on tax deductions for medical expenses would see that windfall go away and those who depend on rigging the insurance game (medical fraud) would need to seek other forms of income.
But this documentary is lacking one huge point. That is, dealing the the insurance companies and their political lobbyists. Getting from here to there would have to be a huge battle. It may even take a revolution.
The producer of this documentary needs to do a follow up on this challenge and interject ideas how it can be possible for the US to go from a system of intense corporate insurance greed to a single payer system.
Oh, and another thing missing from this documentary. They forgot to mention that not everything is covered in a single payer system. Some medicines and procedures have to be paid by the patient...as well as needing out-of-nation travel insurance.
I'm canadian and tax accountant and I assure you all there is no separate tax 12% charged to canadian residents for the health care. Employers pay 2% - 2.5% Heath Care Tax if annual payroll exceeds $400,000 , up to $400,000 is zero (employers pay on excess.) Then there is personal Health Care Tax of 0 - $1200 a year depending on your income , up to 35K is zero, over 120K is $1200. That is all the burden employers and employees pay for Health Care in Canada.
What kind of documentary is this? >.<
17% of GdP for healthcare? That's nothing, because the US just entered a national health care program.
MORE THAN 50% of the US budget is going into the military. Straight down the line, killing people.
Just cut 7% off that, and you'll pay the same amount as the rest of the western world for all-year even-job-less health care.
Of course, companies should always pay a fixed premium, not a variable. Why should someone pay more to employ a sick person? I believe that idea came from some managers who employ illegals to avoid healthcare.
This documentary is strongly biased. The author makes it look like the US is going downstream because of health care, and fails to put the situation in context. Also it doesn't point to the details, why the reform isn't working properly.
We don't have money for schools because of health care? Come oooon... what kind of documentary is this?
No, all it requires is the US government not spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a military who's only purpose in the last 70 years has been to create conflict. There's no need for that size of a military other than a dick measuring contest. Look at the rest of the world get by just fine without it, right next to actual dangerous countries.
There's also a reason Canada has one of the wealthiest middle classes in the world.
The spending on Healthcare as a % of GDP in the US in 2015 was 17.5%. In the UK it was 9.1%. The US spends almost twice as much on healthcare as the UK does. And the UK covers everyone in the entire country! How can anyone argue the US system is effective? Its clearly a disaster and the extra middlemen (insurance companies, etc.) double the cost of healthcare. Its clear universal healthcare (or medicare for all) is the only way to provide low cost coverage. I don't see why people don't see this. Its ridiculous and sad for a family to go bankrupt because a family member gets sick. Something has to change.
we need to share this on all social media's.it is time to remove the health care cartel and hold the bought off congress responsible if they oppose this.
Lindal, why do you forget to do math? so which number do you think is bigger for the average person? 10-20k a year or paying what you say..... also dont forget where those numbers come from, cause this documentary suggests the opposit of what you are saying. it will be cheaper and more efficient. At least their propaganda works on you!
What, now we have to tip doctors?
Come to Australia greatest medical in the world
It would also lead to pay increments at work due to lower insurance cost for companies so that 11.7% is nothing. It would lead to also more work in US and less going out of US due to lower cost of running business in US.
12% seems like a small price to pay & may be offset with no insurance premiums both for individuals & businesses, no co-pays for Hospitals, Docs, & prescriptions. It seems to me people would have money based on the extremely high costs that prevail now.
This documentary fails to mention that a national single-payer system would require a separate payroll tax of 11.7 percent, according to the National Institute for Health Care Reform.
I lost everything after owning a business for over 25 years. All I got was grief from the wife. Nothing I could do or say didn't change anything. I started taking minimum wage jobs. It only slowed the inevitable. Filed two bankruptcies. Lost my home and my family was no support. I feel dumped on by the very ones I cared about. All I heard while leaving bankruptcy court was, "this sucks" over and over. I felt like a sap that was used. I'm still very bitter that I moved in the aging mother-in-law. I felt sorry for her to be alone after her husband died. It has totally changed my view on employment, government and marriage. Awakening to reality is a sudden slap in the face.
I am Canadian and when I talk to Americans they THINK that the US medical coverage is better ??
When we lose our job we don't have any medical worries even without an income.
If an American child has a bad heart it can cost the family $ 500,000......... by age 12.
This were.......# 1 is DELUSIONAL