One stream of revelations of the Michael Moore's SiCKO film has got to be the anecdotes from ex employees of the healthcare sector. They took the courage to spill the beans on the unscrupulous things that happened backstage.
An ex employee of the call centre of an insurance company. She recounts an experience when a customer on the phone was jubilant about [the assumption of] getting covered by health insurance and this call centre operator knew for certain that ultimately, she would be denied insurance, and it killed her to be in that knowledge about the certain outcome
In front of a public panel, this medical reviewer confessed the shame of denying policyholders their claims payouts and put under limelight the insurance firms' practice of denying payouts. A medical reviewer who hits a quota in denying insurance coverage saves money for the company substantially and will be rewarded via pay raise, bonuses and promotion
Ex insurance employee interviewed by Moore
And here's more. Footage of patients being dumped on the streets by the hospitals because they cannot afford to pay their medical bills anymore.
This scruffy-looking lady was in a daze when the taxi arranged by the hospital shoved her on the streets.
Footage of an old woman, still in her hospital gown but with the ID bands removed. She was dumped on the streets by a cab, also arranged by the hospital.
Pictures taken from screenshot of the film rented from VideoEzy
It is a breach of medical ethics on the corporate level to the extreme. Thank goodness Singapore at least has a system in place where patients of extreme cases and hospitals can turn to the government.
7 comments:
i saw this show b4... great show! michealmoore makes very good expose films
hospitals need not resort to abandoningtheir patients on the streets or in the wild of LCK and Punggol... Sg is too smal lanyway and the cab driver will nvr knoe when he may be watched. a sinful thing to do.
i dont think someone can be bankrupted because of medical fees and the patient & his family can alwayseek CDCs for financial help. U guys mentioned at the beginning of ur blog dat VWO hospitals are in the picture now. its cheaper thr.
i think the govt and patients can reachh some form of compromise, People can still receive decent medical services. we r not talking abt one room-type hospitalisation in Mt E. or Alvernia or course.
ntuc inc. was set out to be a social enterprise anyway and help all singaporeans receive adequate affordable insurance coverage. though there r signs that the cooperative is beomcing like 1 of those global financial institution. tan suee chieh needs to make this distinction.
Very interesting...Thanks for sharing..
In contrast, I believe this would not happen to Singapore. At least not for the near furutre, with the many government policies and reviews in placed.
Singapore, with her medical industry being hailed as one of the best in the world, would not exchange her reputation by shoving patients on the streets, after all, what takes years to build up can be ruin in just seconds, talking about uploading a video on alternative media like Facebook or Youtube, featuring a singaporean woman being shoved to the streets in hospital robes.
I am thankful that at least we wont not see this in the near future. We need to constantly remind ourselves that such acts are not acceptable and the taxpayers' money which helped placed these unscrupulous executives through school could happen to any nation, not just the U.S.
Hey, I bet you didnt know about this. Check this out, 10 Facts you never knew about "Sicko"
http://noedb.org/library/features/10-facts-you-never-knew-from-sicko
Check this out, the comments from all over the world:
http://www.philmug.ph/forum/archive/index.php/t-22776.html
Hi, check this out: http://www.spug.sg/forums/showthread.php?t=98018
There was a forum talking about "SiCKO comes to SingaporE?"
the discussions were quite relevant too.
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