While I disagree with much of Michael Moore's philosophy, one of the things I will credit him with in the movie "Sicko" is bringing the health care debate to the forefront of discussion.

While there are those on this site who will characterize me as a greedy, heartless individual, those who know me best know that it is not only an untruth, but a slanderous LIE! I won't get into the things I've done, because I don't do them for credit, but I will say there's a lot about me you don't know. I've LIVED among the poor most of my life. And I know more than a little about health care for the uninsured in the United States. And it's not a geographically limited knowledge, either. I've lived in many different states, and had a wide variety of experiences in that area.

But enough about me. One of the salient points that needs to be acknowledged is that we need to do SOMETHING about health care. And as unappealing as the idea of government intervention is, the health care industry needs to understand if they don't self regulate, then something needs to be done.

One huge problem with the system is that the ones making the money aren't the doctors or the hospitals. They're the insurance companies. And the insurance companies are making money hand over fist. Who suffers? The patient does, because the doctor's going to get his pay, and when the middleman tacks on their share, it becomes cost prohibitive.

While I don't subscribe to Michael Moore's proposal to ban private insurance, I do believe we should look at ways of making the industry less profitable. If there's a way to do that without involving government, I'm all ears. I'd prefer we find a private way, but I must admit at this point I'm hard pressed to figure out how.

Now, why should the government pay for medical care for the poor and indigent? Mainly because we already are. And the manner in which we are doing so is grossly inefficient. We need to either decide that medical care IS the responsibility of the government, and fund it appropriately, or decide that it's not and allow hospitals to refuse service because of inability to pay. And deal with the results accordingly. Because most Americans don't have the stomach to deal with seeing the dead and dying on the streets, I don't think removing government involvement altogether is an option we will ever accept. And while private charities ideally should be picking up the slack, the fact is, they aren't doing that at this time.

One of my proposals to help coverage become more widespread is to give employers a tax credit for every dollar spent on wages, salary, and benefits. Not a deduction. A CREDIT. Because even though employees aren't generally taxed on benefits, everything an employer pays in benefits ultimately saves the taxpayer by funding coverage the taxpayer would otherwise find themselves paying.

Probably one of the biggest problems I have with Moore's newest movie is that it attempts to ANSWER questions. "Roger & Me", "Bowling for Columbine", and, to a lesser extent, "Fahrenheit 9/11" asked more questions than they answered. "Sicko" does the opposite. And I don't think Michael Moore has the answers any more than the rest of us do. The truth is that as detestable as many liberals find the small government conservatives, they have the same right to a voice as the liberals do. And as Myrrander once said (noting this because Myrrander is nowhere NEAR me politically), what we both expect and have a right to expect from our government is efficiency (a gross paraphrase, sorry, Myrr!). And efficiency is something that we're NOT getting.

So how do we make our current system more efficient? Simple. By covering the medical bills we're already paying for. See, even when someone doesn't qualify for government aid, all they have to do is not pay their bill and avoid tax collectors and the hospital will write it off as bad debt. And it would be a fool who thinks they wouldn't pad their figures as much as they are legally allowed to do. So what do they do? Charge the uninsured the retail cost of medical care so that when they write it off, they can write off the FULL amount, not the amount they charge insurance companies.

We're getting raked over the coals by accountants under the current system. Whether you support socialized medicine or simply efficient medicine, we need to do something about that. Basically, it's time to pee or get off the pot as far as the medical industry is concerned.

In doing a little (granted; very little, it's mostly an opinion piece) research on this article, I found an interesting Kaiser Report study (http://covertheuninsured.org/media/research/KaiserReport.pdf) that details the costs of covering the uninsured under the current system, and the projected costs of providing coverage policies. While I can't vouch for the accuracy of the numbers, they are interesting. According to the study, it would cost $48.2 million more to provide coverage than we pay out in our current system. I am inclined to wonder how much of that additional cost could be underwritten by sliding scale premiums. I certainly wouldn't balk at paying even $200 a month for coverage versus the $600 I will have to pay if I want to add my family on my company policy when I am eligible. And I'm willing to bet, so are many Americans.