Working Wounded Blog: 'Sicko'

A look at health insurance and the workplace.

ByABC News
July 11, 2007, 12:18 PM

July 11, 2007 — -- Here is an admission that I've never made in the decade that I've been writing professionally -- I cried at a movie this weekend. It wasn't a chick flick. Or a horror movie. Well, maybe not a traditional horror movie, but it was still mighty scary.

The movie was "Sicko." Yep, that crazy Michael Moore's latest.

I bet you're wondering what this has to do with a workplace blog? Since most of us get our health insurance from the same place -- our job -- "Sicko" has everything to do with work.

Our jobs and health insurance have been inextricably bound since the late 1940s. With a flood of soldiers coming back after World War II, corporations positioned health insurance as a perk to attract the best and brightest. Ironically, the movie documents how England went in the exact opposite direction by introducing universal health care right after the war.

I never thought I'd encourage you to go see a movie that promotes a government run health care system, but then again I never thought I'd admit to crying in one either.

The movie contains heartbreaking scene after scene of people without health insurance literally being tossed on the street in hospital gowns. But the most painful parts of the movie aren't the stories from the uninsured. No, the worst parts are the scenes with people who have health insurance but who are denied treatment. Which raises the question, what is a safety net when it is full of holes that are big enough for you and me to fall through?

I have another personal confession to make. I once worked for a health insurance company. I saw how claims were reviewed. I didn't see any cases of people who died for lack of treatment, but I did see a process that was more concerned about cost savings than providing quality health care.

I wish I could offer a silver bullet based on my experience. A way to ensure that you or a loved one will get the treatment you deserve, heck that you paid for. But the system is built so that the maximum decision making power doesn't lie in the hands of your doctor but in the bowels of health insurance behemoths.