Now, while I’ve certainly never made a secret of my politics here, I don’t generally use this particular locale to vent on strictly political matters. And so, it is not in the spirit of persuading anyone to, say, call wavering congressmembers (especially if you live in their district, or even close by) to encourage them to vote for the president’s health reform package tomorrow. No, it is strictly a coincidence that I will be presenting movie moments relating to importance of health care this weekend. I’ll start with this scene, possibly NSFW for some words blurted by Helen Hunt, especially if you work in health insurance.
Of course, HMOs aren’t inherently evil. (I like mine, Kaiser, a non-profit, but even that has its considerable issues.) The problem is the stranglehold of enormous, for-profit bureaucracies. In saner systems, I’m sure not all doctors are as cool as Harold Ramis is in “As Good as it Gets,” but in many of those places they really do still make house calls. This scene, however, which depicts nothing more special than a competent and conscientious professional doing his job in the best way he knows how, remains a complete fantasy for the vast majority of us and will for some time. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
