John Q

The movie I decided to analyze was John Q. Since one of the main points of the upcoming presidential elections is healthcare, I figured this would be the perfect movie that shows how dissatisfied America is with the private healthcare system. Along with the healthcare portrayal it shows a significant class division among society. The film begins with John Q watching television in bed. Bush is on talking about public spending, the camera then turns to Q's face and you can see it filled with hatred and we instantly understand that Q is not a fan of Bush. Reasons may be because he gives tax breaks to the rich which aids in class separation where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It is also known that healthcare companies paid Bush off to not do anything about the healthcare issues. The class differences that are shown in the film are the doctor patient class division between Q and the surgeon. The portrayal of the surgeon is that he is a good man, however he is corrupted by the system he works for. He basically has no sympathy for Q in any aspect while he is giving the diagnosis of his son. The class difference is shown later when the surgeon is talking to a wealthier patient who just had the surgery that Q seeks. The conversation he has with the wealthy patient is friendly whereas the conversation with Q is guarded and defensive. Another difference is when Q talks to the man in human resources about his healthcare plan and since he is not a full time employee he is only insured up to $20,000 and Q is completely shocked by this. The man can so easily separate himself from showing any sympathy because it shown that he looks that he's well off and doesn't have to deal with that issue. 

Along the same lines of John Q, there was also a documentary by Michael Moore called "Sicko" which reflects how much our healthcare sucks. I remember seeing one man who sawed his ring and middle fingers off by accident and had no insurance because he cant afford it. He chose to have his ring finger reattached because that is $12,000 whereas the middle finger is worth $60,000. There was also a man in the high 80s that was working in the trash area of a grocery store because he gets a discount on medication, whereas most 80 year olds are retired he said that he'd probably be working until he dies because he cant afford medicine otherwise. There were also scenes where people wanted to get implants of some kind and couldn't because insurance said that it was purely experimental and there was another woman that wanted to get the lapband procedure to help her loose weight and insurance said they wouldn't help cover it because she was too overweight, however she wanted it so that she could lose weight so basically the insurance company are idiots. So many people have healthcare benefits subtracted from their paychecks and healthcare still has the nerve to deny coverage over different things, I think if you are paying for it on a weekly, monthly, however many times you should get full coverage. There are so many people that die due to healthcare's negligence on America or making it too expensive for those that need insurance. The part that made me so mad is that in Europe insurance is free! doctors even come to your house! when you go to the hospital you get reimbursed for travel! its just ridiculous how corrupted our world is and healthcare probably will never be free or cheaper here because healthcare is making so much money off of all of us that can afford it. I don't understand that if there is free healthcare (CHIP) for kids, why can't there be a CHIP for adults. Obviously it can be done, but our world is so greedy that they don't want to change it. Hopefully since so many people have seen John Q and how insurance can have such an affect on ones family and even let a family member die, hopefully it can mirror a coming change in American values and hopefully one day change can become possible.