Documentary Film of the Plight of the Uninsured in America

Update: This article may be outdated because it was written prior to President Obama's signing of Health Care Reform Bill in March 2010.  See what are the changes in the health care reform bill linked here.  The documentary film was made prior to the health care reform and depicts situations prior to the reform.

Article:

The documentary film Critical Condition by Roger Weisberg documents the story of four uninsured Americans. They are just a few of the 47 million people in America without health insurance. And this is the story of what happens to them when they get sick.

Whereas, Michael Moore's film Sicko is mainly about insured Americans who despite having health insurance are still going bankrupt due to the unfair health system, the film "Critical Condition" is even more grim as it is the story of the uninsured who don't even have access to health care.

In fact, the stories told in "Critical Condition" is heart-breaking to say the least. Watch the trailer video.

Director Roger Weisberg says "In making Critical Condition, I wanted to build on my previous work in order to contribute to this historically significant moment when the nation considers how to extend health insurance coverage to all Americans. During just the 90-minute running time of this film, an additional 377 Americans will lose medical coverage. I hope Critical Condition will be a call to action as the health care reform debate heats up in 2008." ^[ref]

Although United States has one of the best science, they do not have the best health care system in the world.

The United States spends 50% more on health care than any other country, but

• rank 15th in peventable death
• rank 24th in life expectancy
• rank 27th in infant mortality

Uninsured adults are 4.5 times more likely to go without medical care than the insured.

60% of uninsured adults had to forego medical care.

Over half a million Americans are battling cancer without insurance.

Hector Cardenas

Hector Cardenas of Los Angeles California is a diabetes who has an infection that turned into gangrene. His blood sugar count is at a dangerous level of over 400. He is a warehouse manager who has been out of work for six months and is about to loose his job and his health benefit. His doctor gave him a choice: a) save his foot which would take 4 or 5 months down the line or b) cut off the foot off right now so that he can go back to work. Despite the disappointment of his doctor, Hector says to cut off his foot now so that insurance can cover his surgery while he still have health insurance.

And so his foot was cut off. Because of some delays in getting his prosthesis, Hector still could not go back to work and could not stand or dance at his son's wedding. Shortly after, his HR department says that Hector has no more sick or vacation days left. Hector was terminated and now he is part of the uninsured. Bills were piling up and he had not paid rent for few months. Eventually he had to move into a motel.

Furthermore, his previous insurance company "retroactively dis-enrolled" Hector and denied payment of his prosthesis even at the time in which his prosthesis was put in place, Hector thought that insurance would cover it. Hector is now stuck with a $9,000 bill for the prosthesis.

See Hector's story >>

Joe Stornaiuolo

Joe Stornaiuolo of Bethlemhem Pennsylvania was a doorman for 15 years who has liver disease and was terminated, thereby losing his health insurance. He too has diabetes with blood glucose at levels of 452. Because he can not afford his medication, he is taking insulin only once a day, even though doctor told him they are to be taken 3 times a day.

If he had medical insurance, he would not have to skim on his medication (which his doctor considers as life-saving medications) and his condition would not be as bad.

The Stornaiulolo's have over $60 thousands in medical bills. A liver transplant would costs $150 to $200 thousand dollars.

See Joe's Story >>

Karen Dove

Karen Dove of Austin Texas was an apartment manager for 10 years until she lost her job because she was having trouble climbing the stairs due to pulmonary disease. Hence she lost her insurance as well.

She had a pain which she suspect was cancer. But many doctors would not see her because she didn't have health insurance. Finally, she found Dr. Smith who agreed to see her. However, that first visit cost her $1139. Doctors said she needed an operation to take her ovaries out.

Karen was sick for several months before she got diagnosed . If she had insurance she would have been been able to get diagnosis sooner before her condition has progressed to stage 3 ovarian cancer -- which for many people at this stage die from the disease.

She needed chemotherapy and is taking 14 pills a day. Medicine alone costs $2500 a month. She did go to Mexico to buy some medicine because medicine that cost $50 in the US cost only $4.95 there. Karen had to turn off her phone because too many debt collectors are calling too often.

See Karen's story >>

Carlos Benitez

Carlos Benitez of Los Angeles California is a chef at a French restaurant. He has a rare back condition which causes him to become hunch-backed and it is very painful. Carlos does not have health insurance, because he can not afford the premiums. Because of this, he does not know what is wrong and for 15 years he has been self-medicating himself with pain-killers. At one point he was taking as much as 10 pills a day. This excessive amount was causing lacerations and bleeding in his stomach. When Carlos went to a free health fair at UCLA, doctors convinced him to go to the hospital emergency room to get transfused.

A specialist at county hospital says that spinal surgery is risky and prefers to avoid it. Hector decides to go to Mexico to get treated. Even there, where surgery is a fraction of the cost as in the United States, Carlos can not afford the $40,000 for the surgery in Mexico. While he was in Mexico, he (like Karen) took advantage of the lower cost of pills. Back in Los Angeles it costs $100 for 20 pills. It is $3.50 in Mexico.

See Carlos' Story >>

Over 80% of uninsured Americans are working families.

Karen's husband, Ronnie, makes about $14000 a year from working two jobs which doesn't pay health insurance.

Hector subsequent found another warehouse manager job and works 7 days a week, 14 to 15 hours a day. But with $20,000 in debt, he is just not able to make ends meets. With his new job, his medical benefit will start in another month. However, it is a big question mark as to whether it will cover "pre-existing conditions".

Joe's wife Dale says "We're supposed to be the richest country in the world. And yet I live the poorest live. And my husband worked all his life and paid taxes. ... It doesn't make no sense."

Carlos keeps saying that he could not take time off from work in order to feed his family which includes a wife and three kids. It was only until doctors told him that he could die on his way to work that scared Carlos into going to the hospital.

This film has good and a bad ending.

Dr. Patrick Dowling, the Chief of the Department of Family Medicine at UCLA, that had seen Carlos at the free health fair was able to arrange for a team of surgeons at a private orthopedic hospital to waive the $300,000 fee for Carlos back surgery. This is a major and risky surgery with 10% chance of death. Fortunately, the surgery was successful and Carlos back is straightening out.

Dr. Dowling says he "very pleased that we could help this one individual out".^[ref] However this is very rare that hospital can waive fees like that, and perhaps it may have something to do with Carlos being featured in this documentary.

Joe was not so lucky. Joe fell, his condition deteriorated, and he subsequently died. Joe's wife Dale says "There are people dying because they can not afford their medications." For here, this is a literal statement. She attributed the situation and his death to his lack of medical coverage.

After the production of the film "Critical Condition", Karen's cancer recurred and she passed away.^[ref]

Other films have also documented other casualties of a dysfunctional health care system.  In the documentary film "Sick Around America", FrontLine tells the story of Nikki White with lupus who was too sick to work and lost her insurance coverage.  Although lupus is a serious condition, it is a treatable disease.  Unfortunately Nikki died at the age of 32.  The primary care physician Amylyn Crawford says "Nikki didn't die from lupus.  Nikki died secondary to the complications of a failing health care system."

The film which premiered in September 2008 (and temporarily available online) was the main source of reference for the article content along with film description from PBS.org.  Author may receive revenues from Amazon and Google from the links and display ads in the article.