John Q

I'm happy that we have great health coverage in Canada and Québec, and I'm glad that everyone has access.

I'm glad my friends and family and neighbours can see a doctor or visit the hospital without having to pay out of pocket, and that the wide variety of services available continue to expand beyond limitation.

I know it's frustrating having to wait.

It would be nice if things moved more quickly.

But the services are still available and they're available across the board.

Watch Michael Moore's Sicko watch John Q check out the nightmare, awaiting the privatization of health services if there's less of an emphasis on public health.

Imagine you suddenly had to come up with over $200,000 to pay for medical bills, which the insurance plan you had paid into for your entire life wouldn't cover.

Imagine that if you couldn't come up with that money one of your loved ones would die.

Without public health this isn't a rare occurrence. 

Without universal health care it's par for the course.

Universal health care is a sign of enduring progress and practical community, a sustainable way to ensure widespread health at all times across the land.

If we can hire more doctors and invest in hospitals wait times should decrease, and more of our medical school graduates will find the jobs they've worked hard to get.

One of the big differences between private and public health care, as outlined in Maude Barlow's Too Close for Comfort, is that public health care workers put people before profits, while private health is more interested in money.

Thus, the private hospital sets a goal of profits to be earned in a specific month, and then sets about trying to earn them. If there's a shortfall come the 31st heads will roll and people will lose their jobs, hence services are cut for employment security's sake, as administrators with no medical knowledge try to save money. If they save money and produce higher profits the private board running the hospital is more impressed. Therefore, there's an impetus to be as cheap as possible while pretending to provide expert service.

In the public system people care about health and finding more efficient ways to take care of each other.

While providing access to all kinds of different specialists.

For a thriving culture.

It's a total win-win.

The Good Nurse

A dedicated nurse (Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren), loyal and trustworthy, courageously works through a grievous illness, still unable to qualify for health insurance, she risks her life while raising her young.

She's often friendly and agreeable and willing to share her knowledge to help, as she does when a new colleague arrives (Eddie Redmayne as Charlie Cullen) who's uncertain of specific procedures.

After his sudden arrival mysterious deaths begin to take place however, the hospital trying to cover them up while law enforcement launches an investigation. 

The detectives can't get anywhere until interviewing Ms. Loughren when serendipity strikes, and they're surprisingly able to freely ask questions without being countermanded by obtuse anxiety. 

Their leads eventually suggest the new nurse may be deliberately murdering patients, but the hospital is so worried about avoiding scandal that they emphatically refuse to cooperate. 

Yet his newfound friendship has oddly bloomed and she's sympathetically gained his trust.

Will she be able to produce a confession?

Before he finds steady work in another hospital?

Life's strange and keeps getting stranger as developments which seem irrefutably truthful are lampooned with disgust.

A man's attacked and almost beaten to death with a hammer and days later it's a subject of amusement.

That's sick, utterly contemptible, and worse than that, for many it's acceptable, like the world I hoped for in my youth is a long way from seeing a 10-year conglomeration. 

Why are the lives of serial killers just as virally popular as those of human rights activists?, the void left behind by Hollywood's progressive ambitions eagerly filled by online streaming.

Are elitist attitudes so dismissive and haughty that literally millions would abandon democracy, in favour of an American monarch with absolute power over stunning diversity?

Look at the countries where dictators flourish, they aren't typically characterized by hearty abundance.

Autocrats do not share power.

It's not comic.

It's genuinely distressing.