What's making you Sicko?

I haven't yet seen Michael Moores latest project Sicko. To be honest, if I see it I will likely wait until I can rent it on video. Its not that I have anything against Moore or his movies, in fact in most cases I have agreed with what he try's to say I just don't necessarily agree with the journey he takes to get to his decisions. Like the establishment that he criticizes, I don't believe that Michael Moore necessarily offers up the whole story. Anyway, I am interested in the topic he has chosen this time as health care is a very important topic in British Columbia right now and its a subject that has hit kind of close to home lately.

While it can be argued that our health care system is not yet anywhere near the poor shape of our neighbours to the south of us, there is certainly no denying that the system is in trouble. Currently in this province health care spending gobbles up about 40% of our tax dollars and its only getting worse. Why? Great question and there are undoubtedly hundreds of possible answers. To their credit the BC Liberals are in the process of trying to find these answers along with some practical solutions to our health care woes through the Conversation on Health. Despite these efforts, critics such as the BC NDP, BC Federation of Labour (to name a few) still believe that the best solution to health care in BC is to throw more money at it.

I'm no expert on health care, but I do believe that I have a fair amount of common sense and so the irony of the picture that I came across in the paper last week wasn't lost. Aging population, bad habits such as smoking, lack of exercise, new strains of virus's are all contributors to a system bulging at its seams, but maybe part of our problem lies a little closer to our waist lines than we would like to believe.