Two nights ago I had the opportunity to watch Michael Moore’s new movie, “Sicko.” The movie has generated a lot of buzz for Google and will probably continue to generate buzz in general over the coming weeks. After watching the movie, I can say that it is completely biased, but that is expected of Michael Moore’s movies. The movie inaccurately portrays nationalized health care as a system free of problems. While the system is free, I know of plenty of people both in Canada and abroad that are under a nationalized health system and they have plenty of issues. Rather than diving deep into the issues of health care I will instead cover what I learned. When you are having problems dealing with your insurance, send them a letter informing them that Michael Moore is about to feature your story in his movie. You will promptly receive a call resolving any issues that you had.

While this doesn’t always work since Michael Moore won’t always be coming out with a movie attacking the health care system, there is a bigger lesson. The insurance companies and HMOs are frequently not held accountable for poor service that they have because many people don’t have the luxury of being able to afford a lawyer. While I have no statistics whatsoever as to what percentage of individuals fall within this category, I have a feeling that it’s pretty high. This is where Revolution Health comes in.

Currently, Revolution Health provides forums for individuals to discuss issues related to their healthcare. What I haven’t been able to find yet is a forum allowing people to list companies by name and express their experiences with them (and potentially rate their experiences). I understand that this could have a negative backlash given that there would be reasons for people to lie in addition to embellish their stories. On the other hand this would surely generate a lot of buzz.¬† Regardless, I think such a forum should exist and I think Revolution would be a great place to put it. If there was an easy way for people to review their health companies, I would hope that this would provide more of an incentive for these companies to become more customer friendly. As of now I don’t know of this type of forum. If you do let me know. Do you think this is a good solution? Ultimately, I think the forum would be used for accountability purposes. Imagine if someone is treated unfairly; buzz is created in the community; and suddenly a backlash begins forcing the company to take action. Perhaps this is an idealist perspective. Thoughts?