[MMM]

I have not seen Sicko, but it isn't a comment on America's doctor's but on the health-care system as a whole.

I broke my ankle in a bicycle accident in Japan. I went to our local hospital, and got an X-ray. The doctor told me I hadn't broken my ankle and I just needed a splint. I had never broken a bone before, and took his word for it. After a couple days, I went back and saw a different doctor and he told me showed me clearly on the x-ray where my ankle was broken, and proceeded to put a cast on it.

As he put a cast on me, I literally watched a doctor suture a boy's hand who cut it playing baseball with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

After I got the cast off I was encouraged to come to "Rehabili" daily, if I liked. I was supposed to put my leg in a huge tank of very hot water and let the bubbles massage my foot. After about the third visit, I asked the nurse what medicine they put in the water (it had a green tinge to it.) She told me "Nothing, it's just hot water." I never went to "Rehabili" again. Now I can't sit seiza more than a few minutes without that ankle hurting, probably because the cast was set so many days after the break,

The nice thing was the whole affair cost me all of about 30 dollars, for medicine and shippu, but was it worth that deal?