I too thought the film's portrayal rather accurately showed what I've experienced in the U.S. health care system.
What's portrayed is a system where even though every individual "does their job" well, the overall effect is dysfunctional. This film doesn't feel to me like a slam at Romanian medicine, but rather western medicine. I fear that viewers who can blithely pass this film off as irrelevant to the U.S. haven't had in depth experience with the U.S. health care system recently.
Emergency patients shunted from one hospital to another, treatment often depending more on personal connections than on medical necessity, medical personnel jealously protecting the turf their particular degree gives them access to, concerns about legal liability often postponing or preventing appropriate treatment, presenting fairly detailed explanations and seeking disclaimer signatures even though the patient is hardly coherent, disregard for both the patient's personal belongings and their finances, outrageous payments for certain procedures even while most front-line medical personnel are poorly paid, overworked and sleepy ER doctors visibly displaying their bad attitude, very young medical staff who have no idea what older patients are talking about, every doctor ignoring the written record and starting from scratch (even when doing so is rather ridiculous), and a general inappropriateness and mishandling of patients who aren't accompanied, all are quite familiar to me. In fact, despite the abundant black humor and the philosophical themes, the movie cut too close to the bone and became positively painful for me to watch after about 90 minutes (because I'm legitimately afraid this will happen to me too).
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