A Liberal College Kid Sees Sicko
This film, though different from any in Moore’s repertoire, had his trademark elements of humor mixed with sadness, common throughout his work. In the humble opinion of this reviewer, and of the Republican sitting next to me, Sicko is Moore’s best documentary to date.
The film opens by showcasing the healthcare horror stories of several different Americans. One man was forced to decide which of two fingertips he lost in a saw accident he would have reattached due to the high cost of the procedure. Moore received thousands of emails relating such horror stories from within the American healthcare system, many coming from the workers that make their living as a part of it. If these stories were all Moore showcased, he would get his point across. But this is only the beginning of the story.
He first visits our friendly neighbors to the north in Canada, among them his aunt and uncle, who must go to Sear’s to get travel insurance in case anything happens to them while they visit the US. You see, in Canada all health expenses are covered by the government, even if the person affected is in another country. Moore consults a member of the Conservative Party of Canada who explains that for Canadians healthcare is not a political issue. Having people’s taxes go to healthcare doesn’t seem to bother anyone.
Much of the same is found in the universal coverage schemes of England and France. To disprove the myth about doctors in those countries not being able to live a comparable lifestyle to those in the US, we see a young UK doctor working as an employee of the government. This particular doctor drives a new Audi and lives in a $1 million house with his wife and son.
But the differences in France are even more dramatic. When women have just had a baby the government pays for a nanny to visit four hours a week to help the new mother. Doctors make house calls twenty-four hours a day. The doctor that came up with the idea said he was inspired by 24-hour plumbing service. For him, the convenience of 24-hour service shouldn’t stop at your drain. Moore also highlights laws mandating five weeks paid vacation for all employees, and yet more paid time off if someone is ill.
The people of these countries not only live longer than Americans, but also have lower rates of infant mortality and obesity. Everyone is covered.
In the United States, where nearly 50 million people are uninsured, the consequences of an inability to pay one’s hospital bill are the focus. Some people simply get dumped in front of shelters without any idea where they’re going. 9/11 rescue workers can’t afford the costs associated with ailments contracted in efforts during and after the disaster.
But the segment that has caused the most controversy is Moore’s expedition with a number of patients – rescue workers among them- to seek treatment in Cuba. The group initially heads to Guantanamo Bay. American soil on which al-Qaeda members receive better medical care than some Americans. Moore and his group are refused entry to the military base and move on to Havana, where all of the rescue workers are given the free treatment that they cannot afford in the United States. Essentially, Cuba takes better care of the heroes of 9/11 than we do.
The film has its political elements, but not many. It will speak to people on both sides of the aisle as an issue that affects us all. The United States has many socialized services already: libraries, schools, the postal service… We are living proof that privatized medicine is not the best practice. There is no reason Cuba should have a lower infant mortality rate than we do, and yet they do. Moore’s Sicko does precisely what it sets out to, show America how broken our healthcare system really is.
Sicko opens June 29th nationwide.
J.B. Goodrich is a member of Liberal College Kid.
excellent website
http://www.freemarketcure.com/
“He first visits our friendly neighbors to the north in Canada, among them his aunt and uncle, who must go to Sear’s to get travel insurance in case anything happens to them while they visit the US.”
What is your point? That the US should give free health care to anyone including foreign visitors? They don’t do that in Canada either.
However, Canadian health care takes care of those who travel abroad. They do not have to buy Sear’s insurance. They are already covered by Canadian insurance. They only need to give their Canadian insurance card. The hospital would either get reimbursement from Canadian Health or they pay upfront and apply for reimbursement themselves. Likewise, most American insurance cover emergency treatments when you are travelling. They do not cover emergency evacuation back to the States though.
Moore is a sicko. A couple of years ago, a group of doctors went down to Cuba to investigate why there was a large increase in child blindness. Ans: the kids were malnourished. Btw, certain Cuban could fly in a foreign expert to take care of him. I wonder if other Cubans could have similar treatments.
Americans should not have a single payer healthcare system. We should have at least 50 payers. Each person should be responsible for his own insurance premium. Either pays into his employer’s plan, or the state’s plan. Those who cannot afford the premium will be helped out by the state, i.e. other taxpayers. Like MediCare Plan D, if the pot of premiums is large enough, the insurance companies would fight over the pot.
Americans want choices. Single payer plan takes away their choices. If individual state plans were good enough, Americans would choose them. If a state is not big enough, then may be it can attach itself to another state. Eventually all 50 states may band together to negotiate with insurance companies for the levels of premiums and cares. Each insured will deal with his own insurance company with claims and reimbursements. No huge taxpayer-funded bureaucracy to process claims or deals with healthcare providers, the job is better done by insurance companies. No huge tax increases to pay for a single-payer system. No entitlement to those who can afford to pay their own premiums.
Actually, there is a very GOOD reason Cuba (and a number of other coutries) has a low infant mortality rate – they don’t go to any lengths to save the lives of premature babies. They simply let the child die and record it as an abortion or stillbirth. That’s what government healthcare buys you.
As to the rest of Cuba’s healthcare, do some real research on the healthcare Cuba’s CITIZENS get – look at http://www.therealcuba.com
and see what it’s like if you’re not a rich foreigner.
People who espouse one view of the world based on what they see and hear from only one viewpoint have a name – dating back to Vladimir Lenin. Useful idiots – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
I am sure that it sounds good to have universal heath care until you have to live it. I moved to Montreal Quebec from Flagstaff Arizona two years ago.
I am a diabetic and have to go and visit a doctor every 4 months for a checkup. When I first arrived I had to miss the first two visits because I was not working and did not qualify for health care. When I was able to find work and get a heath card, I went to the local hospital emergency room to get checked out immediately. I was in the emergency room for 18 hours, waiting to get in to see a doctor. When I was seen, I was placed on a bed out in the hallway and left for another 6 hours, while I waited for some test results.
I have been trying to find a “Family” (what people in the states consider a general practitioner) doctor since I moved here. I am on a waiting list and should be able to get a doctor in the next 5 years or so. Until that time every 4 months I have the privilege of going to the emergency room and waiting an average of 12 hours to be seen.
My wife’s Aunt who needs to have a knee replaced, has been on a waiting list for 2 years and will be receiving her knee in the next 6 months. Most Canadians who can afford it go across the border to Plattsburg New York, and pay to have the surgery done, so they can simply walk again.
The one thing that really annoys me is that I never get to see the same doctor twice. There are no personal relationships with the doctors, I can not ask them how their kids are, if they want to play golf on Friday, or anything else because they don’t care.
Another thing that is annoying is that many of the newer prescriptions are simply not carried here. I know that Prilosec, and Glucophage XL are not available here. I have also been told that many of the newer drugs will not be made available here because of funding. (The government sets the price that the drug companies can charge, so new drugs are not introduced because of this restriction.)
I would gladly move back to Flagstaff given the chance and take US heath care any day over what is offered here in Canada.
I knew this would prompt some good feedback on Pajamas Media. When our blog first signed on to the PJM blog network we were a little scared by how right wing so many of the blogs and articles are. I’m glad that we’ve gotten some debate going.
As far as these comments, I am an American citizen so I can not speak about any experiences I’ve had with foreign healthcare. That being said, I can look up World Health Care Rankings (http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html) and I can look up what countries’ citizens live the longest. No one can make the argument that our system is the best. Besides that, what more can we judge a healthcare system on other than how long people live and how healthy those lives are?
America is the fattest country in the world with the 37th ranked health care system. We are the richest country in the world yet 50 million people in this country don’t have health insurance. Is it not wrong to be making money off of sick people? You folks on the right talk about being Pro-Life, well act like it! Healthcare should be a human right. No one should have to go into debt because they’re sick.
Finally, as far as raising taxes go: stop spending money fighting wars against countries that never attacked us and we won’t have to raise taxes; just change where the money goes.
Thanks for reading, and you can read even more left-wing stuff at http://liberalcollegekid.com
Mr. Goodrich is clearly basing all his information from Moore’s film. This is a mistake. Michael Moore doesn’t give pure, unadulterated information with which one can form an intelligent decision or make an unbiased opinion. Michael Moore will edit and omit any and all information to make his point. Michael Moore’s movies pretend to be documentaries but they aren’t. They lack any scholarly analysis and do not meet the requirements to be a bona fide documentary. Documentary by definition is an attempt to “document” reality. Moore’s cut and paste style movie making proves that he doesn’t make documentaries. I believed his form of “truth” too after watching Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine. But then I did my own research about his work and subject matter and found out what a fake documentarian he really is.
Michael Moore can teach us nothing. He can only make you more ignorant.
Jim Queen is right about preemies. Also, I very much doubt that Cuba spends much money on fertility treatments, which cause a lot of the preemies here through generating multiple fetuses.
In Canada, lots of people die while waiting in line for government healthcare. BTW, No country provide free weight loose. If they do say, then would also have to control what food you can eat.
Is it not wrong to be making money off of sick people?
Yes, ever since the 13th ammendment was passed.
The 13th Amendment reads “Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. ”
So in your mind so long as it’s not slavery it’s ok to be making money off of people? Now that’s some insight into the mind of Republicans.
Michael Moore certainly is making money off of sick people.
It’s an evil and hate-filled idea, to forbid material reward and the profit motive in helping people in their needs. Shall profit be allowed to motivate only luxury goods? Is that the only area in which leftists want the engine of free enterprise to be allowed to work? Of course they don’t want it there either.
The 20th Century saw the results of JBgood’s monstrous idea carried out repeatedly to its practical conclusion, leading to a toll of from 80mn to 100mn of their own citizens murdered by communist regimes.
I worked with a young successful friend in ‘Sales’. He was diagnosed with Prostate cancer. Not being able to afford the treatment, due to his own work history, sporadic to say the least, but cash was never a problem and was spent as fast as the commission paycheck could be cashed on all manner of ‘indulgences’. His solution was to meet and marry a Canadian citizen. I told you he was a great salesman at ‘prospering’ when neccessary. After moving to Canada a few years ago he was still waiting in line, I have not heard from him for quite some time now…Hmmmm
In all truthfulness there is not any country that offers free heath care. You may think it is free but that is what the majority of your excessive taxes are used for. That is a good deal as long as you are on the receiving end, but does not make a lot of sense when you never get sick.
I have a friend who I work with here who makes the same wages I do ($60,000) a year of which the provincial government takes roughly 25.7% for taxes and federal takes roughly 14.2%, that is not counting the provincial and Canada sales taxes. My friend has been sick 3 times in the past seven years. Yet year after year and pay check after pay check he is charged for health care that he is not using and has no need to use right now.
The same goes for the provincial pension plan. You are required to invest (taxed) 7.9% of your gross income to a pension plan that by all estimates will be out of money with in the next 15 years.
People here are also mandated by law to have heath insurance. You can either have it through your company (mine is $350.00 per month) or through the province, but only if you are not offend by your company. If you have it through the province then it is 15% of your gross income.
Run the numbers and see if “Free” heath care is what you really want to pay.
I never thought I would say it but I miss the tax rate in the States!!
I find it funny that proponents of socialized medicine always point to life expectancy statistics to prove their point. I could find statistics that show that the more churches a city has, the more crime it has. Does that mean that the churches are somehow responsible? Of course not. The more churches a city has, the more people a city has, which accounts for the larger amount of crime. Likewise with the life expectancy statistics, you have to take into account that the kind of health care a country has is not the only variable.
Why are liberals suddenly indignant over the level of healthcare the terrorists* in Gitmo receive?
Oh yea, selective outrage – forgot about that one.
*hopefully, no liberal sensibilities were bruised
An English doctor working for the National House drives a BMW and has a million dollar house?? He is either cooking the books, has a rich wife, or inherited the money.
Guess which countries have the two lowest fertility rates in the Western Hemisphere. Yes, the awards go to Cuba and Canada.
Canada 1.61 children per woman
Cuba 1.60 children per woman
Remember, the fertility rate necessary to maintain a steady population over time is 2.1 children per woman.
Those wonderful socialist paradises are such fantastic places that the female citizens who live there have far fewer children than are necessary to replace the existing populations.
Yes, Canada has lots of immigrants, so its population will not shrink. However, it’s only a matter of time before Cuba’s population, which is already older than the American population, undergoes a dramatic decline due to a combination of low fertility and high emigration.
For a preview of what Cuba will look like in 20 years time, see Russia, which is shrinking by about 7 million people every decade (Russia only as 141 million people right now, so that’s a shrinkage of 5% per decade).
So in your mind so long as it’s not slavery it’s ok to be making money off of people?
Uh no. It means you cannot enslave people in order to treat your illness.
All of the drug companies have to deal with the low prices of Canadian medicines while maintaining profit margins. That either means they don’t sell to Canada or they rip off the US. We should apply a tariff medicine sold to socialized countries to make up for this difference.
JBGood – Doctors, pharmacists, and nurses profit (aka take home a paycheck) off of sick people. I worked as a pharmacy tech for a while, and sick people paid my salary. Anyone working in health care has the same situation. Good Health Care costs money, and a lot of that is for the people who help provide it, including administrators and executives. Socialized health care simply replaces them with bureaucrats.
I would like to see a plan to handle emergency and urgent care visits, which would directly subsidize the hospital for having an emergency room. It would help keep ERs open in case of disasters.
You leftists are so gullible! It’s amazing….
I loved the story about a poor man, who did not have money to get both of his finger-tips reattached. Oh, the horror! Evil capitalism.
Well, it took me 5 minutes to find the similar example – but this time in Canada. A poor guy lost his finger, because he had to wait for 22 hours in three different hospitals for the surgery.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/02/16/bc-finger.html
For JBGood – the 13th Amendment says that slavery is illegal. That’s why “medical care” is just as much a “right” as “free speech”. You have no right to force anyone to pay for you – or to listen to your speech. We are not your slaves. We are free men. Get used to it.
As stated earlier, the care the 9/11 sufferers got in Cuba is available only to tourists and high-ranking Cubans.
Of COURSE they got good treatment by Cuba. Big propaganda coup for Cuba, and Moore panders to the liberals by making the USA LOOK bad by comparison. This will have as much effect as F911 did: nothing besides enriching Moore and entertaining liberals, much like a fundamentalist preacher assures his flock they’re going to heaven.
For the reviewer to accept this movie uncritically only shows his ignorance, prejudice, mental laziness, and utter foolishness. The only debate here is why PJM gave him this forum. Perhaps it’s just so we could point and laugh and teach him a lesson. Personally, I’m not laughing. This review, like Moore, is a disgrace.
As a Canadian who lives with this ideal of universal publicly funded healthcare, I believe I can comment on a few facts Moore left out of his “documentary”. The universal healthcare here is also rationed. There are common procedures (hip & knee surgery) and tests (CAT scans & MRI’s)that require sitting months on a waiting list. You can speed it up, but you have to pay out of your own pocket or go to the US. This partly due to lack of doctors, specialists, nurses and technicians.
Health care costs are sky rocketing, and are eating up bigger and bigger chucks of government budgets. Most provinces can’t keep up and need to run bigger and bigger budget deficts to just maintain basic services. Even in the wealthier provinces they are cutting hospital beds, and adding fees for certain services. Long term, the current way funding our vaunted healthcare system will bankrupt us as nation. It is not quite the paradise Moore would lead his viewers to believe.
BTW, if it’s true that all people in Canada agree with the government running medical care – why is it against the law to bypass the government and use own money to get medical care? Coming ot think of it – why is “government insurance” compulsory? Why does the law prohibit people from withdrawing from it altogether? You don’t need a gun to force people to buy burgers at McDonalds, but you need a gun to force people to buy government insurance. If it’s so effective and cheap – why is it compulsory?
Healthcare, housing and food are not “rights” anymore good wine, love, and going to the movies are “rights”. Anytime you, I or anybody gets something from somebody else, the person or entity providing the service or product is entitled to fair compensation. It is the “right” of the person offering the service or product to withhold the product if he feels the compensation offered is not fair. And no adult has the “right” to make anybody else pay for his needs or wants. The only legitimate payment for an adult person’s wants or needs by others is made voluntarily, even if the adult is totally disabled.
Socialism is unsustainable. As pointed out above, Cuba and Canada are not replacing themselves by reproductive methods, and Cuba’s population is actually declining. Canada can only grow by means of immigration. The educated and talented young are leaving Holland in droves. France, Italy and the UK are similar to Canada in their moribund repro rates and are financially shoring up their social programs by taking in immigrants. How long are these mostly third-world immigrants, who come from places where want is real and premature death is common, going to be content paying for cradle to grave care for rich Canadians and Europeans?
I’m not sure where to start…
I guess I completely underestimated the PJM readers. I assumed there would be at least one progressive among you. I guess not though.
I think all of these comments, which I truly appreciate, are indicative of the culture of our media. People on the right only want to read things from a conservative point of view. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m a member of the Democratic majority in this country and the idea that simply because my politics are divergent from seemingly everyone else’s on this site should disqualify me from contributing to PJM is truly ignorant.
Not one of these comments addresses the real issue at hand: there are 50 million Americans without health insurance.
One: the difference in longevity is due to diabetes, alcohol, drug use, and the fact that the weak didn’t die off of TB during World War II.
Two: If you really want a reality check, why don’t you ask how federalized health care works for the Veterans or American Indians?
I worked IHS (Indian Health Service) for ten plus years. Wait till yuppies find their stomach stapling won’t be done, and they have to live with their cartilege tear because someone had a CABG (heart surgery) and the budget for this month is blown.
“Not one of these comments addresses the real issue at hand: there are 50 million Americans without health insurance.” writes the blogger. But how is this the issue at hand as you introduced it? The issue at hand is: How good a documentary is SICKO? Is it interesting, is it factual, is it objective, does it offer reasonably good solutions? The answers are probably: yes, no, no, no. Now the “real issue at hand” has been addressed.
“I guess I completely underestimated the PJM readers. I assumed there would be at least one progressive among you. I guess not though.”
There are many “progressives” here…if fact most everyone is for “progress”.
Who says that you are disqualified from contributing? We have read your contribution. Some have chosen to comment. If we dont agree with you and Mr. Moore politics aside, are we anti-progress?
How many of those fifty million don’t have insurance by choice? I know a woman who is perfectly capable of getting her health insurance through her employer. She doesn’t want the money deducted from her paycheck, and yet, she regularly gets a pedicure and manicure at her salon, which, incidentally, costs about as much per month as the health insurance she could be buying from her employer.
I was surprised to see this review here, but I do like the idea of considering opposing views and having a good debate about the issues. As we see from the comments so far, it’s tough to have a debate without a good frame. But maybe it’s useful to realize how differently we do frame the issues. The writer has said he thinks the key issue is lack of health-insurance coverage. Apparently he didn’t realize that others consider the key issue to be one of economic and personal freedom. I hope he will take this view seriously; if so, the dialog may have made a difference. It would be polite to point out something we might gain from the writer’s perspective, but I’m afraid I don’t see anything new or interesting here. The review seems quite naive to me, but I applaud this writer’s willingness to share his views beyond his own circle.
To me the most interesting comment by the author in this comments thread is “I assumed there would be at least one progressive among you.” The assumption seems to be that people are either in the “progressive” camp, and support socialized medicine, or not. (One fears that those who disagree are given a specific label as well, perhaps conservative or neo-con.) Whatever happened to the idea that there are lots of issues on which reasonable people can disagree? (Does one have to be “progressive” to be considered reasonable?)
All that is in a sense an aside, because I agree with Mr. Beloit that the context here was a review of the documentary, and since the review is not deep, and did not present arguments or dissect the content, it seems odd to expect it to lead to a great discussion.
But maybe the attempt could lead to one. How about a follow-up with essays on the issue of health care and economic and personal freedom?
I’m a progressive. A huge one.
Lack of insurance coverage is a big problem, but human rights should be pre-eminent in any discussion of health care. Cuban healthcare is a verifiable sham, available only to those who pay. It only requires intellectual honesty to acknowledge this. There’s no factual debate possible – the facts are dead bodies, starving people, and substandard healthcare for the majority of real Cubans. The human rights violations in Cuba are numerous and as well-documented as can be under any totalitarian, anti-rights, Orwellian state. The fact that any self-respecting progressive would look to a rights-repressive dictatorship for guidance on healthcare is sickening to this card carrying bleeder.
Progressives do not stand with or for Cuba. Period. A two-class health care system is not a solution to the U.S. problem with healthcare.
As for Canada, while a collectivist system may be implemented for a nation that struggles with emigration and supports a thinly spread population totalling less than the single state of California, the fact of it is that it really won’t function in the U.S.
I agree that there is a built in problem in the U.S., but that problem resides in the way we pay for health insurance, not in the access.
I believe health care payment (because that is what this is really about) CAN be improved, and I’m glad that J.B. brought the topic up. But obesity is the problem of a rich nation and excess, not a lack of health care access. We all know we should eat less and exercise more – but the fact that we’ve got more disposable income in the U.S. than other countries (and, incidentally, smoke less) is a greater threat to national obesity. The solution to that is to encourage more appetite-curbing smoking nationwide, and to limit incomes.
At one level, universal healthcare is a solution in search of a problem.
Let’s more clearly define the problem.
Dan, could we encourage more drinking too? I understand it is good for the heart.
“Not one of these comments addresses the real issue at hand: there are 50 million Americans without health insurance.”
And how many of those either choose to go uninsured, or are only uninsured for small portions of the year? Let’s crunch the numbers.
- Seventeen million of the uninsured in this country live in households that make more than $50,000 a year. I guess for them, big screen TV > health insurance.
- Fourteen million are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP, but for whatever reason they just haven’t signed up.
- Millions more are either, 1) illegal aliens who wouldn’t buy insurance anyway, or 2) are only uninsured for brief periods of the year.
Throw these out the window, and you’re left with a number of people much closer to 8 million who are truly going without coverage. And even for these people there are emergency rooms all over the country that will provide them services free of cost.
JB, instead of dismissing every response because it’s not “progressive enough” (i.e. liberal), try doing a bit of research on the subject. Because it’s apparent to me after reading your piece and subsequent comments that you’ve been badly misinformed by a very dishonest filmmaker.
For a little perspective I’d recommend checking out freemarketcure.com.
JB Good,
The 50 million Americans without health insurance still have access to health CARE through government programs like Medicaid.
My old neighbor had a baby out of wedlock and was living below the poverty line. Her son was born with a heart condition which was treated at Stanford and paid for by our state welfare. They also paid for her taxi service to get to the hospital for follow-up procedures, which the State eventually cut off. But she still got better health care than some of us insured folk.
How about this healthcare story:
A guy is out clearing some brushes in the backyard. A moments carelessness, and the knife skids off the branch and hits his hand, cutting up his finger. Blood everywhere, squirting out.
Time for a trip to the emergency room? Nope. This is in a “welfare state” with socialized healthcare, and you just simply cant drive in to the ER here, you need to call first. And don’t call the ER, instead call the healthcare hotline, leave your number and get the automated message that they’ll call back 10 minutes later. (Sometimes a few hours later, this was a lucky day) This is while the blood is still pumping out of the finger, and attempts to stop it is failing.
10 minutes later the call finally come, and now luckily the blood has stopped pumping as much.
A referral is made to the 24hour-clinic an hour later, if necessary they will then refer you to the ER.
So an hour later the guy is at the clinic, and is required to pay a $30 fee to see the doctor. Yes, the healthcare is supposedly “free”, but those fees are never mentioned by Moore and those like him, for some strange reason…
The finger is inspected, and a few stitches later the problem is solved. In ten days the stitches needs to be removed, and this will ofcourse require a new fee to get the “free” healthcare.
Just a fantasy? No, that was my afternoon…
If you want socialized healthcare, then you need to realize that politicians will decide what kind of healthcare you do get, and when you will get it. And if you will need to pay “fees” for the privelege…
Just think of it as giving your wallet to some stranger on the street, and ask him to decide over your healthcare…
There is one dimension to the uninsured that is usually ignored by conservatives (and I count myself as a conservative): those who are medically uninsurable.
If you are young and have no chronic conditions, have never once taken, say, a Prozac, or have an employer with health insurance, then you are probably not aware of this problem.
But try to start your own company, or retire before age 65 (USA), and if you have the slightest blemish on your health record, you will either end up uninsured, or be unable to get insurance for whatever ails you or anything that a lawyer might possibly construe to be a result of this.
The result is that a lot of those with incomes of $50,000 with no insurance are NOT there by choice – they are there because nobody in the capitalist system will sell them health insurnace.
As more boomers (and I’m near the front of the boomer cohort) encounter this situation, the politics will change. Not for ideological reasons, but selfish ones.
You save your money, lead a good capitalist life, and want to retire early (say, age 60). Oops! You have hereditary high blood pressure. So much for health insurance – or at least any that would cover a heart attack, stroke or other ailments that hypertension contributes to!
I would like to see the statistics on how many are like myself – working only to get health insurance.
In spite of this, I don’t advocate a Canadian system. We do have the best available health care in the world, which is why we get so many “health tourists.” Our local Mayo clinic has quite a staff of translators.
But… the uninsurability problem is real, and anti-capitalist (if you don’t save your money, you can quit and qualify for government insurance for the poor, but if you are a saver, quitting puts all of your assets at risk).
Ultimately, health payments insurance (which is really what we should be talking about – it’s pretty hard to insure health) has gaps in the US – for those who are uninsurable and not eligible for employer or retiree group insurance, and for those who are too poor to afford it but make too much to get Medicaid.
There are problems. The solution is not a single payer system, but reasonable reforms to the market system.
A Liberal College Kid Sees Sicko
The title alone says a lot. The author is young, gullible, and has little or no experience making a living in the real world. Fortunately, that may change once he graduates and has to start paying taxes only to find out how incredibly stupidly and inefficiently the government uses the money it took from his paycheck.
Here are a couple points about his article:
1. About the infant mortality rate, it is calculated differently in different countries. In some countries, if a premature baby dies, it isn’t counted where it is in the US. The US also has way too many babies born of drug addicted mothers. That drives up the mortality rate, too.
2. When women have just had a baby the government pays for a nanny to visit four hours a week to help the new mother – I’ve seen similar programs for welfare mothers in states like Oregon.
More to the point, the government isn’t our nanny. It isn’t (or shouldn’t) be a matter of voting for the candidate who offers the most “free stuff” because nothing is free. As others have pointed out, government ran health care very often involves rationing of care. If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it is “free.”
Having lived government ran health care while in the military, I want no part of having bureaucrats deciding issues about my health. You may argue that insurance companies are just as bad but you’d be mistaken – you can fire an insurance company that gives poor service. Try firing a bureaucrat. It’s damned near impossible.
Finally, there’s nothing “progressive” about letting government bureaucrats take over 1/6th of the US economy. They already spend several hundred billion dollars a year on Medicare and Medicaid (serving less than 20% of the population) and have made a royal mess of it. What makes anyone in their right mind believe they could manage health care for everyone when they’ve proven unable to do it for Medicare? Will forcing everyone under government control suddenly make them competent?
“for Canadians healthcare is not a political issue.”
Snort. Michael Moore really put that in his film? Well, I guess that indicates how ignorant he expects Americans to be of Canada. Those of us who actually follow Canadian news know that’s an utterly ridiculous statement. (Can I hear a Chaoulli v. Quebec?)
In a socialized system some are more equal than others. Those that have political power normally get to the “best” doctor sooner than those that don’t.
In a market driven system, at least those that want the services of that “best” doctor have to produce/work at something that will benefit or please his/her fellow citizens so much that they will be willing to provide him/her with the funds that he then can offer the “best” doctor to take care of him.
However, the “best” doctor because of the market system will probably already have made enough money to be able to instead choose to provide his services pro-bono to a particular case he cares for.
Canadian health insurance does not cover you when you travel abroad. You are not even covered directly when you go to another province… you must pay for it up front and I think you can get reimbursed later.
I had to buy travel insurance from Blue Cross when I went to the USA last summer.
While working at my ‘real job’ a few years ago, before ‘daflikkers’ over at blogspot. I had the often times pleasure of a 2 AM ‘call out’ from my bed, to attend to a malfunctioning machine in the ER of a local hospital. Remember this is the capitalistic US and a real city. The beds are limited to a number that reflects the average nightly ‘emergencies’. One of the beds was being occupied by a loud, obnoxious ‘chemically impaired’, ‘street person’ (PC). The police had brought him to this ER several times this month. He was not only a physical mess but yelling for, ‘demanding’ more service, as was his custom. Not one penny was paid to ‘the system’ to guarantee this ‘total waste of oxygen’ another evening of ‘indulgence’ with a nice room with the latest technology to sober up in. What would happen to this individual in Michael Moores ‘beloved’ Cuba?
Question: Who was more lethal in 2003 about the time of the Iraq invasion a. the 82nd airborne division in Iraq or b. The french healthcare system?
Answer: The French Healthcare system killed 10,000 people during the european heatwave mostly from dehydration. The cause? A public healtcare program of absolute indifference and brutality to the plight of elderly french. Better for them to die and save the state some money.
Moorre is a fat slob idiot. His followers are teh same.
I believe in free healthcare. That is, I do not want to pay taxes for others to receive healthcare but I want them to pay for mine. That is the only way it would be free, for me. Unfortunately, someone must foot the bill for everything in life. I am looking for a Progressive who is all for free healthcare. So I can send them my medical bills. Anyone…?
Liberal college kid says, “Sicko is Moore’s best documentary to date.”
That is like saying, “this can of Alpo tastes so much better than that can of Purina.”
When you are sicko and tired of paying for welfare recipients dragging their children to the ER because they have the sniffles or might have an ear infection or threw up in the middle of the night – we can talk. When you are sicko and tired of paying for “free” healthcare for the poor & huddling masses while you can’t find a provider “in your network” to see your family – we can talk. When you are sicko and tired of young liberals, who generally lack life experience, telling us how they think the world should be – we can talk.
So, excuse us, the rabid right wing readers, if we don’t take your review seriously. It isn’t because your take is different….it is because you are wrong. For the record, we don’t take MM seriously either. He is entertainment for the easily entertained and that is all.
Health care in America is not perfect but certainly not broken. It is the garbage surrounding it. You know: litigation gone wild, HMOs & company, ridiculous gov’t regulations & the proverbial bureaucratic red tape. If we want to fix our healthcare “system”, then let us take out the garbage.
Until then go see your silly little movies, eat your popcorn & Milk Duds, and thank your parents for providing you a nice cushy life, despite the fact that they’ve been paying taxes for free healthcare a long, long time.
What really amazes me is the way you liberals (socialist/communists) like to call yourselves “progressives”. Seems to me that Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and the latest darling of the “progressive left”; Hugo Chavez are pretty good proof that you should be calling yourselves “regressives”. “Progressive” must now mean immune to reality. BTW, you haven’t addressed any of the objections raised by previous commentators.
We are living proof that privatized medicine is not the best practice.
If you somehow think that the United States is in the evil grip of a “privatized” health care system, you need to wake up and smell the regulation — not to mention the subsidies. The second any person in the US (legal citizen or not) strolls into an emergency room and gets treated for anything — and someone else is paying for that service — I maintain the concept of private care is shot.
Once we accept that we’re all paying for one potential freeloader — a concept gleefully embraced by our “liberal college kid” and certainly by Mr. Moore — the rest is just fussing over details. Showing, say, an illegal immigrant getting treated for a broken arm is probably not nearly as dramatic as sailing to Cuba — but scenes like this are played out in US hospitals every day. Explain to me how that represents “privatized medicine” and I’ll consider the rest of your points.
Questions such as, “Is it not wrong to make money off of sick people?” expose us to the childishness of the questioner, rather than provide any insights.
Were I to miss 3 meals in a row, I would be hungry. Should I get free food from a restaurant then, because it seems so wrong to make money off of hungry people?
If one may not profit from providing such a service, how will the provider then pay for HIS food? Obviously, with no profit forthcoming he will, at best, break even. So, how shall he pay for his food, to avoid being one of the ‘deserving’ hungry?
The questioner has a problem with profit and those who earn it. He would beggar those who provide needed services and do so with righteousness. Presumably, his own needs are provided by his fellows in the commune where each receives only
according to his needs. Also, presumably, his tuition is being paid by another (how that one achieved an excess of funds is questionable since profit-making is so distasteful to the beneficiary of this largesse).
And, no doubt, when his studies are complete he will go out into the world seeking employment at which he can merely break even and, thus, avoid making a profit from his endeavours.
“”Most Canadians who can afford it go across the border to Plattsburg New York, and pay to have the surgery done, so they can simply walk again.”"
Simply not true, Jaque. In most other provinces we pay for our Medical Insurance and have good quality care. For example, premiums in BC start at $54.00 a month. It isn’t free if you are working! Quebec is poorly run and feeds funds into Welfare and other areas instead of building hospitals and equipping them. Don’t blame the medical system…blame your poorly run Quebec Government.
30 years ago I was a young college student from the states going to school in Canada. I had a severe case of tonsilitis-so I was referred to a Canadian ?doctor? who diagnosed my problem as a problem with my appentics. He truly wanted to operate on me and bill my parents in the states. I said “no thanks” and went home and had a local g.p. take care of my tonsils. The Canadian doc was a new recruit from Hong Kong-known as Dr.Death at my school.The good Canadian doctors were desperate to get to the states and they had plenty of ??doctors?? from other countries happy to practice on unhappy Canadians.There were long waits and not many happy people. My friends who are in Canada tell me that if Michael Moore found a hospital or doctor’s office that has only a 45 minute wait, they want to move there.They also go to a US hospital if it is a highly technical procedure and pay for the use of a good man. Their taxes are very,very high and there are no choices for the most part.We were just in Quebec and taxes were 8% on top of 13% and that was for a motel room!!!Canadians pay this also.Please,we need help for our uninsured in America, but don’t let anyone “dumb down” our excellent healthcare.
“I guess I completely underestimated the PJM readers. I assumed there would be at least one progressive among you. I guess not though.”
So because we don’t agree with your helpful regurgitation of the most recent version of factless Michael Moore agit prop we aren’t “progressive”?
Well… we liberated the slaves, got women the vote, passed civil rights legislation as the real progressives.
All while Communist lackeys such as yourself stole the terms “liberal” and “progressive” to describe your desire to rule as authoritarian elites determining for us Jesusland dwellin’ knuckle-draggers what is “Fair”.
Sorry… but I’m a lobotomy short of being your kind of liberal.
I worked in many fields relating to ‘people’. The years of listening to ‘the people’ have endowed me with a certain insight. One of my last jobs ‘after retirement’ was Auto sales. The number of Canadian medical professionals working in the USA is profound. The story was always the same. Much better monetary compensation from our Capitalistic system which allowed them to purchase the ‘desires of their heart’. I wonder what percentage of top notch medical professionals are still working in the Canadian system?
The highest cost attributed to our Medical system is generated in our ‘Tort’ legal system (a form of lottery that gives the lawyer 30% of the settlement) here in the USA. Control that factor, as Canada has, and the costs for Health Care will drop to sub-terranian lows.
A sub note; I work in the film industry and I personally see what it takes to create ‘unquestioned reality’ out of ‘total fiction’ check out daflikkers on blogspot. MM is great at that form of art. If you accept filmed images as fact you have a much deeper problem..sorry about that.
The US can’t afford universal healthcare ’cause it’s too busy paying for the indigent healthcare of illegal aliens!
If they’d only build a fence and deport the illegals, maybe they could insure the 8 million working poor households without insurance.
Oh Libkid!..? Where’ld he go?
You can’t pretend you would let mere facts deter you from changing the subject or spinning a few more half-truths so, where are ya’?
I know several real Liberals and they wouldn’t have run so quickly…he must have been a Ron Paul supporter in disguise.
This ‘liberal’ youngster will be further ruined by this film.
Cuban health care is a total joke. Huge medicine shortages, and when they have it it’s largely expired Canadian medicine.
Filthy hospitals and clinics, just pathetic.
Take a look at some pictures here:
http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
make everything FREE
paying for things is SO wrong
nothing should have value
.
I assumed there would be at least one progressive among you.
No, you assumed that there would be some here who were dumb or who didn’t have enough experience in the real world to believe Michael Moore’s drivel. I’m not insulting you — when I was in college I was a liberal, too, and would probably have liked Moore’s film. I campaigned for Jimmy Carter in 1980 — the first election in which I was allowed to vote — and believed the wingnuts who said that Reagan was an idiot and would start World War III. Fortunately, by the time I was 24 I was on the road to being a conservative and was a full conservative by the time I was 30.
My company posted me to the Laurentian Mountains north of Quebec during the late 1980s. A co-worker of mine injured her back and was told that it would be 3 months before she could see a doctor. She was in so much pain that she drove to New York to see a doctor and received treatment the same day.
As for 50 million people (the numbers differs every time I read it) not having health insurance in the USA, that’s a red herring. Everybody who needs medical attention in the USA gets it. I have a nice but not overly expensive house in a Dallas suburb and pay over $2,000 per year in Texas to support free clinics and hospitals in Dallas county. The majority of women giving birth there are illegal aliens. No one knows the true percentage since the hospital is not allowed one’s immigration status. However, Snope’s says in the article reference above that “[a] recent hospital analysis concluded that the average maternity ward patient at Parkland [hospital] is a 25-year old, married Hispanic woman giving birth to her second child.” Draw your own conclusions. I do have friends who are illegal aliens (through teaching ESL at church) and they are happy going to Parkland. Yeah, they might have to wait a few hours but they don’t wait a few months.
To sum it up, when Moore says that poor people in the US don’t have the same access to quality health care as they do in other countries, he is telling the truth — but not the truth you want to hear. Poor people in the US have access to health care that rich people in other countries only dream of.
You sound smart and you write well. Keep your mind open, seek out facts and not opinions, and you’ll be a conservative in a few years.
Did M Moore explain:
1) how those French 24/7 home visiting Doctors let 14000 die in the heat wave a few years back?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave
2) the two-tier health system in UK – those that can afford it pay for better
3) why so many Canadians go to the US system for medical services when it’s “free” in Canada?
4) why 40% of the uninsured in the US make more than $50,000 per year – so they CHOOSE not to be covered…
M Moore documentary is actually Propaganda (a tool to induce the observer to believe a predetermined view) masquerading as truth. It is, in fact, a dishonest presentation – a Trojan Horse of “Truth” with a powerful bias hidden within. To base public health policy opinions on this should be intellectually embarassing.
There are so many comments on here that any attempt to respond to every piece of feedback would not be prudent, especially as this article is about to find its way off of the PJM home page. I would like to thank those few commenters who didn’t simply jump on the band wagon here and actually provided well thought out opinions. I especially appreciated the person who pointed out that many Americans get denied coverage because of pre-existing health conditions. In other words, people are deemed too sick to be covered in case they get sick, thus defeating the purpose of healthcare unless healthcare’s only purpose is making money for private corporations.
I would like to conclude my contributions to this dialog by providing everyone here a link to House Resolution 676. It is supported by more than 40 members of the House and that number is growing more and more. You can read the resolution in its entirety here: http://www.pnhp.org/nhibill/nhi_bill_final.pdf
Thanks once again for reading my article and responding in such volume. If you ever feel the need to scold me for my political views you can read many more of my articles at http://liberalcollegekid.com