Sicko

"I find my cynicism regarding the human race more justified every day."



is his signature...isn't that hilarious for someone unwilling have a nice talk to someone b/c they have a different opinion.

too funny.

 

Let's see if I got it all. This thread is going on nine pages so I guess I'll condense it:

Socialism is evil. I mean, why are all those lazy minority kids not working in jobs since they aren't going to go good universities anyway? Public education is so stupid.

If it weren't for all those damn liberals and unions, plenty of kids who would otherwise just end up in prison could learn valuable life skills working in industrial and service jobs instead of wasting property tax money in public schools.

Healthcare? Pfaw! If your greatest aspiration is life isn't to ass kiss your way into a meaningless corporate job to be able to meet your minimum material and health needs, then you must an America-hating communist. America needs its taxpayer money for important things like naming bridges after Trent Lott and subsidizing failing corporations.

The UK is one country that has universal healthcare; I heard about people in the UK with bad experiences with healthcare, therefore all efforts at universal healthcare are pointless.

My commentary and personal anecodtes:
I live in a socialist country. The healthcare is excellent. I see doctors much quicker than I did with a very expensive PPO. It could take 3 weeks to see my doc in LA. Here it's usually 24 hours. In fact, my doctors here told me I was misdiagnosed in the US by several doctors and could sue for malpractice. Also, I was billed over $10k for things my PPO was supposed to pay, and before it was resolved, my credit was totally ruined. Here I pay...nothing. Prescription medicine is actually affordable.

OK, that's my experience. Bureaucracy here is a nightmare craphole, but ill people get to see doctors for free. Period.

My father owned his own business in Texas. He made a lot of money, and then his business failed. My father is now in his mid-fifties. Ten years ago my father was diagnosed with diabetes, hepatitis C and hypertension. No insurance company would take him on for less than the equiv. of a monthly payment for an Italian sports car. So now, he is terminally ill and dying. But it's his fault, you see, for getting sick in the first place. I mean he deserves to die.

My dad is a die-hard conservative. I guess dying from lack of health care makes him a patriot?

If I moved back to the US, I wouldn't have health coverage either. I'm a writer and musician. My day gig is freelance journalism. Right now I am finishing a master's degree as well. But I guess I'm a deadbeat because I consider I value my freedom and quality of life over the security of a Dilbert-zone with higher pay and and a PPO.

I'll agree that health care isn't in the Bill of Rights, but neither is 99% of what Congress spends taxpayer money on. If it's going to be spent on something, why not freaking medicine? I spent most of my life without healthcare, and the only time I had it was in jobs I hated. Other nations seem to be able to do fine with orders of magnitude less money. Like the one I live in that's currently treating refugees from Gaza. For free.

But I guess, as many of you said, you can't help everyone. Anyone, apparently, who wouldn't completely sell themselves out for the security of a slice of mediocre suburbia deserves to die.

That being said, I can't stand Michael Moore's "documentaries." They are as dishonest as the people he is trying to criticize, and often confuses things with disinformation. I hope this one is different...

 

I'd agree with this, with the caveat that all children have access to the same level of healthcare (in their area), and that they all have the same primary education, but their later education is geared toward their particular abilities. Meaning: if you're smart enough to go to college, then you go to college. If you're not, then you don't. The income of their parents should not be a factor in either the quality of healthcare or the level of education they receive.

How dare you address the American Way of Life with such liberal sarcasm! What are you, some sort of commie satan-worshipping homosexual terrorist?

 

[sarcasm] medical prices will go down once we get more Tort Reform!!!!!!!!!!! [/sarcasm]

Rocket River
They really sold that one to the people of the Great State of Texas
just a big f@#$ing Lie

 

Is this discussion really so threatening that you really need to strawman my argument and then make claims about my supposed low level of familiarity without even knowing anything about me in order to dismiss me without having to discuss it? You don't know the first thing about me, much less how familiar I am with the NHS, but you can authoritatively state that I am just going on a couple of stories of bad experiences that I heard about? And where did I say that all efforts at universal healthcare is pointless?

Seriously, beyond just this there is a whole lot of strawman and caricature going on in this thread. If both sides are really so right, why is everybody acting so jeopardized and desperate in defending their position?

 

I'm not threatened by any discussion, unless it involves Karl Malone's legacy. I have a strong opinion about the subject.

And I'm not trying to single anyone out. Many of the things I paraphrased weren't exactly said at all..I didn't quote you, Ottomaton, and I'm not directing my sarcasm at you...just at the tone of the thread. I do feel the anti-health care arguments are weak (and tired), and the thread is looking like Small Sample Size Theater, while my own experiences, while completely anecdotal, run very much contrary to the comments made by you and MadMax and other posters.

I don't know anything about NHS. I've never been to the UK. But I do know the level of medical care I get in (much poorer than the UK) Israel is vastly superior to the very expensive PPO I had for a hospital and doctor in Beverly Hills, and a world away from what my father suffers through in Corpus Christi.

The point of my sarcasm was that what one country does right or wrong to manage their particular universal health care system doesn't make the idea of universal coverage a bad idea. The US is the only developed nation in the world, AFAIK that doesn't have one, and I think it is erroneous to think that it's a good thing.

 

I knew you'd come around to my way of thinking.

Hamilton would be proud.

http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa29.htm

 

Here is a nice counterpoint called 'Dead Meat'. Its undoubtedly not as well produced as the Moore documentary, but it does talk about some of the things that Moore doesn't.

 

CNN checks Moore's #s.

Analysis: Numbers cited in "Sicko" are accurate for the most part


By A. Chris Gajilan
CNN

(CNN) -- Michael Moore's "Sicko," which opened nationwide Friday, is filled with horror stories of people who are deprived of medical service because they can't afford it or haven't been able to navigate the murky waters of managed care in the United States.


A couple featured in Michael Moore's "Sicko" leave a London hospital with their newborn.

It compares American health care with the universal coverage systems in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Cuba.

Moore covers a lot of ground. Our team investigated some of the claims put forth in his film. We found that his numbers were mostly right, but his arguments could use a little more context. As we dug deep to uncover the numbers, we found surprisingly few inaccuracies in the film. In fact, most pundits or health-care experts we spoke to spent more time on errors of omission rather than disputing the actual claims in the film.

Whether it's dollars spent, group coverage or Medicaid income cutoffs, health care goes hand in hand with numbers. Moore opens his film by giving these statistics, "Fifty million uninsured Americans ... 18,000 people die because they are uninsured."

For the most part, that's true. The latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say 43.6 million, or about 15 percent of Americans, were uninsured in 2006. For the past five years, the overall count has fluctuated between 41 million and 44 million people. According to the Institute of Medicine, 18,000 people do die each year mainly because they are less likely to receive screening and preventive care for chronic diseases.

Moore says that the U.S. spends more of its gross domestic product on health care than any other country.

Again, that's true. The United States spends more than 15 percent of its GDP on health care -- no other nation even comes close to that number. France spends about 11 percent, and Canadians spend 10 percent.

Like Moore, we also found that more money does not equal better care. Both the French and Canadian systems rank in the Top 10 of the world's best health-care systems, according to the World Health Organization. The United States comes in at No. 37. The rankings are based on general health of the population, access, patient satisfaction and how the care's paid for.

So, if Americans are paying so much and they're not getting as good or as much care, where is all the money going? "Overhead for most private health insurance plans range between 10 percent to 30 percent," says Deloitte health-care analyst Paul Keckley. Overhead includes profit and administrative costs.

"Compare that to Medicare, which only has an overhead rate of 1 percent. Medicare is an extremely efficient health-care delivery system," says Mark Meaney, a health-care ethicist for the National Institute for Patient Rights.

Moore spends about half his film detailing the wonders and the benefits of the government-funded universal health-care systems in Canada, France, Cuba and the United Kingdom. He shows calm, content people in waiting rooms and people getting care in hospitals hassle free. People laugh and smile as he asks about billing departments and cost of stay.

Not surprisingly, it's not that simple. In most other countries, there are quotas and planned waiting times. Everyone does have access to basic levels of care. That care plan is formulated by teams of government physicians and officials who determine what's to be included in the universal basic coverage and how a specific condition is treated. If you want treatment outside of that standard plan, then you have to pay for it yourself.

"In most developed health systems in the world, 15 percent to 20 percent of the population buys medical services outside of the system of care run by the government. They do it through supplemental insurance, or they buy services out of pocket," Keckley says.

The people who pay more tend to be in the upper income or have special, more complicated conditions.

Moore focuses on the private insurance companies and makes no mention of the U.S. government-funded health-care systems such as Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and the Veterans Affairs health-care systems. About 50 percent of all health-care dollars spent in the United States flows through these government systems.

"Sicko" also ignores a handful of good things about the American system. Believe it or not, the United States does rank highest in the patient satisfaction category. Americans do have shorter wait times than everyone but Germans when it comes to nonemergency elective surgery such as hip replacements, cataract removal or knee repair.

That's no surprise given the number of U.S. specialists. In U.S. medical schools, students training to become primary-care physicians have dwindled to 10 percent. The overwhelming majority choose far more profitable specialties in the medical field. In other countries, more than one out of three aspiring doctors chooses primary care in part because there's less of an income gap with specialists. In those nations, becoming a specialist means making 30 percent more than a primary-care physician. In the United States, the gap is around 300 percent, according to Keckley.

As Americans continue to spend $2 trillion a year on health care, everyone agrees on one point: Things need to change, and it will take more than a movie to figure out how to get there.

A. Chris Gajilan is a senior producer with CNN Medical News. Intern Emily Breidbart contributed to this report.



http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/28/sicko.fact.check/index.html

 

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Saw it last night. As with everything Michael Moore does, it has to be taken with a large grain of salt, however, if even HALF of what he depicts is HALF-truth, it's still gut-wrenchingly infuriating. I'm sure the Canadian, French, and British systems have flaws, and are not the altruistic utopias that he depicts, but it seems to me that they are at least trying to get reasonable health care for the majority of their citizens. And, after all, waiting a long time to get health care is better than not getting it at all.

And Moore draws one particularly annoying conclusion: that the govt. is trying to get us to hate the French?!? Dude, I've been to France. I've been all over Europe. Trust me, France doesn't need any help inspiring animosity. They do just fine on their own.

 

Unless you pay for it with a job then it is. Especcially if you have to suffer for the 3 months you are waiting or a condition gets incredibly worse.

 

gupta's report:
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moore's response:
crooks and liars

moore's text on his site:
rebuttal to gupta

 

Yeah, and **** anyone who can't pay for it.

 

america, the land of the double whammy. when you lose your job you lose health benefits for you and yours. now that's SICKO.

 

social security has virtually eliminated poverty in the US for over 6 decades. and if we increase the cap and make it less regressive, increase the retirement age a bit it will be solvent well into the middle of the century.