America's medical system has problems, but profit is the least of it. Government mandates, overregulation and a tax code that pushes employer-paid health insurance prevent the free market from performing its efficient miracles. Six out of seven health-care dollars are spent by third parties. That kills the market. Patients rarely shop around, and doctors rarely compete on price or service.

...The U.S. mail manages to deliver his dad's checks, but compare its performance to FedEx or UPS. The Post Office said it wasn't possible to deliver packages overnight.

I want FedEx health care: innovation, new cancer treatments, hip replacements and pain relief. We get that from private-sector competition, not government lethargy.

Labels: SiCKO

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Labels: Countries, Cuba, SiCKO

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'Sicko': Heavily Doctored
Is Michael Moore's prescription worse than the disease?

...Unfortunately, Moore is also a con man of a very brazen sort, and never more so than in this film. His cherry-picked facts, manipulative interviews (with lingering close-ups of distraught people breaking down in tears) and blithe assertions (how does he know 18,000* people will die this year because they have no health insurance?) are so stacked that you can feel his whole argument sliding sideways as the picture unspools. The American health-care system is in urgent need of reform, no question. Some 47 million people are uninsured (although many are only temporarily so, being either in-between jobs or young enough not to feel a pressing need to buy health insurance). There are a number of proposals as to what might be done to correct this situation. Moore has no use for any of them, save one.

As a proud socialist, the director appears to feel that there are few problems in life that can't be solved by government regulation (that would be the same government that's already given us the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Motor Vehicles). In the case of health care, though, Americans have never been keen on socialized medicine.

'Sicko' serves up health care lies

...Moore also ignores the limits, restrictions on access, and rationing of care in single-payer health care systems in Canada, the U.K., and elsewhere. In Canada, for example, more than 800,000 people are on waiting lists for surgery and other medical treatment, with some forced to wait months or even years for the care they need.

The promise of universal health coverage doesn't always translate to timely medical care, especially for those with serious medical problems. A Canadian citizen who needed hip replacement surgery was condemned to spending many months in pain waiting for the state to get around to treating him. Unwilling to wait, he sued his provincial government because he was denied the right to buy private insurance to pay for prompt surgery.

...One of Moore's core arguments in "Sicko" is that profit in the health sector is evil and that we should rid our health care system of private "for-profit" physician practices, hospitals and suppliers. He and other single-payer advocates are convinced that a generous and benevolent government would put doctors and hospitals back in charge of decisions.

Why, then, are doctors and hospitals today forced to follow more than 110,000 pages of rules and regulations in our Medicare program serving

42 million seniors? Imagine the libraries that would be filled with the rules to run a system for 300 million!

In our own government-run health care systems - Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA - government micromanagement and price controls are the norm. Government makes decisions about what will be covered, under what circumstances and for whom, and how much doctors and hospitals will be paid for their services. And government seldom gets it right - overpaying for some and underpaying for others, but also inducing over-consumption of health care.

Moore's new film certainly makes for compelling viewing. The problem is that it also makes for an incomplete picture of what socialized medicine is really like.

After all, it would've been impossible to fit all the Britons and Canadians languishing on waiting lists into a neat, two-hour movie.

If Michael Moore's waistline ever puts him in the hospital for heart surgery, it will be interesting to see where he goes for medical care -- the Mayo Clinic, or Cuba?

Labels: Canada, Countries, SiCKO

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...I have repeatedly heard Moore use the analogy that fire protection, provided as a socialized necessity, is an example of how medicine should also be socialized. No report about that analogy has brought attention to the fact that most homeowners carry private fire insurance. Although a "fire department" will try to save life and property, and prevent a fire from spreading to the next house, they do not provide compensation for losses.

...If Michael Moore has a toothache, it is not my responsibility to pay for his dentistry. If it were, then I would have the right to tell him not to eat sweets. I don't want that kind of government-paid medical policy. Do you?

Steve Schweitzberger, Littleton CO

Labels: LTE, SiCKO

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The Cuba example is the most naïve. It doesn't seem to cross Moore's mind that when you confiscate a nation's private property, that yes, you can provide free dental care for public relations purposes.

...Moore is right that our system is messed up. But that may be due to it being a contorted free market system, with limited competition and little consumerism.

All that is too subtle for Moore, who seems convinced from the start that the only solution is a government takeover. That’s a scary thought. Do you want your doctors to treat you like you get treated at the Department of Motor Vehicles or in airport security lines? Or maybe we should let bad nurses work forever, like a unionized public school teacher. We now enjoy the latest medical device or drug, but will there be much more R&D in the future if a blockbuster pill can't command a blockbuster price?

Labels: SiCKO

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Having practiced medicine in both Cuba and the United States, Dr. Cordova has an unusual perspective for comparison.

"Actually there are three systems," Dr. Cordova said, because Cuba has two: one is for party officials and foreigners like those Mr. Moore brought to Havana. "It is as good as this one here, with all the resources, the best doctors, the best medicines, and nobody pays a cent," he said.

But for the 11 million ordinary Cubans, hospitals are often ill equipped and patients "have to bring their own food, soap, sheets -- they have to bring everything." And up to 20,000 Cuban doctors may be working in Venezuela, creating a shortage in Cuba.

...Until he had to have emergency surgery last year, Fidel Castro -- who turned 80 this year -- was considered a model of vibrant long life in Cuba. But it was only last week that he acknowledged in an open letter that his initial surgery by Cuban doctors had been botched. He did not confirm, however, that a specialist had been flown in from Spain last December to help set things right.

Labels: Countries, Cuba, SiCKO

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