John Graham at Pacific Research Institute is obviously looking for trouble. So he invited two people who really don’t get on — at least in their online comments on THCB — to come comment about Sicko and the Canada-bashers response. I’ve of course had my say about both Sicko and the Canada-bashers before.
So if you want to see me square up to Logan Clements (who is replacing Stuart Browning, who’s cried off sick) hopefully figuratively and not literally, come down to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood (Los Angeles) on Thursday September 27th. Stuart and Michael Moore (by proxy) will be showing why making anecdotal poorly researched movies actually changes health policy for better but mostly for worse, and I’ll be explaining why neither of them would recognize real research if they tripped over it in the street.
The info is here–Sicko and its malcontents
I think I’m supposed to be defending Moore, by the way. But perhaps John will step into that void. Local LA Pol Bill Rosendahl will be refereeing! Should be fun!
Meanwhile see how many ridiculous claims and outright irrelevant rubbish you can find in the trailer in the Sicko reply under construction. It’s up on Clements’ site.
That should get the juices flowing
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Funny how people go running to the federal government for protection from HMOs when it is the federal government that mandated employers offer them. If it wasn’t for feds requiring employers offer HMOs if they wanted to or not they never would have become as prevalant as they are today. If a person had any understanding of our healthcare system and it’s history the last place you would go to solve the problem is Washington. We will never have a single payor system because the majority of Americans are to smart to trust a politican with their health and their life. The socialist and communist might get the most press and cry the loudest but at the end of the day we’ll decide to stay free.
“At the Cannes film festival press conferences, Mr. Moore’s mock-umentary was publicly laughed at by Canadian journalists with a lifetime of CN health care experiences.”
Started to look at the link then saw it was by John Stossel. No need to go any further.
The CA journalists may have been laughing but where is the ground swell of Canadian voters demanding their politicians go to American style healthcare to solve Canadian healthcare issues? Canadians want issues solved (like anyone) but in the context of the single pay government run system.
Playing on Sally Pipes’, of the Pacific Research Institute, recent article “Most Canadians scoff at portrayal of their nation as a health-care paradise,” to address someone’s anecdotal stories with opposing anecdotal stories, and saying the story isn’t just an isolated incident, but typical, doesn’t cut musturd. That’s what Sicko has been accused of doing.
Private insurance payors in America have for years been maximizing profits with their incentive to delay or deny coverage. Doctors can’t practice the type of medicine they’re trained for because of HMO-based evidence and pharma-based evidence in medical care.
I have an anecdotal story of my own. My dearly beloved wife had a 3.5cm tumor in her cerebellum. She had to wait four weeks just to initially visit a neurosurgeon at a US health care facility. I had to “pull strings” to get her seen, and operated on, at another health care facility. She had her stitches taken out on the day she had her “initially-scheduled” appointment.
Patients wait for their care whether in a government-run or for-profit health care arena. Trying to scare people with the adage of “waiting lines” only in government-run facilities doesn’t cut it either.
Everyone in America is not equal when it comes to healthcare. Over 45 million of them do not have healthcare coverage. It’s not equal in the “misearable” index. Those that can afford and pay exorbitant prices for healthcare are not miserable. “Heartless and uncaring” is a perfect attribute of the for-profit US health-care system.
Umm…I will NOT be defending Moore! But it will be a great evening: free, plus wine & cheese to warm up the crowd. I look forward to seeing all Health Care Bloggees there!
And furthermore…
The next bleating reply will be “That’s nice. How will you pay for it?”
We’re already paying now, all of us, into a system that grabs profits and is designed NOT to render care. Rendering care is, in fact, anti-profit. We’re paying for it with the hidden costs of sick, angry people unable to pay. We’re paying for it with sleepless nights worrying about children who, if they break an arm, could bankrupt a parent.
I don’t really care how we pay for it. We have the money. We can do this efficiently, because we’re smart, we’re ingenuous, and we’re starting with nothing. That’s no longer an excuse. We just need the will to do it.
And we’ve heard the same oogie-boogie response from free marketers since the Reagan years: Don’t mess with our profits or EVERYTHING will go away, and you don’t want that…
Um. The issue isn’t whether Cuba has better healthcare. That was his mistake – using that as the stalking point. It opened up the argument as to whether or not he’s a commie and whose data and blah blah blah.
Healthcare is so complicated now that NO ONE can find a decent, simple way to illustrate what’s wrong.
The issue is that our society doesn’t believe people deserve the attention of a doctor unless they can pay. That we don’t believe in a common good. That we do believe the individual is king, in every way. If that’s the case, then let everyone operate on him or herself.
What’s wrong is we won’t decide to take care of each other. Period. We think that’s weak. We want to believe that everyone is strong, and if they’re not, it’s laziness.
This is a moral canard that requires a moral response: Everyone deserves the care of a doctor and NO ONE should have to prove their worthiness by virtue of their net worth. EVER.
A bit late, isn’t it?
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3568278&page=1
At the Cannes film festival press conferences, Mr. Moore’s mock-umentary was publicly laughed at by Canadian journalists with a lifetime of CN health care experiences. Excellent work by Mr. Moore.
Omigod. Wear your body armor.