Sicko --- New Michael Moore movie

[Navaros]

Sicko, the new Michael Moore movie is out.

Basic plot summary: A documentary about why the US health care system is crap, and other nations' health care systems are way better.

Have you seen this movie?

Are you going to see it?

What do you think of the content of this movie?

[Fragony]

Numerous people have tried to explain, but I still don't fully understand how american healthcare went wrong. Can't comment on subject, read so many conflicting opinions, bleh. The movie, well it's a Moore movie, so I expect a lot of hilarious stabs at those waving away problems with stars&stripes. Probably will be entertaining, as usual.

[Geoffrey S]

I can't stand the self-righteous fat git.

[Lemur]

Is Sicko even out yet in the U.S.? I've been thinking much more about Transformers, and whether or not it's going to be too scary for my oldest boy ...

But yeah, the U.S. healthcare system is busted, and no, this doesn't mean we should all run to Cuba for help.

[Bijo]

I recall Moore being a schmuck. I have already forgotten the details but I merely -- for sake of easiness -- memorized he and his films are not to be trusted.

[PanzerJaeger]

He's actually tackling a topic worthy of investigative journalism and public outcry.

However, since its Moore, it will probably just be one big edited-out-of-context hit job.

I wont see it until its in the bargain bin.

[TB666]

I wont see it until its in the bargain bin.

Or just download it.
I remember with Fahrenheit 911 he posted the movie on his website for everyone to download, totally legal.
It's possible that he do it again this time.

[Bijo]

Or just download it.
I remember with Fahrenheit 911 he posted the movie on his website for everyone to download, totally legal.
It's possible that he do it again this time.

Is Fahrenheit 9/11 still available for download there? I will seek it, but am uncertain if I will find it.

[TB666]

I already checked, it's gone
It happened around the time that he made a statement that he is ok with people downloading his movies.
I guess he wanted to prove that he was serious.

[Xiahou]

Sicko, the new Michael Moore movie is out.

Basic plot summary: A documentary about why the US health care system is crap, and other nations' health care systems are way better.

Have you seen this movie?

Nope.

Are you going to see it?

Probably not.

What do you think of the content of this movie?

I fully expect it will be typical of Moore's propaganda. I don't see myself wanting to waste the effort needed to sort through all the BS.

[KafirChobee]

Actually, from what I gather, the film is more a persuasion that America doesnot need to build a new wheel (healthcare system) - the wheel is already alive and well in a number of countries. Ergo, our health care system is not adequate to support all Americans, other nations have systems that do - we borrow from their systems and create our own.

Will see it. His docs are always entertaining.
"Roger & Me"
"Bowling for Columbine"
"Fahrenheit 911"
Good stuff.

[Ice]

My thoughts:

I'm not quote sure if the link will work if you aren't a subscriber:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1182...N=wsjie/6month

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I haven't seen 'Sicko,'" says Avril Allen about the new Michael Moore documentary, which advocates socialized medicine for the United States. The film, which has been widely viewed on the Internet, and which will officially open in the U.S. and Canada on Friday, has been getting rave reviews. But Ms. Allen, a lawyer, has no plans to watch it. She's just too busy preparing to file suit against Ontario's provincial government about its health-care system next month.

Her client, Lindsay McCreith, would have had to wait for four months just to get an MRI, and then months more to see a neurologist for his malignant brain tumor. Instead, frustrated and ill, the retired auto-body shop owner traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., for a lifesaving surgery. Now he's suing for the right to opt out of Canada's government-run health care, which he considers dangerous.
[Sicko]

Ms. Allen figures the lawsuit has a fighting chance: In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that "access to wait lists is not access to health care," striking down key Quebec laws that prohibited private medicine and private health insurance.

In the U.S., 83 House Democrats voted for a bill in 1993 calling for single-payer health care. That idea collapsed with HillaryCare and since then has existed on the fringes of the debate -- winning praise from academics and pressure groups, but remaining largely out of the political discussion. Mr. Moore's documentary intends to change that, exposing millions to his argument that American health care is sick and socialized medicine is the cure.

It's not simply that Mr. Moore is wrong. His grand tour of public health care systems misses the big story: While he prescribes socialism, market-oriented reforms are percolating in cities from Stockholm to Saskatoon.

Mr. Moore goes to London, Ontario, where he notes that not a single patient has waited in the hospital emergency room more than 45 minutes. "It's a fabulous system," a woman explains. In Britain, he tours a hospital where patients marvel at their free care. A patient's husband explains: "It's not America." Humorously, Mr. Moore finds a cashier dispensing money to patients (for transportation). In France, a doctor explains the success of the health-care system with the old Marxist axiom: "You pay according to your means, and you receive according to your needs."

It's compelling material -- I know because, born and raised in Canada, I used to believe in government-run health care. Then I was mugged by reality.

Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore's claim that ERs don't overcrowd in Canada. A Canadian government study recently found that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner, as defined by local medical and hospital associations. "The research merely confirms anecdotal reports of interminable waits," reported a national newspaper. While people in rural areas seem to fare better, Toronto patients receive care in four hours on average; one in 10 patients waits more than a dozen hours.

This problem hit close to home last year: A relative, living in Winnipeg, nearly died of a strangulated bowel while lying on a stretcher for five hours, writhing in pain. To get the needed ultrasound, he was sent by ambulance to another hospital.

In Britain, the Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients wait more than a year for surgery. Around the time Mr. Moore was putting the finishing touches on his documentary, a hospital in Sutton Coldfield announced its new money-saving linen policy: Housekeeping will no longer change the bed sheets between patients, just turn them over. France's system failed so spectacularly in the summer heat of 2003 that 13,000 people died, largely of dehydration. Hospitals stopped answering the phones and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves.

With such problems, it's not surprising that people are looking for alternatives. Private clinics -- some operating in a "gray zone" of the law -- are now opening in Canada at a rate of about one per week.

Canadian doctors, once quiet on the issue of private health care, elected Brian Day as president of their national association. Dr. Day is a leading critic of Canadian medicare; he opened a private surgery hospital and then challenged the government to shut it down. "This is a country," Dr. Day said by way of explanation, "in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."

Market reforms are catching on in Britain, too. For six decades, its socialist Labour Party scoffed at the very idea of private medicine, dismissing it as "Americanization." Today Labour favors privatization, promising to triple the number of private-sector surgical procedures provided within two years. The Labour government aspires to give patients a choice of four providers for surgeries, at least one of them private, and recently considered the contracting out of some primary-care services -- perhaps even to American companies.

Other European countries follow this same path. In Sweden, after the latest privatizations, the government will contract out some 80% of Stockholm's primary care and 40% of total health services, including Stockholm's largest hospital. Beginning before the election of the new conservative chancellor, Germany enhanced insurance competition and turned state enterprises over to the private sector (including the majority of public hospitals). Even in Slovakia, a former Marxist country, privatizations are actively debated.

Under the weight of demographic shifts and strained by the limits of command-and-control economics, government-run health systems have turned out to be less than utopian. The stories are the same: dirty hospitals, poor standards and difficulty accessing modern drugs and tests.

Admittedly, the recent market reforms are gradual and controversial. But facts are facts, the reforms are real, and they represent a major trend in health care. What does Mr. Moore's documentary say about that? Nothing.

Dr. Gratzer, a practicing physician licensed in Canada and the U.S. and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is the author of "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care" (Encounter, 2006).

[Louis VI the Fat]

I like what Michael Moore does.

There is a clear problem: Americans pay too much for their healthcare and get too little in return.
Now he could write a 1500 page essay about international comparative healthcare, to scientific standards and complete with all if's and but's. Which four people will read. Or he can make a shockumentary about it for a large audience. The point of which is to start a debate, to serve as a wake-up call, to get a problem on the agenda.
Moore is an activist, not a scientist or even an investigative journalist. And when judged not by the standard of the latter two, but by the first, he is extremely efficient and succesful.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

A Canadian government study recently found that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner, as defined by local medical and hospital associations.

How can one present such a uniquely lame excuse to support the American healthcare system? Waiting vs getting thrown out of a hospital if you can't afford the bills? I know I 'll take the waiting. And it is not the system per se that is flawed. It is the criminal way HMOs operate.

[Marshal Murat]

I don't think that the author was supporting the American Health care system. It is bad, but choosing the system that has the untimely service rates isn't better.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

I am certain you would feel exactly the same way if you couldn't afford healthcare. Or not.

[CrossLOPER]

I fully expect it will be typical of Moore's propaganda. I don't see myself wanting to waste the effort needed to sort through all the BS.

You are commenting on a movie that you never saw because you heard that Moore's earlier movies, which you have probably not heard of until a week ago, are full of propaganda?

[Ice]

How can one present such a uniquely lame excuse to support the American healthcare system? Waiting vs getting thrown out of a hospital if you can't afford the bills? I know I 'll take the waiting. And it is not the system per se that is flawed. It is the criminal way HMOs operate.

He was explaining how the Canadian system had flaws not mentioned in the movie. He admits Moore isn't wrong that our health care system needs work, but socialized medicine from other countries isn't exactly the answer.

[KafirChobee]

Calling what Moore does as being propaganda is a bit harsh, and totally lame.

Louis'es comments are more accurate. Moore is an activist. Propaganda would be that lame counterpoint film that was made to counter Fahrenheit 911 - oh, "Fahrenhype 911". Now that was propaganda. The same unwarrented points (there were a total of three) were repeated over and over and over again by different people. Basically, "Roger Moore bad ... we good" - "there really are WMD's, they just haven't been found them" - and "we should know, we're more opinianated than Moore and never allow anyone as a counterpoint in our films".

Moore, as Louis pointed out, simply points out politically sensitive things in an irreverent manner that tends to P__s-off those that are happy with the status quo and view anyone attacking it as a personal attack (which it usually is - if you're an HMO, industrialist, or deal with the sale of guns).

Regardless, he really does know how to push conservative buttons in a humorous way. I like him, he makes me smile and reminds me I have a conscience.

[Lemur]

For Republicans, fat activist Michael Moore = bad and not funny, but fat activist Rush Limbaugh = good and witty. Reverse the equation for the other side of the spectrum.

[Papewaio]

I always thought Michael Moore was a comedian, not a serious social commentator. Like most comedians he can cut to the bone of an issue, but likewise he doesn't deliver anything bar punch lines... so no critical analysis, no pros and cons, no solutions.

He was explaining how the Canadian system had flaws not mentioned in the movie. He admits Moore isn't wrong that our health care system needs work, but socialized medicine from other countries isn't exactly the answer.

If it works better why isn't it a solution?

[Csargo]

If it works better why isn't it a solution?

They are looking for the perfect solution to the problem, which they'll never find.

[Ice]

If it works better why isn't it a solution?

I never said it works better. It works differently.

[KafirChobee]

How it is done in America.
Doctors retire, and sell their patient lists - even advise their patients to use those that buy them - every little bit for retirement. You know? Americans are a trustful bunch, we trust the men that treated our parents, and ourselves - and accept that they would never intentionally harm us (most or some never intentionally would - who can say, money can corrupt even the most pure of heart - if it hits the right button).

Then, one has an HMO and his appointed doctor recommends a procedure, but the HMO opts it is exemplerary - not necessary. The procedure - to remove hemroids and explore the palups (ms) in the larger intestine (as well as to ask for permission to further explore the prostate). Denied. Hemroid are nothing more than an annoyance, and palups are normal with hemroids. So why take the chance it might be serious and cost the HMO $$money$$. The prostrate? Well, if nothings for sure why bother further - if there is a question? Ignore it, 'til we get back to you ... in a month ... six months ... or when ever.

Do we need change in our health care system? yes. Will anything Michael says or shows change it? no. But, atleast he has the balls to force a realistic discussion. Because something is needed to improve what is the status quo.

[Ianofsmeg16]

Why doesnt he just move?

[Ice]

Why doesnt he just move?

That would make far to much sense.

[Ronin]

Why doesnt he just move?

well....I think that if you see something that you think is wrong about the country where you live you should try to change it...I think that´s the correct thing to do.....if you "just move" you are failing as a citizen....at least that´s how I see things...

as for the movie....

haven´t seen it yet....but I´ve seen other movies he did....this one like all Michael Moore films is probably comprised of a core of truth....but wrapped up in a large amount of self-serving rhetoric and propaganda...

the man is basically saying the correct things....I just wish he´d say it in a less sensationalist way....but if he did that he´d probably be ignored all together...so maybe that´s the price to pay for being heard nowadays.

[Navaros]

They are looking for the perfect solution to the problem, which they'll never find.

Sure there is a perfect solution: two-tier health care with the free tier being the default one that everyone gets unless they choose otherwise. Those who want to pay for it can do so. Those who do not want to pay for it don't have to.

[Tribesman]

I always thought Michael Moore was a comedian, not a serious social commentator. Like most comedians he can cut to the bone of an issue, but likewise he doesn't deliver anything bar punch lines... so no critical analysis, no pros and cons, no solutions.

Mark Thomas does a far better job of it , and is a lot funnier with it .

well....I think that if you see something that you think is wrong about the country where you live you should try to change it...I think that´s the correct thing to do.....if you "just move" you are failing as a citizen....at least that´s how I see things...

Ronin don't tell the "move to Cuba" crowd that they make no sense , just like their "my country right or wrong" tripe , if its wrong its time to change whats wrong .

[Papewaio]

Sure there is a perfect solution: two-tier health care with the free tier being the default one that everyone gets unless they choose otherwise. Those who want to pay for it can do so. Those who do not want to pay for it don't have to.

Australians let us rejoice, for we are young and free;