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.
Michael Moore is a liberal propagandist, right? He takes liberal causes that he is passionate about and makes movies about them; and does a bang-up job considering the number of people who see them.
Okay, so he only touched on what were to him the most salient problems, and left out some of the good stuff about the American system at present. Propaganda is not supposed to be fair, no matter who is putting it out. It is supposed to persuade.
My comment is this, since I haven't seen the movie:
America is careening into a humongous crisis in the next ten years or so.
The baby boomers, the darlings of all global merchandisers be they honest or evil, are getting old. That means they are going to have to retire and that they are going to get sick.
Older American corporations are faltering, many of them, because they were providers of their workers' benefits: in short, they were the social system supporting their retirees and their workers' health care. They now are top-heavy with retirees and are trying to weasle out of these traditional systems we remember as pensions and insurance coverage. Those were the things they used to use as the carrot on the stick to draw able workers on board.
Because they are strapped, they can't compete with newer businesses, and they must either fold up or downsize. They've been falling like dominoes while new foreign companies prosper.
What this means is that there will be a glut of baby boomers going into retirement with less than they need to accomplish that American entitlement we call retirement. The present capitalistic system is cracking. We won't want another Great Depression, or to throw millions of people out to the wolves.
All Mr. Moore is doing is comparing the present faltering system with the more socialistic systems of Europe and Canada. And, Mr. Moore aside, there are two ways to go: a right-wing plunge into the uncertainty of people fending for themselves or a left-wing swing into National Health Care and a cradle-to-grave security system where Americans are "guaranteed" jobs, education, health care, and retirement. How is all this going to be funded?
How else? Taxes. There is no other method.
Unfortunately for the present system, and juggernaut insurance companies, the old boat is leaking. Insurance today is cumbersome and often poorly managed, with increasing numbers of people trying to make a go without it.
Here is my prediction: America WILL go the way of Europe, and the transition will be difficult. But it is because the old system that worked beautifully for awhile has its back against the wall.
The old baby boomers who once protested Viet Nam and started a few revolutions will be back in that game. They gonna raise a fuss and they gonna raise a holler after workin all their lives just to try to earn a dollar.
There is also the fact that it is now perceived that the Republican Revolution failed, even by some Republicans. The mood of the country is swinging left, with elections coming in 2008. Mrs. Clinton is presently the heavyweight contender in the pantheon salivating at the sight of the Oval Office. In the '90's she championed National Health Care.
It's going to happen. This country will go European and develop a similar system. There won't be any other choice. The system is about to hit the fan.
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