Exactly...haha

Sometimes the sky is blue and sometimes its not.

Funny because thats a good example of his movies. VERY black and white with emphasis on the black usually.

I just watched Sicko and I would like to say it's Moore's best work... It was incredibly entertaining while moving at the same time. I cried several times, and I don't get emotional while viewing film. I would like to know how much of this free health care in Canada, Cuba, France, and Great Britain is true. It makes me want to move there. Moore zinged Hilary Clinton in the film which I find shocking. He must not be a fan. I'm not either. Screw politicians..... It's sad we'll never see free health care in our life times.

I know it's anecdotal, but I have no love for the insurance companies. Let's see, I used to take blood pressure medicine. MY insurance company stopped covering the medicine I was taking because there were generic forms. However, the generics came as 2 medicines -- so now I had to pay 2 co-pays and my plan at the time didn't give discounts for generics (this was several years ago).

4 years ago my wife broke her collar bone. It took us about a year for us to get everything straight with the hospital and insurance companies. I kept getting bills (For $10k+) from the hospital. I'd call the hospital and they'd say the insurance company denied it. I'd call the insurance company and they'd say everything was taken care of... the next month I'd get bills again. This went on for nearly a year. Absolutely ridiculas. I finally had my work benefits person call the insurance rep for our company and it was fixed.

Both my nephews have Duchenes MD. It's terminal. They are severely disabled. When they were in their early teens they needed back surgery because their spines were getting crooked. It caused them pain. The insurance company initially declined to cover it. When my sister talked to a CS at the insurance company, the rep actually told her, "Why does he need this done if he's going to die anyway?"

Every year I pay more and more and yet I don't see any improved service. My Cobra payments when I left my last job were going to cost me $700/mo. This means to have the medical coverage I had for my wife and I would have cost me $700/mo if I was paying 100% of it. Luckily my work covered 90%, so it was only $70/mo. However, when I first started working, for a small (50 employee company) 12 years ago... I paid $0 for my insurance. My second job was the same way.

It's nearly impossible to find free health insurance through an employer anymore...

To clarify a little more on the infant mortality thing - from what I remember of my population geography class, it's actually the fact that we count any kind of miscarriage or death during birth or immediately after towards our numbers while most other countries don't count infant mortality numbers unless it happens a few days after the birth and onwards (or something to that effect) - which obviously skews negatively in our direction.

Actually, he LEFT OUT how it is.

In Canada and the UK there are HORRIBLE problems with their health care systems. Got a non-life threatening problem at the end of the fiscal year? Here's a pair of crutches, shut up, and come back in three months. (And woe be to those who DO have life threatening ailments that aren't properly diagnosed because of the lack of funding...)

THAT'S the way it is when health care is rationed - and it is rationed in Canada and the UK.

A couple of years ago some extra funding opened up a few hundred dental care slots in the UK - and THOUSANDS of people tried to get them.

I knew a guy from Canada who tore his ACL in a pickup basketball game. He went for an MRI, but because it was a month before the end of the fiscal year he was told that he would have to wait until the new fiscal year to make an appointment - which meant waiting another 2 or 3 months to get an appointment. Now, in Canada while HE couldn't get an MRI, a local veterinarian could rent the MRI machine for a dog. Nice - you know your system is screwed up when pets get better care than people. Thats a government run system for you - Canada and the UK (and don't even get me started on France).

A very large percentage of the uninsured in the U.S. are young, healthy people who prefer to use that money on nights out and plasma TV's. I have no sympathy for people like that who end up with tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills because they CHOSE not to get insurance even though they really had the money (but it wasn't important to them to get it - it wasn't as much of a priority as having fun or getting more cool "stuff").

Did Moore mention that France has 15% unemployment? Did he mention that their economy is in shambles and that the country is practically bankrupt? Welcome to "free" government health care. And the health care in France isn't even that good to begin with. (Dammit - got started on France....)

The point is, Moore DOESN'T tell it like it is. He leaves out how it REALLY is - annoying facts that contradict his points are conveniently left out, again...

And, as has been stated - the biggest problem with health care costs are TRIAL LAWYERS (John Edwards, I'm looking at you, you ambulance chaser!).

The cost of settling lawsuits, paying settlements, and paying malpractice insurance has skyrocketed over the last 20 years. Moore should focus on this as the root cause of many of the health care related problems in the U.S.

Want to slow rising health care costs? Support Tort reform. Support caps. Otherwise the problem will continue to grow exponentially.

You think health insurance companies want to price themselves out of the market? If no one can afford their insurance, they're out of business. They can't make money if no one can afford to pay them.

reason for generics is your employer and politics. your employer chooses the amount of coverage on your plan. insurance companies have a lot of plans priced accordingly depending on the amount of benefits and people in the group.

the thing with generics started a few years ago when people complained about the cost of brand name drugs since generics were supposedly the same. so now it's a generic unless your doctor says so because of stories that doctors were writing prescritptions to get free vacations from Pfizer.

COBRA is based on how much your employer pays for you. The price is based on the size of the group covered and the amount of benefits. a small company will pay more per person than GE. reason care costs more is that every year there are new procedures, devices and drugs to treat conditions. a lot of studies are now saying a lot of these are useless but because this is the USA everyone wants someone to pay for it even if it has the slightest chance of success. And a lot of health problems and a lot of the cost is due to increased rates of obesity.

don't think that if we had socialized healthcare it would be free. my guess is that it would cost somewhere around $1000 - $1500 per month in new taxes per family on average for the same level of care as now. And you will have the same problems as your family did with mistakes and whatever since it's completely normal for these things to happen sometimes

its all about money... whether its rainy or snowy or sunny.... nothing is free in this world...

So you're saying that there's a plan whereby if you pay a certain amount in premiums, the insurance companies will pay for *more* than 100% of your medical bills?

Something about that sounds specious and runs completely counter to every dealing I've ever had with an insurance company.

I may not of explained that quite as well as I meant to, which is not the first time that's happened!

I'll use a math example to explain this a little better and we'll say this is for an Indemnity plan (not a PPO, not an HMO, not a POS).

Let's say a doctor's office visit costs $120 and let's say R&C (Reasonable & Customary) for that type of office visit in that area is $100. If the purchased policy states 100% of R&C will be considered under plan benefits for payment, $100 would be applied against the policy (it is then subject to deductible and coinsurance). If the policy states 90% of R&C will be considered under plan benefits, it would be $90 (again then subject to deductible and coinsurance). If the policy states 150% of R&C, then that would mean $120 would be applied against the policy because $150 would be the maximum that could be applied.

More or less confused now?

Trust me, health insurance companies are never, ever in danger of "pricing themselves out of the market." All they will do is adjust their costing, and revise their underwriting standards and benefits standards to maintain the same profit margins they currently enjoy (which are among the highest of any industry, as it is).

Well, all we keep hearing is how people can't afford health insurance, so obviously they've priced themselves out of the market for a number of people.

And I guarantee you that if there was real tort reform and caps on awards in malpractice lawsuits you'd see a levelling off of insurance premiums.

And, for me personally, I actually like my health care provider (Kaiser). I've had family members leave Kaiser only to come back after nightmarish experiences with other providers. I certainly wouldn't want to have to go through a government run health care system. Good God, what a nightmare THAT would be! (Because we know just how efficent and caring government agencies are, right?)

If you actually believe this you are completely deluded. Michael Moore has made a great film, but it won't open your eyes. In this case, you'd rather pluck them out than see the truth of other people suffering.

BTW, when you do have a catastrophic medical incident, insurance or no, you just might lose your savings and home!

There's so much bs in that post that I don't even know where to start...

There's no perfect health care system in the world. Each and everyone of them has issues. You can pick any country and pick and choose examples that are going to make it look bad. But generally speaking, the issues with the Canadian health care system are nowhere near as HORRIBLE as those of the US system. The biggest issue in Canada is waiting lists for elective surgeries and that issue is currently being addressed. However, there are private clinics if you're in a hurry...

That's a load of crap. You obviously don't know squat about the funding of the Canadian Health Care system...

Sounds like more bull to me. I assume you can backup that claim?

Really? It was 8.7 in 2006...

France is ranked 6th in GDP. And again, on what exactly do you base that apocalyptic argument?

More nonsense. France's health care system consistantly ranks as the best in the world.

In a word, you're talking out of your ass but you have a real talent for falsehoods, distorsions and hyperbole...

Since when do you have to dis/agree with a movie 100%? Why is the system either not broken or broken beyond repair? Can't we at least take away from this movie that there are some issues that can be fixed?

Hey the best bet is to get injured on Federal Land, like the Presidio in San Francisco, or the Golden Gate Park, as then ambulance rides are free. I know from experience!

Really? So is diagnosis and repair of a torn ACL considered elective in Canada? My friend from Canada went through the scenario I laid out before. Hurt his knee in a pickup basketball game at the end of the fiscal year. They gave him crutches and told him to make an appointment after the new fiscal year started (6 weeks later) for an appointment 3 months later. They wouldn't even give him an MRI to examine the extent of the injury because it was not life threatening. He literally left the country over it.

The Canadian system is government run - and has only 1/10 the population of U.S. to deal with. Like a government run health care system can efficiently handle 300 million people! Give me a break!


Come on! I've read several stories in newspapers for 15 years about this. You can't tell me you've never read about this. Young, healthy people gamble that they won't need health insurance because they never get sick. They view it as a waste of money. Why do people not buy car insurance? In many cases they choose not to because they don't believe they will get in an accident.


From Wikipedia: Chronically high unemployment has persisted since the 1970s; a number of attempts have been made since to curb the unemployment rate.

Another quote - The overall jobless rate in France hovers around 10 percent, so-called "youth unemployment" is 23 percent, and in some of the Muslim-heavy suburbs, joblessness is nearly 50 percent.

In France, companies don't grow because it's too costly to hire while it's against the law to fire. Hence, since they rarely add jobs, French businesses under-perform, under-produce, and under-employ.

--One thing to remember, the tax rates in France are MUCH higher than in the U.S. - nothing's really free....

Really? Is that why thousands of people died in that "heat wave" about 3 or 4 years ago? (Temperatures were in the scorching mid to upper 90's! How do they survive in Arizona, anyway?) The French health care system was overloaded with heat stroke victims and couldn't cope.

Great system.

I'll keep my health insurance, thank you - even if I have to pay for part of it myself (and I do).

Since this thread is supposed to be about the film, why don't you start a thread in the politics forum and I'll be happy to tackle your "arguments"... there, even if this topic has been discussed to death (heck just do a search...). All you are doing is perpetuating myths or making absurd generalizations that have been debunked coutless times, by choosing and picking examples to suit your agenda.

Actually, I know exactly why you hold those (misguided) views, and it has nothing to do with facts. You're thinking "Oh my god, anything "socialized" is evil! How can it possibly work!", and nothing anyone will ever say, no matter how many facts are presented to you, will change your opinion. Wake me up when the US health care system is no longer ranked 38th in the world...

Kind of hard to separate the film from the topic of the film.

I've got factual bases for the points I made, if you knew anyone from Canada, for example, you'd know that there are some SERIOUS problems there, and they're just administering to 1/10 of the U.S. population. Imagine the problems with administering to 300 million rather than 30!

Anyone who wants to live in a more socialized state can just move to Canada or France (or the UK). And when you realize just how big of a mistake it was (and how phony a bill of goods Michael Moore sold you), then you can come back.

Um, eXcentris lives in Canada...

Yeah, 'cause the socialized police force, fire-firefighters, postage, libraries, etc. that we have in the U.S. all suck so much, that I just wish they were all privatized. That's sarcasm, btw.

Well, shit, guess I should be paying attention to who's posting, eh? (Guess I'm just too much of a dumbass to look...)

But if Canadian health care is so great, why do some people come to the U.S. to get care? Why did my friend have such a horrible experience (one he told me was not unique). Does eXcentris truly understand health care CHOICE like we've got here? Some providers are good, some are poor, some are fantastic! Don't like one provider? Go to another. I've chosen a provider my family and I are VERY happy with - and they are supposed to be the "bad guys." Fact is, they're pretty darned good. I do not want to give them up - EVER. Especially not for a government run system!

Those are ALL small, VERY small organizations (compared to the health care system in the U.S.). If the U.S. government took over health care the size of said government (employees, etc) would TRIPLE!

Good luck running that efficiently....

I guess it boils down to a couple things with me: 1.) To have a government run system you have to TAKE AWAY private systems (they have to fall under the government umbrella and run their organizations the way the government tells them - fundamentally changing their coverage and service). I cannot stand the idea of the government taking away my right to choose my health care provider - especially since I've spent 38 years with this provider and am very happy with them! Aren't liberal democrats supposed to support choice?

and 2.) The health care system makes up fully 1/3 of the US GDP. Do we really want to have the government - inefficient, wasteful, inept, incompetent - run that big a piece of the economy? Military health care - GOVERNMENT health care - is fraught with even worse problems than private health care. (Or don't you remember the stories from just a couple months ago?) Is that really what any of you want?

I guess it's what Michael Moore wants - so he's selling half truths and a lot of people are buying them.

Lest anyone think I'm just making stuff up and am full of crap....

Well, you can still think that, but here's something else to think about:

DANIEL WEINTRAUB THE SACRAMENTO BEE
Where Moore's 'Sicko' becomes a no-no

June 19, 2007

Michael Moore almost had me going – until he got to the part about the laundry.

Moore's latest film, “Sicko,” careens like a runaway truck through the worst ills of the U.S. health care industry. It then sets those foibles against the best traits of government-run systems in Canada, Great Britain, France and, yes, Cuba.

At turns funny, shocking and just plain sad, the documentary builds a solid indictment of private health insurance. Moore slams one firm for retroactively denying coverage to a woman who failed to disclose a yeast infection on her application. Another issued a fatal order denying treatment for a toddler who had the bad luck to arrive at the wrong emergency room. A third billed a woman for an ambulance ride after an accident because her trip to the hospital had not been preapproved.

It is stuff like this that drives so many Americans crazy about their health care system. And if people conclude that they cannot depend on private insurance to cover them when they need care, it's not a big leap from there to decide that the nation does not need the services of such an industry.

That is exactly Moore's point.

“Take the health insurance companies out of the mix,” he said in Sacramento last week after a preview showing of the film that will open across the nation on June 29. He is an unabashed supporter of a single-payer health care system financed with taxes and overseen by the government.

But while his film might be effective as propaganda, it is also flawed.

It is a hodgepodge of anecdotes, hasty conclusions and glaring omissions layered one on top of another until the viewer is almost forced to submit to Moore's thesis. Among the problems:

Moore begins by insisting that his story will be about people who have insurance, not those who go without. But some of his most vivid examples – such as a man who loses two fingers in an accident and can afford to pay for only one of them to be reattached – are about people who do not have any coverage at all.

He blames all of the industry's bad behavior on the profit motive. But one of his biggest villains – Kaiser Permanente – is a nonprofit. And while he does a gut-wrenching segment on Los Angeles hospitals dumping homeless patients back on the street after they are treated, he mentions only in passing that one of the guilty parties is a public hospital owned by the government. Aren't those the same people he wants to put in charge of all of our health care?

He tells the gripping story of a man who died of cancer after his health plan refused to pay for experimental treatment. But he never asks his audience to consider that no matter what kind of system we have, it will not provide unlimited care, especially experimental care. There will always be a gatekeeper.

Under a single-payer plan, that person would be a government employee – some might even say a bureaucrat. Would that really be any better?

Moore never gets around to telling us that the underfunded Canadian and British systems have such long waiting lists that the Canadian Supreme Court struck down a ban on private health care, and the British are buying insurance to supplement their government coverage.

The climax of the movie takes us to Cuba, a place Moore lionizes without even a passing reference to Fidel Castro's crimes against his own people. Had Moore been a Cuban and tried to challenge the government the way he does here, he would have been snuffed out or locked up long ago, not given “free” health care.

And then there is France. After getting almost orgasmic over the quality of French health care, Moore goes on to extol the virtues of paid maternity leave, mandatory minimum vacations, 35-hour workweeks, nearly free day care and, finally, a government service that sends a person to your home twice a week to clean your clothes after you have a baby.

Oblivious to France's economic doldrums, its chronic high unemployment or projections showing that the country's cradle-to-grave social benefits are unsustainable, Moore turns the laundry service into his ideal of civilization at its finest.

It never occurs to him that, instead, it might be embarrassing evidence of what happens to people when they expect the government to tend to their every need. Health care can be a life or death matter. But laundry?

Moore is right that we need to fix our health insurance system, and his film at its best forces us to think about whether we all should do more to help each other deal with the cost of illness and injury that strike the population more or less at random.

But when he ends the movie on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, laundry basket in hand, prepared to demand the kind of service he saw in France, his satire turns on itself. That is exactly the kind of ridiculous extension of dependency that opponents of single-payer health care fear will be the inevitable result of the ever-expanding government Moore advocates

Well damn, I always thought our military (another socially run organization) was huge, but since you say it's not, I'll take your word for it - thanks!

And since when has anyone said that the military is AT ALL efficiently run? This is the same military of $200 hammer fame, right? The same military running a health care system that has come under increasing fire in recent months?

We were talking police, fire departments, libraries, etc - not the military. If you want to bring up the military, you're making my point for me. The bigger the organization, the less efficient and more poorly run. (Too many middle managers looking out for themselves...)

And do you have any idea just how big "Health Care" is in the United States? No one organization can properly administer something that huge. And do you have any idea how much we'd all pay in tax increases just to pay for it?

Michael Moore is in la-la land if he really thinks that something like that is feasable. Oh, sure - the system could be set up, and then it would implode. Leaving all of us with crappy (crappier, depending on your provider now) health care that actually costs more when you look at tax increases - but those are just details, I guess.

Look, all I'm saying is that it's ridiculous that about 40 or so countries are ahead of the US in health coverage and treatment. I guess it's cool if you're okay with that, but I'm not and I think that the fact that 35 countries have better infant mortality rates, for example, than the US is not "okay". And if takes socialized medicine and a reduced GDP (or whatever) to make it better, then so be it - because it really couldn't be any worse than what we have now.