Letters to the Editor
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Proof Moore is right
Go see the film and pay careful attention to the faces of the people who have free health care when they are told how our system works. Its worth the price of admission. Their reactions are priceless because mixed with reactions of laughter or sadness is the look of embarassment, for us. For us.
Again Salon get a new film reviewer. Stephanie follows the pack. I always notice the same sound bites from other reviews or articles. She was obviousely afraid to applaud Moore so it wouldn't look like she was one of those volvo driving latte drinking northeastern liberals that she tried to temper her review with balance. When something is true there is no need for balance. Is this what I'm paying a subscription fee for. Well not for long
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More health care = better health?
Why is it that when doctors go on strike (Canada and Israel, for example) that the death rate declines precipitously? The Docs did not withhold acute and emergency car, only non-critical care. The second largest cause of death in the US is unneeded or inappropriate medical care. Taking prescription drugs or getting operated on is dangerous, especially when natural solutions are readily available. Our health care crisis is because of the stupidity of the average American. We see spending money (especially other peoples)on health care as a positive good. We see it in most of our acquaintances. They are almost gleeful when a Doc prescribes an expensive treatment for them.
All any of us need is a catastrophic insurance plan to prevent financial disaster in case of an acute illness. One of the major reasons there is so much wailing about uninsured children is because children in general are healthy and their insurance premiums would subsidize the middle-aged and elderly sickies, most of whose medical problems are self-inflicted.
I read recently of a major study that showed that Vitamin D is almost a magic pill that prevents cancer. Few Docs will even mention that to their patients, and most patients will not do the simple research where they would find that. So they will continue to push sunblock so that we can all get lots of internal cancers that will enrich the medical system.
A socialized system of medical care will still be controlled by special interests, who are threatened by anything that won't make money for them. I shudder to think of my daughter being punished for child abuse because her children have a tan. But that is what we will get in a single payer system.
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Correct, Bloomsbury!
Bloomsbury wrote:
" I still can't help smiling when I remember how he skewered Wolfowitz in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' simply by showing him licking a haircomb. You knew immediately that this man was not quite clean."
Exactly! Moore has the uncanny knack to exactly target and hit the correct image associated with whoever. The Wolfie case was classic. You knew from looking at, from how it made your skin crawl, that this slimy creature was a filthy, ego-driven weasel. His further antics, including being forced out of the World Bank, discloses how dead-on accurate Moore's sights were.
Yet people scream "Unfair!" or some such mulch over it! WHY?
Same thing with the images of Bush in Fahrenheit 9-11 making faces before his prime time announcement of the Iraq invasion. Also those seven minutes spent with 'My Pet Goat' in the classroom. Devastating! A loser and clown revealed in no uncertain terms. A superficial phony and imposter who never should have been "elected" president, and wouldn't make dog catcher in most advanced nations. Not without daddy's money.
Images don't lie: they tell a subtext, emotionally-resonant story that destroys all the ambiguation-attempting word and spin and PR. THIS is why Moore's work is so important. It peels off the layers of PR and spin and lays bare the truth in one or several devastating and accurate images.
Keep up the good work, Michael, and don't let hacks like Zacherek or anyone else pull you down. You are a national treasure, especially in parlous times like these.
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Who spends the most?
Actuarially speaking the average person consumes about 90% of their total lifetime healthcare in the last 12 months of life. The next largest group is senior citizens, generally who consume about 10x per capita more than children. The third group is women of childbearing age, most because of all the costs connected to childbearing.
Perhaps we need to revisit that first group and begin to implement more efficient and cost effective hospice care in lieu of expensive medical protocols which simply don't provide any benefit. Then we should begin to revisit the second group and perhaps put more checks into the system so that senior citizens perhaps avoid unnecessary health care which is, essentially elective in nature. Why is there even subsidized healthcare for 75 year olds to have reconstructive shoulder surgery to let them play tennis. It's fine for them to pay 100% of that themselves but there's no reason why lifestyle elections like that have to be underwritten. And so on.
With a directed effort to reduce pointless end of life care and senior elective lifestyle care we could probably eliminate half the total health care expense in the US.
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Pardon?
What a funny post! And being Canadian, I generally don't comment on many things (our healthy bodies have made us complacent, I think). But the ignorance in this post made me sit up. Our doctors don't strike; the number of special interest groups involved in our health care system is virtually zero, and a single payer system makes sense for all the reasons a previous post said - the numbers speak for themselves. Our taxes aren't that much higher than yours, and our 'socialized' system is still one of the best in the world. There are problems, yes. But they are being addressed. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks that the bloated and inefficient U.S. 'system' has got this beat.
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Canadian health care
Countries that practice single-payer socialized medicine successfully usually have smaller more homogeneous populations. France and Germany, which have a somewhat socialized system, also allow private insurance. Canada, with it's small population, can run a single payer system effectively. The US has a large and corrupt population. Screwing the system is endemic to us. Although Medicare has very low administrative costs, it is subject to extensive fraud. Private insurance has high administrative costs, but little fraud.
Hasn't any of the socialist readers of Salon noticed what Bush and his corporate allies have done to the government? He is not paticularly exceptional. In our large and diverse country chicanery is the norm, and always will be. After all, Part D of Medicare is socialized medicine US style. It is fraud on a massive scale.