Letters to the Editor
-
Regarding "anonymous"
The "we are too big to encompass socialized medicine" is the biggest crock of shit known to man......someone mentioned economies of scale...I can make it even simpler and straightforward......does not a 747 fly by the same science as a model airplane?
Me personally....working on picking up French in Montreal for a couple of years before popping off to the south of France.
-
Poets, homosexuals, & secondary bacterial infections
Look, I've been to Cuba dozens of times over the last 15 years, have strong family and cultural ties there (I've translated the works of several of those Cuban poets Stephanie talks about with such certainty).
There are indeed problems in Cuba. The health care system isn't one of them. Granted, the doctor's offices aren't fancy, but children don't die of secondary bacterial infections the way they do in other 3rd world countries.
The public health education is impressive. And people from around the world often travel there specifically to have health procedures performed because it's cheaper and better.
As for the poets and homosexuals -- god, I hate it when people who've never been to Cuba make some ridiculous, facile, untrue statement like they know. Things have changed. Sure, people are imprisoned for speaking out against the government, and we all know that's not a good thing. But they are not put in jail for being homosexuals (anymore), or for merely being poets.
-
Tired of it
Does anyone else think that Stephanie is ... a snob? I'm getting awfully tired of all the nitpicking about whether Michael Moore wears his cap a bit too far forward or a bit too far back. And gosh, he is, well, you know rather
large.
If folks like Hannity and Limbaugh got a tenth of the scrutiny Stephanie et al devotes to Moore perhaps we wouldn't be in the fix we're in now.
-
Americans will have health care when...
they're willing to be taxed for it. England, France and Canada all have pretty high taxes. I live in Provence (in southeastern France) and we pay around 40 percent income tax plus property taxes. The French don't pay as much for health care from their tax euros as Americans do for supposed "health coverage" through their companies, but they still pay. And they're very vocal about getting their money's worth!
On the other hand, medical care here is totally different. There are no nurses to strip you and take your temperature and often there is no receptionist either. A regular doctor's visit costs about 20 euro. The doctor gets you from the waiting room, talks to you in his office, often the same room as the examining room, you (and the doctor) go behind a screen, he/she waits while you take off whatever article of clothing you need and he/she looks at your problem. No sheet to cover up with, just you and the doctor and your medical problem. So much less fussy and prudish than in the States. And much, much less overhead.
However, one thing that Michael Moore doesn't mention (because it's one of those "grey" areas) is that the "Securitie Sociale" system here in France only covers about 65 percent of your medical care. That goes for medicine too. Now 35 percent of 20 euro isn't a lot but you still have to pay, unless you have supplementary insurance.
Before all you Yanks start flooding to France, consider that you have to be able to live and work legally in this country in order to receive "free" medical care.
"Me personally....working on picking up French in Montreal for a couple of years before popping off to the south of France.-- vitamvas" Hope that works for you vitamvas!
-
I hope he doesn't screw around this time
He spoiled Farenheit 911 with his obsession with proving Prince Bandar was some right wing attachment to Bush. He conveniently didn't tell anyone that Hunter S. Thompson held his last book signing at the Bandar bin Sultan Conference Center at the Aspen Institute, or that Jimmy Carter stays at Bandar's house when he takes his grandkids skiing.
I hope he's not up to any tricks like that in this movie because health care is really important.
-
The clown scenes in Shakespeare
Moore's inclusion of the "cartoony bits" serve exactly the same purpose as Shakespeare's inclusion of drunk gatekeepers and cheeky gravediggers -- they lighten the otherwise claustrophobic and desperate mood of the tragedy we're watching unfold.
So, just as he's not saying the KKK caused the NRA -- he's simply highlighting a blackly amusing co-incidence -- so too he isn't saying King Dick caused the problems with the medical system. But isn't it funny how a crucial decision was made during that dark chapter... etc.
Strangely, it only seems to be critics and wingnuts who don't understand Moore's "clown scene" set-pieces. Wingnuts were never going to profess to understand anyway, and critics need to find "flaws" to justify their paychecks and appear "evenhanded".
It's all in the classics / what do they teach in these schools / curmudgeonly grumble grumble / etc.
-
Americans in France with French Health Benefits
I'd like to know where Michael Moore found his American subjects in France who are covered by the French health care system. During George H.W. Bush' reign, there was an agreement struck between the two nations - France would no longer take Social Security payments from Americans who worked there on a work visa (for a deep pocketed corporation or not, and my husband was employed by a very deep pocketed multi-national firm)) and the French, employed short term in the U.S., would no longer have to contribute to our Social Security system, as they were unlikely to ever benefit from their financial deduction.
It was awful when we lost our French benefits - problems that I had suffered from while we had it were free to us. Later, in our post-benefit period, I landed in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer and once on the way to good health, it was required that my hospital bill be paid in full prior to my release. It was tens of thousands of francs, money we had to scramble for. Our US insurance carrier did not reimburse us, either.
France does have the best system in the world - if you can avail yourself of it. I'm curious if the Americans Moore spoke with had dual French or other EU citizenship. There must be a logical system for the dichotomy of what I know and what MM reports.