Michael Moore “Sicko” lives up to Lenin’s dictum

MTV‘s excellent review ‘Sicko’: Heavily Doctored shows Michael follows Lenin’s timeless advice to socialists :


MTV links to a video Dead Meat “which shows the reality of health care under Canada’s socialized medical system: Canadians wait … and wait … and wait. … And sometimes they die while waiting for free government health care.”

I know these delays are so extreme that the Quebec Supreme Court ruled that the system, which criminalizes any private medical care or insurance, violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it actually causes people to die.

This is explained well by Sheldon Richman head of the Foundation for Economic Education in his To the Medical Socialists of All Parties “All resources are limited—otherwise they are not resources.” Elsewhere I have heard the succinct observation that resources will be rationed; the only issue is whether by prices determined a free market place, or by waiting lines or political preference or connection.

The FEE talk by Jane M. Orient, M.D, is also a good listen

7 thoughts on “Michael Moore “Sicko” lives up to Lenin’s dictum”

  1. UpstairsNeighbour

    Excuse me….?

    I’m Canadian, our healthcare system is awesome. Every single person I know is happy with it, and my wife and I both have major chronic illnesses!! We experience exactly 0% stress or worry that our lifelong conditions will *ever* destroy us financially, and we are kept happy and productive members of society. I can only think your observations are a tad half-baked… to be generous!

    You are correct in that a public system eventually runs out of resources. I’d love to see some for-private medicine like the Brits have, alongside their public system, but this actually imposes a cost on public systems. When public and private systems coexist, the private system cherry-picks – they only accept the low risk routine kinds of cases, concentrating high-risk complicated cases in the public system, except for those who can afford a huge risk premium – but it can result in pressure on the public system.

    The economics of health care make it a wicked problem:
    1) Paying out is an absolute cost/loss – no way to make it a money-maker: it’s consumption
    2) Universal care will run into a supply problem – this is inevitable
    3) A dual system will result in easier more routine procedures leaving the same public system that faces supply problems
    4) A dual system allows the wealthy to enjoy better health care than the masses (I for one am happy to let them buy this for themselves, but if a government has a charter of rights that includes bodily safety and health, that’s an issue…)

    Lots and lots of double-binds… But these are independent of ideology. It’s just a problem to fix. Let’s *all* fix what we know is broken with our national systems… all learning from each other, instead of going ‘tribal’, circling the wagons and shooting in all directions…

  2. I just watched sicko, and although I think that Michale Moore’s style and outrage is clearly undermining his main point, the latter remains valid.

    I have lived in the UK for 6 years and counting, the British system is FAR from being the promised land depicted by Moore: it is bureaucratic, cramped with long waiting lists and doctors have to fullfill objectives that mix finance and medecine, like the number of patients they see in a day, the number they are referring to a specialist, etc. I nearly died of an appendicitis in the center of London two years ago because they were not normally allowed to operate after midnight (another example: my girlfriend is about 36, and she has never met a gynaecologist in her whole life!)

    I think that the French system is clearly the best, although not as paradisiac as it is depicted by Moore, and it is most transposable in the US: the system is mixed, with a universal coverage, paid for by all employees and employers, which only refunds a percentage of healthcare and drugs, and an optional private system, which complements the refunds, based on the rate subsidised by the public system. The government is controlling the efficiency of drugs and treatment by ruling on their refunds and negociating their retail prices when they are introduced (The FDA could do the same), and their is a small public solidarity system that would pay any bill for the poor, long-term unemployed, or uninsured otherwise. I need to emphasise that contrary to what MTV says, this system costs much less in terms of GDP than the American system, and the care provided in France is MUCH better than in the US for the money (or in the UK, if you do not even consider the money).

    The WHO ranked France as the best health care system in the world in 2000…

  3. Reggie Cervantes

    People like this lie because they depend on the health insurance money to pay for their beamers!

  4. I’ve never seen a MM film but sure have seen plenty of him in trailers and interviews. I do hope our Canadian posters watched the “Dead Meat” video linked. Actually a private system does exist in Canada. As a couple of the interviews in it show, its called commuting to other countries. The idea of actually outlawing private alternatives, is, as the Quebec court found (sorry, it was a while ago and I don’t have the time to chase down a link), when people are literally dying on waiting lists, it is a violation of human rights to deny them the right to contract with another citizen for the services necessary to save themselves. I also know that indian tribes have been working to use their partial sovereignty to open for profit clinics. So life saving medical care, is, as always, available to the rich. It’s just that the bar is raised on how rich. I am curious what the chronic conditions of our UpstairsNeighbors is and how much charity at the point of a gun they are receiving from their healthier fellow citizens. Is it something truly debilitating, or just something nice to have treated because other people are billed for it. Both have chronic problems? What are the odds of that?

    Fabrice, I think the distinct rightward turn of French politics shows their almost silly socialism is failing in some major ways. The arrogance of the socialists proclaiming by law that 35 hours a week is all one needed to work to support a prosperous lifestyle is as silly as congress thinking it can raise the fuel efficiency of vehicles by fiat.

    Reggie, I have no idea who the antecedent of “People like this” is so have no idea what you are saying.

    I recommend again the audio of Jane M. Orient the link to which I have corrected. She expresses very well the ways in which the cost of American “healthcare” have been increased by government meddling for many decades. I would date it from the beginning of the FDA, which of course also brings you the War on (some) Drugs.

    A current example of the efforts by the physicians guild, the AMA, to maintain the high prices its government enforced monopoly engenders is their attack on in store clinics being created by major retailers including Wallgreens and Walmart. It’s driving them nuts that someone may offer competent competitive affordable care. Cherrypickers!

  5. Moore’s film correctly points out a few “problems”:

    1) bad luck happens to people
    2) people sometimes make stupid decisions and regret the consequences
    3) companies in the health-care field are no different than most other industries – in that there are specific and isolated instances of “breach of contract” that is already covered by existing law

    However, Moore INCORRECTLY assumes these are problems with the “for profit” model of health-care.

  6. Well said .

    And he ignores the massive market distortions that have tried their damnedest to eliminate any simple retail health access or insurance market .

    You can no longer even buy cold medicine without a couple of dollars of paperwork being attached .

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