The first person we meet in Sicko, Michael Moore’s new film about health care in America, is George W. Bush, who tells us that “too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their—their love with women all across this country” (because trial lawyers are hounding them out of business). The second person we meet is Adam, who explains, as he matter of factly sews up a nasty gash in his knee, that “I don’t have a job and I don’t want to have any more debt than I already have.” There a lot more Adams in this country than there are OB-GYNs held back by trial attorneys from practicing their love.

Bush shows up again when he signs the Medicare prescription drug benefits legislation, otherwise known as the Big Pharma Welfare Act, and yet again as he congratulates a middle-aged woman who has to work three jobs to make ends meet and is worried about Social Security. “Uniquely American, isn’t it,” the vacation-happy president says in response to her revelation. “I mean that is fantastic that you’re doing that. Get any sleep?”

Raise your hand if you share the president’s enthusiasm.

Continue reading If national health care sucks, why do people like it?

People in countries with universal health care live longer and healthier lives than people in the United States. Their infant mortality rates are lower. No one goes bankrupt or loses their home because of unpaid medical bills. No one has to make a choice between food and medicine or between rent and health insurance payments. No one has to put off going to the doctor because it’s too expensive. Changing jobs doesn’t mean losing or changing medical coverage. Losing a job doesn’t mean losing medical coverage.

Universal health care even mitigates the costs of malpractice insurance: a big chunk of many malpractice awards goes toward future medical costs, and with universal health care, those costs are already covered.

So what’s the down side? Opponents of universal health care will tell you about waiting lists and inferior medical services. They’ll bring up the spectre of “socialised medicine,” which is meant to make you think of some faceless Soviet-style bureaucrat ordering you to see some poorly-trained doctor in some bleak clinic.

Continue reading Health care in America is un-American

Archimedes said, “Give me a big enough lever and I will move the world.” Of course a big lever requires a lot of force, and when it comes to fixing America’s insane approach to health care, the only force big enough to move a massive pile of politicians, doctors, insurers and health care industrialists off their lucrative perch is the electorate. Michael Moore’s new film about America’s dysfunctional health care system, “Sicko,” is set to become the lever that might just turn voters into the requisite force.

“Sicko” doesn’t tell us anything we shouldn’t already know. The U.S. pays more for health care and gets less for its money than any other developed nation. We spend twice as much money per capita as do countries such as Canada, France and the UK, all of which offer low-cost or free health care and prescription drugs, and we have lower life expectancies, higher infant mortality rates and a generally less healthy population to show for it. The primary beneficiaries of our system are the executives and shareholders of the health care industry and the politicians the industry buys. That quid pro quo is the sole rational element of the system.

Continue reading In which Michael Moore puts Archimedes to the test