Sicko

[MtrCtyPimp]

Wow man just reading through this thread makes me dizzy.....some of you folks are so strung along party lines that all you is fight a neverending fight.

Myself I am so far left its not even funny but I dont think the healthcare issue is something that should be fooled around with or torn across party lines.....these legislators should for once instead getting bribed by these lobbies do the right thing and get people covered for care....its the right thing to do, period

PEACE

[BettorsChat]

I thought your comment about not including war funding in the Schip bill was funny!
Yes, both D and R were irresponsible in my opinion. Not just one side. But one side did want 50 billion and came "down" to 35 to be "closer" to the Presidents 5 billion increase.
And I'll write it again. Many (myself included) assert we can't afford the war and adds to future debt to our children/grandchildren. So how can we supposedly use that money (which we can't afford) for universal health care?

Same way were funding the war just print up more money and weaken the US $

[harold_bush]

The sad thing is there was so little truth in that movie it isn't even funny. I saw John Stossel from 20/20 interview Michael Moore, and it was the funniest damn thing I've ever seen. He confronted him on all the lies and stretching of the truth, and Moore had ZERO answers. I'll see if I can find a transcript, but the movie was garbage.

See, when you are willing to lie, you can make any system look good.

[Spark]

Guys .. stop the name calling ... getting out of hand

[BettorsChat]

The sad thing is there was so little truth in that movie it isn't even funny. I saw John Stossel from 20/20 interview Michael Moore, and it was the funniest damn thing I've ever seen. He confronted him on all the lies and stretching of the truth, and Moore had ZERO answers. I'll see if I can find a transcript, but the movie was garbage.

See, when you are willing to lie, you can make any system look good.

John Stossel needs to look in the Mirror

[harold_bush]

John Stossel needs to look in the Mirror

I don't particularly care for Stoessel, but attacking the messenger is an age old ploy to divert the truth. What type of person Stoessel has NOTHING to do with the story.

If you saw the interview, he was making Moore look silly for hyping up Cuba's healthcare system. All of the statistics he used for Cuba came from Castro, hardly a reliable source.

[harold_bush]

Moore says that because Cubans get such good health care, they live longer and it is true that a U.N. report claims that they live nearly two months longer. But the United Nations didn't gather any data, said Carro.

"The United Nations simply reports whatever the government in Cuba reports, so that we have no objective way to know what the real statistics are," he said.

Although Cuba claims to have low infant mortality rates, doctors have said the data is misleading because when there might be indications of problems with the fetus, there is a widespread practice of forced abortions.

Julio Alfonso said, "We personally used to do 70 to 80 abortions a day." Yanet Sanchez, a Cuban exile, said she was simply told to submit to an abortion. "They told me I should end the pregnancy," said Sanchez. "It was my very first pregnancy. I wanted to have the child."

Other doctors have said that if a child dies a few hours after birth, they don't count it as ever having lived, which ultimately makes infant mortality in Cuba look better than that of the United States.

"It changes the number, even though the same number of children may be dying or more," said Carro.

[Celtics86]

The sad thing is there was so little truth in that movie it isn't even funny. I saw John Stossel from 20/20 interview Michael Moore, and it was the funniest damn thing I've ever seen. He confronted him on all the lies and stretching of the truth, and Moore had ZERO answers. I'll see if I can find a transcript, but the movie was garbage.

See, when you are willing to lie, you can make any system look good.

John Stossel, give me a break...... Besides Cuba, have you heard of France?

[BettorsChat]

I don't particularly care for Stoessel, but attacking the messenger is an age old ploy to divert the truth. What type of person Stoessel has NOTHING to do with the story.

If you saw the interview, he was making Moore look silly for hyping up Cuba's healthcare system. All of the statistics he used for Cuba came from Castro, hardly a reliable source.

I haven't seen the movie yet so I don't know if its good or bad. However, I would assume moore talks about other Countries besides Cuba.

[harold_bush]

I haven't seen the movie yet so I don't know if its good or bad. However, I would assume moore talks about other Countries besides Cuba.

I again think you are missing the point. If he is being incredibly misleading about Cuba, wouldn't it be logical to question the credibility of the rest of the movie?

[harold_bush]

Michael Moore ends the movie "Sicko" with a lie. It may not be an intentional lie, but it is a falsehood, nonetheless. Michael Moore ends the movie saying that every European country offers "free" health coverage to their citizens and every European country provides such coverage through a "single payer" system.

Both statements are untrue. It is a sad commentary on the pathetically, uninformed state of the health care policy debate in America that health care journalists and American political leaders do not simply know that both of the statements are untrue and that they have not responded clearly and quickly to correct the error.

So what makes these statements untrue? Reality. Most European countries directly charge their citizens for their health coverage. It is not "free" anywhere. Some nations require people to buy coverage from health insurance companies that look very much like American health insurance companies. Other countries use a payroll tax on everyone's paycheck to pay for health coverage. In those countries, each citizen pays a portion of their weekly paycheck for health insurance - - just like our Social Security payroll deduction. In Germany, each employee pays 7 percent of each paycheck for health care and each employer matches that 7 percent. People also can spend additional money to buy better coverage.

The government of the Netherlands takes 9 percent of a worker's paycheck every week to purchase health coverage - - it's hard to figure out how Michael Moore can legitimately call such a payroll deduction "free."

Also, when the government of the Netherlands deducts that 9 percent, or when Germany deducts their 14 percent -- they do not use, as Mr. Moore incorrectly claims, a "single payer system" like Canada to provide the actual health insurance for each citizen. Each of those countries has multiple health plans - or "sickness funds" -- that people choose among. Citizens of Switzerland and the Netherlands choose between competing health plans to purchase their coverage.

So "Sicko" ends with a double lie: Coverage in Europe is not "free," nor is it provided through a pure, Canadian-like single payer system. "Sicko" either deliberately misleads us or is unintentionally wrong.

Each country in Europe has found its own unique path to universal coverage. Switzerland has no government health program at all. Everyone in Switzerland is required to purchase from one of nearly 100 competing insurance companies. (The Swiss government pays for coverage for the poor.)

What about France - - a country Michael Moore described as Eden in "Sicko?" The government uses a sales tax approach and uses that money to buy a basic (not comprehensive) package of coverage for about 80 percent of the French people. The basic government benefit coverage is somewhat incomplete, however, so 92 percent of the people in France now purchase additional private insurance to fill in the 20 - 40 percent gap in various parts of their government benefits. About 20 percent of the French people skip the government program completely and purchase only private coverage. In either case, the coverage isn't free and is not handled through a Canadian single-payer model.

It's unclear from the movie whether Mr. Moore knows that he is not telling the truth about Europe's health care systems, or whether he is still low on a learning curve relative to health care financing and delivery. The learning curve seems pretty steep. He criticizes the U.S. government Medicare drug benefit in "Sicko," and he claims with some passion that the Canadians handle drug coverage much better. So how does the Canadian government actually handle drug coverage? Seven out of eight provinces do not cover non-hospital drug costs for anyone other than low income seniors. The federal government does not cover anyone.

People in those seven Canadian provinces might actually prefer the American Medicare system of partial coverage (favored by over 80 percent of enrollees), which Mr. Moore seems to sneer at in the movie. American Medicare drug coverage can have a "donut hole" in the middle. Seven of eight Canadian provinces skip the donut and give the citizens only the hole.

"Sicko" also tells the story of a Canadian on a golf vacation in Florida to illustrate the alleged superiority of the Canadian insurance and care delivery system because - - Mr. Moore claims in the movie - - the Canadian actually rushed home to Canada when he needed health care rather than getting that care in Florida. A valuable piece of information that "Sicko" conveniently does not mention at that point is that the Canadian government health coverage does not travel. Americans who are insured almost always have health coverage that covers at least emergencies whenever we travel. Canadians, however, have such long backlogs for care in so many places that the Canadian government benefit program can't afford to let people simply leave Canada to access care elsewhere. So the Canadian system that Mr. Moore so eagerly advocates decided not to let its health care benefits "travel" outside of Canada. Canadians in Florida, therefore, actually do return to Canada for care when they can... not because they don't think Americans deliver quality care, rather because their government does not cover care in America.

[Celtics86]

I'm paying OVER 9 percent of my monthly wages for insurance now, in America.....$365.... And that doesn't cover children. Canadiens buy insurance for the duration of their vacations to America, no big deal....... That was in the movie, also... You didn't mention that.

[BettorsChat]

I again think you are missing the point. If he is being incredibly misleading about Cuba, wouldn't it be logical to question the credibility of the rest of the movie?

I think you missed my point that I haven't seen the movie yet.

[MtrCtyPimp]

I like Mike Moorer but that has nothing to do with anything....I dont care if that movie was filled with lies or not...I am sure both sides of this arguement can say universal health care can be the best/worst thing out there.

What I am saying that as Americans one thing that shouldnt be made into a form of for profit is health care....everyone deserves some form of care if they need it and cant afford it

PEACE

[zittiboy]

mr bush ..we take notice of the misleading information that were told by mr ,moore but have you republicans notice of all misleading info your belouved prez bush has told us
(as of lately has cost the lives of 3+ thousand americans)