And now for my answers:
1. My hope is that the film will reframe the debate, changing the question from “will the US get universal healthcare?” to “when will the US get off its ass and implement universal healthcare?” This is my hope, and I realize that reality will probably fall somewhere between this and “there was a movie about healthcare? I didn’t see it because I don’t like Michael Moore.”
The third option is a broader acknowledgment that the system we have is simply not working, a greater admittance of the flaws in our system, and a more open willingness to discuss our options.
2. While I hope that SiCKO will break down the healthcare levees, so to speak, I don’t think that it will have the same broad appeal as Inconvenient Truth, simply because of the voice behind it. Too many people see Michael Moore as the left’s answer to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly and will simply not listen to a word he has to say. Al Gore, despite being a a partisan figure, has broader appeal.
3. And now for the interesting question, and the point of this post.
Healthcare, for better or for worse, has become one of the defining issues of the congressional campaign. Tsongas made some early well documented gaffes that she later tried to correct, Eldridge (who I support) quickly staked out a firm position for universal healthcare and everyone else stayed somewhere in the “we like healthcare, let’s try and make it better, but not so far as commie socialized medicine” realm.
Depending on how the film changes or amplifies the healthcare debate, it could end up being a key player in the special election. Most importantly, if enough people are convinced that the current healthcare half-measures and platitudes aren’t going to fix anything, then Eldridge has a lot to gain.
Also of note, Tsongas can’t benefit here from her relationship with Fallon .
So what do people think? Will SiCKO change the debate enough to sway votes in MA-05? Or will it be little more than a blip on the electoral radar?
Eldridge supporters need to find a way to campaign around movie theaters in the district which are airing this movie. This is Jamie’s base, and one will find a hell of lot more supporters per hour here than knocking on a couple dozen random doors.
What I dislike about Michael Moore is the fact that he has the same black and white view of the world that Bush does. On the issue of terrorism Bush oversimplifies and thinks good guys vs bad guys. On the issue of healthcare Moore thinks Canada good US bad.
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Sicko is great because it points out all the major flaws in the US system that the mainstream media fails to report, HMOs denying simple life saving treatment, the uninsured forced to choose which fingers to save, etc. Yet he makes it seem like the French, Canadian, and British systems are perfect which they are not, the British and French systems are on the verge of collapse and the Canadians are experiementing with partial privitization to save th
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I know some people will find the Guantanamo and Cuban field trips and grandstanding amusing but they detract from a really informative look into the broken US system and decrease the films ability to preach to the masses instead of the converted. Unlike Inconvenient Truth which has convinced many on the fence or indifferent people Sicko will sadly not have the same effect due to its one sided approach and the laziness on Moores part to resort to cheap laughs and grandstanding, as long as he’s a looney lefty funny man nobody in the middle will take him seriously, and its the vast middle that needs convincing.
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Are you kidding me?
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Not only was the point made that Canada isn’t perfect in the movie, but he spoke about it in detail over on Larry King tonight. The fact of the matter is that Canada has a vastly superior system to our’s by the simple merit that everyone has quality care in their country. In America, not only do we have long waits for many treatments (I had to wait 3 months for a visit to the dermatologist!), almost 50 million Americans don’t have insurance at all and about another 100 million have lousy insurance.
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Maybe you don’t think they help the piece, but they’re called satire. Sometimes satire is the best way to make a point – sometimes it’s the only effective way. The fact of the matter is that if SiCKO were some NPR-esque documentary, it wouldn’t have anywhere near the same kind of audience that it will get. We don’t need a nation of health care experts, we need a nation of people who understand that we’re in this all together – and that if you want to talk about family values, making sure that everyone who’s sick get’s treated is tops among them all.
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Finally, we need to get the point across that these systems are actually cheaper than our broken system. Canada may be toying around with ways to save money, but our system costs far more per capita. In fact, our system is the most expensive in the world – per capita. Yet, we have the 37th best care. There’s a real divide there – and it’s called National Health Care. We don’t have it.
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Heck, if you want to look at a system on the verge of collapse, that system is America. My hometown is shutting down one of its elementary schools because of the HMO industry. Dare I say it, but I can think of about half a dozen elementary schools being shut down in Massachusetts alone (Swampscott, Saugus, Gloucester and 2 in Dartmouth alone). Dartmouth is going to have an elementary school with over 1,000 children in it next year – and these things are completely related to health care. It’s the rising costs of health care that are making our towns go bankrupt – often even fairly wealthy towns, like Dartmouth and Swampscott. The underlying, systemic issue here is a failing health care system. Why continue to have it when there are better options out there? When there are options that both save money and offer better treatment for all of America.
Quality healthcare? What does that mean? This is double speak and nonsense. I wouldn’t even think about going to 50% of the healthcare practitioners in Massachusetts.
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It has been my experience that healthcare practioners in USA are incredibly overwhelmed. Most spend hours on administrative BS and hire additional staff for administrative BS because of ambulance chasers like John Edwards.The tort lawyer vermin of our alleged legal system. That’s where our system is broken. Physicians spend much of their times covering their asses rather than seeing patients.
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Way too many people in my experience tie up the system for run of the mill medical issues or hypochondria. The illness of the day club, the frequent fliers. many of these people have psychological or psychiatric issues which are better suited for psychotherapy rather than GP’s or internists.
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That is where our system is broken. We need a tertiary system where we triage people. Folks who need to see and MD see an MD. Others can see the PA or RNP.
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I’ve worked in healthcare for almost 20 years. The answer to the problem is attracting bright, motivated people into medicine. There are not sufficient COMPETENT medical practioners. We need help. People are bailing out because they just can’t take it anymore. What difference will it make if you have universal healthcare and no healthcare providers. You will simply foster a “black market” healthcare system, where folks with extra$$$$ will pay out of pocket for better healthcare and you will have others standing fifty deep to see some beleagured PA.
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Michael Moore seems to think the grass is greener elsewhere. It isn’t. Perhaps Mr. Moore should make a movie re gluttony and sloth judging from his appearance. Now that’s where Americans truly excell.
I’ve worked in healthcare for almost 20 years.
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…you were a recently retired US military, after umpteen years in the service. Just how many people are commenting under the MCRD handle?
but he’s actually Walter Mitty.
he’s a retired ancillary military health care provider from the VA, which, of course, by nature of the insular nature of each within their respective areas, really erodes his self-proclaimed authority on either. Who knows? (Who cares?)
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I’m thinking blustery balding guy hanging around his computer in an undershirt and boxer shirts, Fritos crumbs nesting in the hairs of his thighs while shopping the net for yet more magnetic ribbons for his truck and railing against the scourge of progressive politics anything. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
I actually stunned by you folks. I was functioning under the delusion that you folks had your heads screwed on pretty tight. A scintillating example of false premise.
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To paint with a broad brush,You folks must be the folks I read about who are amployed thrirty to forty hours a week as opposed to i, who was employed 70 to 80 hours a week. I worked to full time jobs for years. I started nursing school (RN) eight years prior to retiring from the military.
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You folks apparently have no idea what multy tasking and multiple simultaneous employment is. I worked with a psychiatrist who worked two full time jobs and rehabbed houses in between. He slept three hours a night and did this seven days a week. Who works forty hours a week. Well to answer my own question: people who are lazy.
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After reading this blog, I’m beginning to get a grasp on the mindset. The fact that Mitt Romney (like who gives a crap about Mitt Romney, but Mitt Romney) and his dog Splash and his bowel habits are and have been the headliners speaks volumes.
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Why the silence on the immigration issue? Not one headliner/posting. .
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To reiterate, I was functioning under the delusion that there would be some good intellectual give and take here by some astute people. Other than Raj and a handfull of other it appears to be twenty year old bicycle messengers
who live in mom’s cellar. Many angry people with an axe to grind.
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It’s great to be motivated for change, but if you have no direction or life experince then all that enthusiatic and altruistic energy will be for naught.
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And to answer you speculation: I’ve had three complete dissimilar professions each lasting twenty years and some well over twenty years and all three overlapping for periods. I’m pretty old. I’ve now embarked on a fourth profession, but my health looks like it will throw me a curve. It’s the ADD you know. The didn’t have Ritalin when I was a kid, so I had to adjust and make do without pharaceutical intervention now required by the MTA.
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And yes, “pretty pony” and his ilk are a direct cause of the outrageous cost of healthcare, Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in malpractice insurance for a OB/GYN before she opens her door. Ya—-John Edwards for president—–he will fix things.
Why the silence on the immigration issue? Not one headliner/posting.
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I for one had been led to believe that this website was primarily devoted to state (MA) and regional (New England) issues.
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There are other web sites that I’ve commented on that deal with national issues, and immigration is a national issue. Go to the web sites that deal with national issues, and you will likely find more topics on immigration.
And here, of all places, fergoshsakes, to posit that tort law might actually be a factor in the cost of health care.
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That the responses to your comment were ad hominem and not against your assertions is well deserved, sir! đŸ˜‰
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You did, after all, indict the dandy, Mr. Edwards, upon whose arse so many BMG lip prints are visible, rather than take the popular, albeit intellectually lazy position that the health care crisis (donchaknow) is utterly the fault of greedy white males who run the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
… that John Edwards was, in fact, not a medical malpractice attorney. But don’t let that get in the way of a good screed, my righty friends.
This website must be entirely wrong. Who to believe, Charley, or my lying eyes.
You’re right, he did do some medmal. My bad — should have done the homework.
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Anyway, I’m of two minds on med-mal as a driver of costs: On one hand, you have study evidence that says it’s not a big part of costs at all. (NB: Joe Paduda is considerably to the right of me on health care policy.) On the other hand, I have anecdotal evidence from a doc I know who trained outside the US that docs here practice a lot more defensive medicine in the US as opposed to … Canada.
So tou waited for three months for a checkup.
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In Canada, sure there are no waits at the ER or for checkups, but if you need a life saving procedure, such as a heart bypass, then you wait, or go to Detroit and pay cash.
…Just seeing a specialist is a months long delay. We’ve done that.
In Canada you wait years for a knee or hip replacement.
I just saw Sicko tonight. Going into it, I thought I’d come out like I did at his 9/11 movie: Moore made good points, but his points are undercut with sloppy mistakes and imbalanced arguments.
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What I found: Moore put together a solid film that is designed to be a clarion call for change in our system. Fundamentally, it’s about people who have health insurance, yet cannot get the care they need. It’s about people who have been marginalized by a broken system designed by corporations to maximize profits and minimize our sense of humanity. The film is about our democracy; it’s about how we as a society let the fear of governmental bureaucracy trump the real harm that corporate bureaucracy has done.
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So now, I’m really tired of the “Michael Moore makes a lot of great points, but he’s not totally fair,” or the qualifying “No matter what you think of Moore, he makes x point well,” meme that has emerged. That’s really not the point.
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Instead, I’ve started to think of Moore as I would a blogger. He’s not a real journalist. He’s a guy with an opinion and a medium and he’s out to persuade people and spark activism around his issues. The only difference is that Moore’s medium is film instead of the blogs and his audience is way bigger than pretty much every blogger out there. And he’s really, really effective.
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So what if some of his actions are stunts? Going to Guantanamo is a great visual. And I was genuinely moved by the story of the mother who’s child died because she was sent to a hospital which wasn’t covered on her plan. Do I believe that everything is hunky-dory in Britain and France? No. The point is to create that emotional spark to start change.
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So, to answer your questions, I can only hope it will benefit the national discussion on healthcare, I can hope that it’ll effect the MA-05 race for the better. But now it’s time to work to ensure that discussion happens in a smart, reasoned, and productive way.
I thought this was a far superior movie compared to Farenheight 9/11 (although, I like that title better). I didn’t see “Bowling for Columbine” though, so I can’t say whether or not this is his best work. I will say, however, that this is a very good production on the most important issue facing America today. (And yes, I do think health care is an even greater crisis than Iraq).
It’s about the facts reported in the production.
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Words written in pretty colors don’t make them more credible. Likewise, Moore’s production quality in reporting what he claims are facts don’t make his assertions anymore true or false.
The Jungle, King Coal, John Hinds photography on child labor, Silent Spring, Unsafe at Any Speed, and from the looks of it An Inconvenient Truth will all actually influence policy. The Jungle brought us the Food and Drug Administration, John Hinds helped end child labor, Silent Spring got DDT banned, Unsafe at Any Speed started automobile safety laws, made seatbelts mandatory and helped make safety important in car construction and marketing. It looks like An Inconvenient Truth will help push action on global warming. All of these pieces of muckracking journalism were definitely opinionated, the authors had clear cut agendas and points to get across, but because they were focused and authoritative they got real change.
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I dont see Sicko doing the same thing, the first half of the film where he shows how our system is broken could have stood on its own and forced people to call their Congressmen demanding change, unfortunately the Guantanamo stunt and the glowing portrayls of other systems hurts his cause and will alienate the message of the movie from those skeptical of Moore. The average joe six pack patriotic working class American will probably not see this movie because he hates Moore for Fahrenheit 9/11 which is too bad because the parts exploring the broken system should speak to him the most, but if he does see it and gets riled up any convincing Moore does in that first half is gone in the second half when Moore goes off the deep end and joe six pack hates him again.
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Sadly this film wont have any impact.
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Even though I’m an average working class American, I don’t hate Michael Moore, and while I can’t speak for anyone else, IMHO the ‘hate’ directed at Moore has always been generated by the Big Money players that he targets in his films. Corporate America, the NRA, Bush/Cheney/GOP, and now the beneficiaries of our for profit Health Care system have plenty of $$$ to ‘invest’ in attacking Moore, so he’s frequently demonized in the MSM. In fact I’m regularly hearing him being compared to Ann Coulter, although I don’t ever recall Moore pining for the assassination of GOP presidential candidates or the execution of conservatives in general.
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It seems that a large majority of Americans now realize that Iraq is a disaster and that our health care system is imploding. These are two of the biggest political issues of the day that effect every American, and IMHO Michael Moore is right about both of them. I’m speaking as just one ‘average joe six pack patriotic working class American’, of course.
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Whether or not all of this ‘hate’ will prevent Moore’s film from having an impact I can’t say, but a funny thing about Fahrenheit 911: as of January 2005, it had grossed $120 million in the US of A, and $220 million worldwide, breaking all kinds of records for a documentary.
And you use Big Money and Corporate America as proper nous, and list the NRA on the evildoer list.
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Methinks you’re not the guy he was taking about.
… guys like mojoman are not “average joe six pack patriotic working class American[s]”?
Simply by looking at BMG, we are all liberal elitists, completely out of touch with “real” Americans.
John Hinds photography on child labor
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Probably less influential than you might think. Child labor had been heavily restricted in Great Britain earlier for a very practical reason: it produced a younger generation that was unfit for the military. In the US, it is probable that the minimum wage and the fact that children were competing against adults for work places that got child labor restricted.
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Silent Spring got DDT banned
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In point of fact, DDT has never been totally banned, and Rachel Carson did not even advocate a total ban. This has been heavily discussed on the scientific web sites. What she did advocate was minimal use, and no use for agricultural purposes. What she feared was that over-use of one particular insecticide–DDT–would render it useless for any purpose, since evolution would render the insect species immune to the insecticide. And she was exactly right.
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Unsafe at Any Speed…
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Um, maybe. Some of the safety issues were in the process before Unsafe but that’s neither here nor there. The irony is that, if General Motors had merely ignored the book, instead of going on a jihad against Nader, it would have gone away. As would have Nader (viz, the 2000 election). GM made him something of a star.
How much of an impact do you think F9/11 had on the election?
Everybody dies in the end. Except us, of course.
Is that the worry? Or is it a more practical “we can’t just lay off 50,000 people that work at insurance companies and replace them with some PHP and MySQL code, can we”? Well, can we?
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A large one. We’re in the midst of an early presidential election and the three democrats, at least, all have some sort of plan. Maybe as the issue gains resonance (and I think it will), they’ll create better plans. I’d love to vote for someone who supports Conyer’s bill or something similar, but I don’t think any of these candidates have that kind of political courage – despite the fact that, in reality, it would be very easy to convince America of that kind of necessity.
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The sea-change is already happening and the film is as much a product of that change as it is a way to help propel it. I don’t think it’s going to take a giant amount of time to get to a single-payer system, or something along the lines of Germany. The people of America clearly support the concept of health care as a right and Massachusetts’s plan is going to go up in flames, so there’s no real way to do it except by following either a single-payer model or something like Germnay’s (but why bother, when single-payer is more efficient?)
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It’s going to continue to keep health care as an important issue, which will certainly help my candidate (Jamie Eldridge).
How many folks here are signing up for medical school or nursing school? Hands anyone? I thought not.
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I did. I worked with end stage HIV patients with open lesions and covered with grotesque purple tumors of Karposi’s sarcoma. You know, I wasn’t surrounded by any wide eyed progressives. And you know what. I’m one of those gray haired, end of his life, conservatives with an open mind that you deride and sneer at. On my shift, it was me and a hard bitten LPN who was more like a drill instructor than a nurse. Where are all you people when it comes time to get down into the trenches?
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All I hear here is that, we should do that, and we should do this, and we demand, and it isn’t fair, We deserve, I’m entitled, Blah, blah, blah, talk and more talk. What in the name of god are you people going to do ? You’re going to accomplish absolutely nothing in your lives unless you get out there and do something, like physical labor and occasional sacrifice. I’ve spent my entire life in service to my nation and community. I went to nursing school when I was forty six years old and worked with human beings that no one would get within a mile of fifteen years ago.
I sit here and read this tripe re Michael Moore. Michael Moore is a parasite. A large engorged tick fattening his wallet by deriding this country and many of it’s citizens who sacrifice their energies and sometimes their lives for the common good.
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Oh yes, we can learn something from Michael Moore. We can learn something from every despicable person who has walked the surface of this planet.
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How about going out and actually doing something for your community or country rather than talking about it?
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Do you have any idea of the numbers of people applying to nursing and medical schools? Attracting “bright, motivated people into medicine,” as you said in an earlier comment, is not an issue.
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Perhaps you should go have a chat with some med school and nursing school admissions officers about the numbers of “bright, motivated people” they have to turn away every year because there are nowhere near enough spaces for them.
So, because I wasn’t equipped to go to med school, suddenly I can’t discuss health care policy? I need an MD to talk about health care policy? As an informed participant of the health care system, I can’t have opinions?
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And say what you want about Michael Moore, but every single documentary he’s made has been in the effort of trying to create a better America. He thought we were going into the wrong war for the wrong reasons and made a documentary about it. He thought we shouldn’t have school shootings, so he made a movie about it. He thought what was happening in his hometown of Flint, Michigan was absurd and sad – and made a movie about it. Finally, he thinks our health system is bankrupting – economically and otherwise – and made a great film on it. Before you’ve expressed these opinions, did you bother seeing the film? Why don’t you go see it before you make such baseless opinions?
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Finally, isn’t the most patriotic thing someone can do to our country is challenge it’s opinions? When I think Patriot, I see the people who went against the grain – not with it.
Boston Globe 6/30/07: http://www.boston.co…
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People don’t get it. There are fewer and fewer health care providers. Physicians et al are overwhelmed as we speak. If you ram some universal healthcare bill down their throats the law of unintended consequence is that the entire system will collapse.
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Our healthcare system is not perfect, but it is the best in the world. Don’t F—– it up.
Our healthcare system is not perfect, but it is the best in the world
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…your screaming will not make it true.
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In point of fact, I and my spouse have had better care in Germany than in the USofA. And at lower cost.
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(rolls eyes) Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Are you at the Olympics or something? Our health system is NOT the best in the world. It works rather well for those fortunate enough to have access to it, but for the 50 million or so who do not, it doesn’t work at all.
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Your cheerleading for the care you apparently receive is the sort of masturbatory hubris that prevents real solutions to this very real problem.
it would be named “masturbatory hubris.”
Please post your demo tracks when you get them done…
The administrative costs of health care are the killer, upwards of 30% in many private insurers. Doctors and hospitals are frustrated by having to juggle their patients and their records with these insurers, oftentimes hiring huge administrative staffs to deal with the paperwork. Either way, significant time and money is wasted on managing the paper-pushing when those resources could be better dedicated to the actual provision of health care. The new MA health care reform law will only perpetuate that travesty.
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Compare that mess to Medicare, the one-stop shop for millions of seniors and the disabled, an agency whose administrative costs are around 3 percent of annual outlays. Damn efficient in its work and damn effective in insuring coverage and payment for services provided by physicians and hospitals.
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I believe that you will find more providers when they can deal with a system that will be less burdensome administratively and more effective to their practices and their patients.
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The US market-oriented health care system is broken. Between premiums to private insurers, payroll taxes to Medicare, and income taxes for Medicaid and “free care” pools, Americans spend way too much of their hard-earned money to prop up this inefficient and ineffective mess. And all that money can’t even cover everybody!
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The time is long overdue to realize, as a nation, that a single-payer system would be the most cost-effective and most fiscally conservative method for health care coverage.
…keep track of the “procedures” or “prescribed drugs” that one or more of the many “insurers” will or will not reimburse for. If the medical records person or prescriber does not input the procedure code or prescription code in the “optimal” manner, the “insurer” will not do the reimubursement.
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The entire “insurance” procedure is idiotic and leads to subterfuge just to get reimbursement. God help the comatose, who obviously are unable to challenge a wrong coding.
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I think I pretty much debunked that 3% versus 30% myth right here.
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US spends 15% of the GDP on healthcare. Critics say yeah but look at Canada, at France.
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Can we agree that the politician who says “let’s be like France” is politically dead?
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So, instead, let’s aspire to, say, Canadian levels of expense. Canada spends 10% of GDP on healthcare.
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First, of the 15% of GDP that we spend, the GOVERNMENT via Medicare and Medicaid spends 8%. That’s 87 million people out of 300 million and it takes 8% of the GDP to care for them.
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How to lower that? Well, you’ve told me you believe that admininstration in the Medicare program is rock bottom low. So we can’t fix it that way, can we?
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Cut care to the elderly and poor? Sure, unplug grandpa. That’s popular. See any politician saying we ought to ration care to the poor and elderly?
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Well, think that problem over and get back to me.
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So of the 15%, we’ve spent 8%. To match Canada’s 10%, we have 2% of the GDP.
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How do you cover the remaining 213 million people using 2% of the GDP when now, the insured 187 million are spending 7% of GDP?
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It’s like that cartoon: “ok, now we’re paying 7% of GDP on 187 million people, we’ll form The Bureau of Single Payer, a miracle happens, and now that same group plus 40 million more people consume 2% of GDP.”
It looks to me like an unstated assumption is that physicians have to take an absolutely ginormous paycut, never mind the $150K of student loans.
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On the pharmaceutical side, an interesting poisnt made in Slate is that the profits made in the US subsidize the reduced cost of drugs sold elsewhere. If the big profits in the US dry up, either R&D stops, and the pharmaceutical industry becomes commodity chemical manufacturers after the patents expire, or prices rise rather steeply everywhere else to make up the shortfall. Once prices rise everywhere else, what does that do to the “everything is so cheap in France” argument?
…and even more rarely to the bloviations of economists, but I’ll merely point out that
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If our government required medicine here to be sold at no more than the lowest price charged abroad, the drug companies would drive the costs up in the other markets rather than reduce them here. (from your cited article)
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if the pharmaceutical companies are permitted to sell their products in the US at a higher rate than, say, western Europe, Canada and Japan, with the excuse that the companies won’t have the returns deemed necessary to foster research, then the US customers will be subsidizing research that will go to benefit customers in those other countries. Who in the USofA should care if the pharmaceutical prices are driven up in other markets? It strikes me that this “economist’s” argument is nonsense.
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As an aside, there are thriving pharmaceutical companies in France, Switzerland, Germany and even Sweden (I’m not sure about Japan).
have it your way, but stop with the myth that nationalized healh care will be cheaper and more efficient, or anything other than hugely expensive and bloated.
Their Single Payer God is a lean, mean cost, effective benevolent one. And, beyond all, mysterious.
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Don’t question how Single Payer will be better. It just will.
but stop with the myth that nationalized healh care will be cheaper and more efficient
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…that I have suggested anything of the sort, particularly in regards the topic being discussed–pharmaceuticals. What I have suggested–in my discussion regarding the German system–is that there are other systems that provide financial coverage for everyone. (I could go into more detail, but it would be boring.) And do it more economically than in the USofA. That is indisputable.
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I also told you that there are pharmaceutical companies in western Europe that are doing quite well on the prices they’re charging. You did not contradict that, so I’ll presume that you concede the point. Indeed, the patent owner for the pharmaceutical Cipro–the anti-anthrax med–is a German company, and the US feds threatened to try to break the patent after the anthrax scare a few years ago. That is indisputable, too.
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…or anything other than hugely expensive and bloated.
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Um, let me ‘splain it all to you. Other countries have engaged in national health care services (or nationally organized health care finance services–referring to Germany) without the systems being “hugely expensive and bloated.” Is there something particularly special about the USofA that suggests that the USofA will be substantially different? If so, what? Are you really that negative about the USofA?
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If you respond, note what you are responding to. If you want to make “other observations” say so.
… who keep ranting about how single payer doesn’t and wont work please take a moment to learn how it is done in other countries first please?
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According to Andrew Sullivan:
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The latest data on new molecular entities (period 2001-2005) show the predominance of the US which has now become the leading inventor of new molecules in the world (61 against 51 for Europe)
The top 20 companies worldwide shows the leadership of US companies. In 2005, nine (9) of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in the world are of American origin (against 8 for Europe).
US companies significantly increased their share in the world’s top selling medicines. On the top 30 worldwide products in 2005, 21 originate from the US against 8 from Europe.
US companies are more successful in disseminating their new medicines at international level: 70% of the sales of new medicines launched on the world markets during the period 1998-2002 were made in the US, compared to only 18 % in Europe.
Whereas the European pharmaceutical market was still the world’s largest market in 1990 (representing 37.8% of the world market), it now only represents 30% of the world market (compared to 47 % for the North American market).
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LINK: http://andrewsulliva…
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I’m not sure “thriving” is the word I would use.
…I pretty much discount anything that Andrew Sullivan writes, just because he writes it. Don’t forget, he was gung ho on the US war on Iraq. Until, of course, the course of the war went negative.
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Sullivan is far from a pharmacologist. I could go on forever about the tendency of the US-based pharma companies to develop
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(i) worthless “lifestyle” drugs (viagra, cialis),
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(ii) minor variations of previous drugs, that they can then patent (increasing the number of irrelevant drugs that may increase their “body count”), and
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(iii) over–prescription of pharmaceuticals (that was known in the 1960s, when physicians would prescribe “mothers’ little helpers.”
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But I’ll refrain.
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Sullivan is glib. That’s about it.
Instead of Sullivan, just go to the website of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.
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Hot Link Action: http://www.efpia.org…
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That’s where Sullivan got this info.
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Or, you could discount it because Sullivan quoted it.
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Whatever works.
…a link to a website for an industry advocacy group. Just what is needed–more PR.
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/sarcasm
Are you saying the fact and figures in that link are untrue, or are you saying that you will never believe them to be true unless they come from a raj-approved source?
Couple of points:
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p> Universal and single-payer are not interchangeable terms. We can have a universal system like we are now getting ramped up here in MA that covers everyone but leaves the insurance companies in the mix. There are different types of government-covered care. My son-in-law is British, a psychiatrist and works for, that is, receives a salary, from the British Public Health Servide. I have seen the British system in operation. Accompanied my daughter when she walked down the street to see her doctor during office hours which are based on a first-come, first serve basis similar to the way our healthcare operated in the old days. She did not have to call for an appointment and got seen fairly promptly. I also witnessed the home birth of her son and the pre-natal and post-natal care that she was given which does surpasses anything we have here. My son-in-law can put his patient into a hospital if he thinks it best without having to fill out papers, call insurance companies, or ask his patients about their coverage, The Canadians, on the other hand, have a different system. Doctors run their practices the way doctors do here. Private practices. It is somewhat like Medicare in that after treating the patient, the bill is sent to the provincial government, if I remember correctly, and the doctor is paid on the basis of a fee that has been negotiated by the government and the physicians association. You can take your card and go to any doctor who has room for you on his list. The hospitals receive a lump sum payment, again based on negotiations There is much misinformation given out by people here who are opposed to change. For instance, when Paul Tsongas was being treated for cancer he said that he would have died if he lived in Canada. It turned out that the procedure that prolonged his life had been developed by Canadian doctors. One last point. The conservative governments in both Canada and Great Britain have cut the funding for the health services, forcing, for instance, my son-in-law to work in a much larger catchment area, increasing his load and decreasing his care. The old myths about Canadians having to wait for life-saving treatments is mostly hogwash. Something like that happened about forty years ago ina section of a province but it got straightened out.
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If we are going to change we need to discuss on the basis of the facts,
Maniac
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Couple of points:
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p> Universal and single-payer are not interchangeable terms. We can have a universal system like we are now getting ramped up here in MA that covers everyone but leaves the insurance companies in the mix. There are different types of government-covered care. My son-in-law is British, a psychiatrist and works for, that is, receives a salary from, the British Public Health Service. I have seen the British system in operation. Accompanied my daughter when she walked down the street to see her doctor during office hours which are based on a first-come, first serve basis similar to the way our healthcare operated in the old days. She did not have to call for an appointment and got seen fairly promptly. I also witnessed the home birth of her son and the pre-natal and post-natal care that she was given which does surpasses anything we have here. My son-in-law can put his patient into a hospital if he thinks it best without having to fill out papers, call insurance companies, or ask his patients about their coverage, The Canadians, on the other hand, have a different system. Doctors run their practices the way doctors do here. Private practices. It is somewhat like Medicare in that after treating the patient, the bill is sent to the provincial government, if I remember correctly, and the doctor is paid on the basis of a fee that has been negotiated by the government and the physicians association. You can take your card and go to any doctor who has room for you on his list. The hospitals receive a lump sum payment, again based on negotiations There is much misinformation given out by people here who are opposed to change. For instance, when Paul Tsongas was being treated for cancer he said that he would have died if he lived in Canada. It turned out that the procedure that prolonged his life had been developed by Canadian doctors. One last point. The conservative governments in both Canada and Great Britain have cut the funding for the health services, forcing, for instance, my son-in-law to work in a much larger catchment area, increasing his load and decreasing his care. The old myths about Canadians having to wait for life-saving treatments is mostly hogwash. Something like that happened about forty years ago ina section of a province but it got straightened out.
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If we are going to change we need to discuss on the basis of the facts,
Maniac
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our personal observations and opinions have merit, too, when they are based on facts and are sincerely offered. I want to share what i just posted on a BMG back page reader post, since it’s applicable here, too. (it has a broader scope but does address one of the comments on this thread that referenced the “that’s a lie” MM quote.)
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below you will find some rather contrite words from the very NPR reporter who did the piece where mere mortal Michael Moore misspoke – see 3rd entry under comments section.
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Yeah, Moore told us a bit about the NPR flap at the health care town mtg in NH on 6/22/07; it occurred when Moore was irritated and generalized “that’s a lie” – he was reacting to the interviewer’s implication that the Canadian system has worse problems than the US system, but Moore said it in reply to a specific question so he misspoke.
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So, yes, even Michael Moore misspeaks at times but it certainly does NOT alter the truth of his overall message!!!
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For factual and useful data about US health care reform and ways you can get involved to make positive change, please visit SickoCure.org, GuaranteedHealthcare.org and Healthcare-Now.org
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and
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for info about MA state-level reform (NOT the fake reform that’s currently being foisted upon us with the new law, which, btw, was largely written by the insurance industry, Romney, and the Heritage Foundation)
please visit MassCare.org/legislation and DefendHealth.org
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Thank you.