I’ll grant you this before I even start - I don’t like Michael Moore, he is super annoying an constantly interrupts people. Honestly. One of the most annoying men ever. As a documenter I think he does a horrible job, but at being an entertainer he does a good one. A good documentary is Jesus Camp - exploring with no bias. A bad documentary is Sicko - exploring with such a bias that you don’t show the right facts and you give off the wrong impressions and ideas.
As a documentary maker myself I know what it takes to make a good documentary. Moore has an incredibly opportunity. He had a real issue, the money to investigate it and people to back it up. But what he did instead was created a 2 hour exaggerated lie. He easily could have looked into the corporations and exposed more scandals. He could have left out a lot about the other countries and kept looking at America and showing REAL solutions to the problems. Just like his previous “documentaries” he failed at being reliable, and let his radical opinions get in the way of making something that could have actually been appropriate blasts at the issues he dealt with.
Michael Moore’s newest film Sicko doesn’t dissapoint when it comes to twisting the facts. Moore bows down before socialized medicine all over the world attempting to show American citizens how much they’re being screwed over. Don’t get me wrong, I know the American health-care system is undeniably horrible. But what Moore does effectively is not expose all the underlying problems, but dramatizes the horror stories of suffering people, exaggerating their stories until they can not be exaggerated anymore.
One thing that Moore has stressed repeatedly not only in his movie but also in interviews that I’ve seen him in on The Daily Show and Colbert is that those countries cited as having socialized heath care systems have a longer life expectancies. That didn’t seem quite right to me, and sure enough experts have agreed repeatedly in media talks about Moore’s movie that the life expectancies are the fault of violent crime, poverty, smoking, drugs and unhealthy weight. It’s completely illogical if you look at it from state to state. Some states have longer life expectancies than other but they’re all under the same health care system.
The over emphasis of problems in the American health care system were fine, but then came the part of the movie in which he came to Canada. Well, actually he came to Ontario. Ontario happens to have a better health care system than pretty much any other province. Ontario gives “OHIP” (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) to every person in the province, where as in British Columbia you have to be covered by something (work or school or an insurance company). In Newfoundland there are very few doctors, same goes for most Atlantic Provinces and the Territories.
The wait times in Canada are ridiculous. Moore sites people saying they waited 20 - 40 minutes. That’s how long you wait if you have an appointment. Just under 800 000 Canadians sit on waiting lists in chronic pain waiting to get coverage. (That stat is from a CBC television documentary, I can’t seem to find it online…Sorry.) My best friend’s mother needed back surgery and was told she was going to have to wait 8 months to get it. My dad waited months and months on a waiting list to get a liver transplant. My aunt waited 14 weeks before getting a simple ankle surgery. When I needed to get an abortion last year I was told it “couldn’t happen” because the waiting list was so long that it would have put me over the legal time at which a woman can still get an abortion in Canada.
When Canadian’s need treatment fast, they go to America just as former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did when he need heart surgery. My friend’s mom went and paid for the back surgery in America. I went and paid for the abortion in Seattle. My aunt went to America for the ankle surgery.
As for Britain Moore failed to talked to quite a few people including the 850 000 Brits waiting for admissions to National Health Service hospitals. Or the 50 000 who had operations canceled. Or the 40% of cancer patients who have never seen an oncology specialist.
Another over looked fact of all this is the taxes that are behind these health care systems. Sweden has an excellent health care system, very comparable to France, but it are these countries that end up having low economic growth. The Swedish health care system is funded by over 14% payroll tax. Getting a socialized health care system like this takes more than just saying “Okay private companies… butt out.” It involves revamping the entire spending system, government system and taxing system of the Country. Canadians don’t really mind taxes, we have them on everything, and because of that we get a lot of social programs. Ontario has it’s own tax, and with that we get great pension plans, and health care. But what America has on their hands is a much bigger mess. A socialized health care system takes a lot of money, and until the American government gets their heads out of their asses and stops spending money on completely irrelevant things *coughwarcough* then they’re not going to have appropriate health care, social services or poverty fighting aids ever.
Cross Posted at appletree
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All I saw here was a tirade fueled by some unknown hatred for a director…
So why isn’t Moore’s message a good one? He is actually trying to do something and change the system. Why knock him for it? The failures of the Canadian system and the Britain system aren’t because of the socialized health care system. There is no conspiracy. It’s because administrators did a poor job of designing the system.
No system is perfect and most European countries were the first to implement something. But around 40 countries have a socialized health care system. So to think we couldn’t implement it correctly is ludicrous. We have plenty of experiences to learn from.
First off, it will only cost between 1-5 billion to implement a system in America. But I can play devil’s advocate for a second, let’s assume it costs 10 billion. We currently are spending somewhere around 20 billion dollars on Cold War spending (wait didn’t that end a while ago).
So if we wanted to we could fully fund a system just from wasted money. But if you, like me, think that would never fly, here’s this:
According to google, 130,728,360 Americans filed individual income tax returns in 2003. So you only need to tax people another 38/person to have a fully functioning national health care system. And that is using numbers from 2003. I am sure more people than that are filing this year. But anyways, wouldn’t that $38 be worth it? Heck I spend around $200 a month on health insurance as do many Americans.
Secondly, France has low economic growth because of their poorly implemented social systems. Did you know that companies in France can’t fire an employee because of their labor laws? This is just stupid. Companies don’t want to set up shop in France cause they know once they hire employees they can never get rid of them. So companies go elsewhere and who can blame em?
All I saw here was a tirade fueled by some unknown hatred for a director…
So why isn’t Moore’s message a good one? He is actually trying to do something and change the system. Why knock him for it? The failures of the Canadian system and the Britain system aren’t because of the socialized health care system. There is no conspiracy. It’s because administrators did a poor job of designing the system.
No system is perfect and most European countries were the first to implement something. But around 40 countries have a socialized health care system. So to think we couldn’t implement it correctly is ludicrous. We have plenty of experiences to learn from.
First off, it will only cost between 1-5 billion to implement a system in America. But I can play devil’s advocate for a second, let’s assume it costs 10 billion. We currently are spending somewhere around 20 billion dollars on Cold War spending (wait didn’t that end a while ago).
So if we wanted to we could fully fund a system just from wasted money. But if you, like me, think that would never fly, here’s this:
According to google, 130,728,360 Americans filed individual income tax returns in 2003. So you only need to tax people another 38/person to have a fully functioning national health care system. And that is using numbers from 2003. I am sure more people than that are filing this year. But anyways, wouldn’t that $38 be worth it? Heck I spend around $200 a month on health insurance as do many Americans.
Secondly, France has low economic growth because of their poorly implemented social systems. Did you know that companies in France can’t fire an employee because of France labor laws? This is just stupid. Companies don’t want to set up shop in France cause they know once they hire employees they can never get rid of them. So companies go elsewhere and who can blame em?
Sounds great to me. The private insurance companies are the reason our health care system is screwed. They are out for profit and make money by denying claims. In fact they even hired employees solely for the purpose of denying at least 10% of claims a year and were paid bonuses for doing so.
One such ex-employee testified before the government on the issue, because she started getting sick with herself when she had to pick and choose which person would be denied and which one would get covered. Even though it was obvious to her (without having any medical degrees or specific knowledge) both needed medical attention.
So because it might be hard and difficult we shouldn’t attempt it? I am sure if you asked some of these people they would say doing anything would be well worth it.
I’m confused. So a social system would be good but because Moore has a liberal slant his message and documentary are worthless?
I guess I just fail to see how criticizing someone that is trying to do something to make things better is useful. To me it equates to calling Gore a hypocrite because of what his son did or because his daughter’s wedding had fish, even though that could have come from the caterer or from the groom.
I call bullshit. Did you even watch this movie? Or do you just hate Michael Moore?
You claim that he is “twisting the facts”, yet you fail to provide a solid example of him doing so. I’m more than open to hearing your attempts (CNN tried — and failed).
From the movie: “France is drowning in taxes” — he goes on to explain taxes more. Seriously — did you even see the movie?!
“That didn’t seem quite right to me” — must make it wrong. Quantum entanglement didn’t seem quite right to Einstein… didn’t make him right though. Look up the stats for yourself.
As for wait times I’ve never seen or heard of anyone waiting more than an hour for emergency treatment — the key word here is emergency. It’s understandable to have a long wait for elective surgery.
Dad sat on a waiting list simply because there weren’t enough livers to go around, I can only imagine how long the waiting list is for organs (sign those cards and keep them in your wallet kids!).
If you really really feel the need to pay for the surgery anyways, there’s no need to go across the border, there are plenty of private health services in Canada.
After reading your post, I can’t shake the feeling that you didn’t really have a look at any facts (or even just the movie!) and just want to take the time to bash Michael Moore. Boo-urns KT.
Yes andrew, I watched the movie. and i did show proof of him twisting facts about all the health cares he showed in canada, france…etc. And he uses the same tactic as Becky from Jesus Camp does on the kids to get us to feel sorry for the cases he shows. He invokes emotion.
Yes, I seriously watched the movie. And yes, it seriously takes a lot of taxes to run a health care system.
“THat didn’t seem quite right to me” was an example of how I was trying to work things out as I watched it. And sure enough as I read through articles online I found out that it was bunk.
I did look at facts, and the movie. And yes, I wanted to Bash Michael Moore because as a documentary-ist he does a shitty. shitty. job.
Webs, you and Andrew are both seeing this in the wrong light. Moore’s UNDERLYING message is a good one. Just like his underlying message in Columbine and the other one were good messages. I don’t agree with his presentation. He shows an extremely biased position which makes him uncreditable. The easiest way for an american health care apologist to dismiss his entire movie is to say that he twisted one or two things - which he most definitely did - or that he picked the worst cases and used those to the very ends of his advantages.
No, because it’s difficult the American government isn’t going to go out of its way at this point in time to make any changes. And you chose to take that particular bit out of context because I already clarified that the US needs to take their “head out of their ass” and focus on health care instead of other stupid endeavors.
The difference between Gore and Moore is that Gore didn’t need to use cheap antics to get people to understand and listen. And Gore can keep a firm head on his shoulders when he’s questioned or debated, unlike Moore.
I’m still not satisfied. Show me the numbers where Michael Moore is wrong. Not just a few figures that poke holes in the idea of socialized medicine (which we can agree, isn’t perfect).
Sicko Says: X
But KT Says: Y
Don’t forget sources! CNN tried to show that Moore was wrong (they retracted their statements a week later), but as much as you and CNN hate Moore — he has the facts straight on this one.
Something tells me we will certainly have to agree to disagree here. Yes Moore has a strong liberal bias but it only undermines his message if his message is not support by facts. Unfortunately Moore has a lot of facts to back up his message.
Are there some holes? Probably, even Gore is going to make a mistake or two. And Gore already has, but it doesn’t make his message less important.
Will Michael make some mistakes? Absolutely. It’s unreasonable to assume he won’t or shouldn’t miss anything. He has to squeeze all the shit that surrounds this health care crisis into a 2 hour movie. That’s not an easy thing to do.
For we know he might have covered the problems with the Canadian system, or any of the other systems and then cut it in editing due to time constraints, who knows.
I just thing it’s a waste of time to say yes there is a problem, but screw you Michael Moore for trying to do something about it. Again, it reminds me of what Gore is currently fighting with Global Warming.
If Gore got some of his untruths publically displayed, he’s apologize.
Now, don’t go apeshit on me, I’m not standing behind ALL the allegations on these sites - but a lot of them hold some ground…
Site One
Site Two
Site Three
They’re simply things to think about, and read. Honestly, from all the back and forth I’m reading, it’s easy to find sources for and against Moore.
But webs you’re right… its sort of an agree to disagree thing. Yes, it’s an issue that obviously needs some attention - I just think it could have been given that attention in a more dignified way.
And andrew - the whole point is that you can poke holes in the movie… thus giving it a less creditable standing - I don’t disagree with the point that Moore is making. I disagree with the way he is making it.
Oh, and one other thing… Rocky and Bullwinkle (that he shows in the stream of Canadian celebrities) are from Minnesota.
You know, all these anti-Sicko/Moore articles have the same thing in common. All claim the US health care system is bad, but make no claims or do anything to make it better. At the same time they say a Socialized system would be worse. How?!?!?!
I have yet to see a single article explain (RATIONALLY) how the US would be worse off in a socialized health system. Currently the US spends the most on Health Care. And any expert will tell you our system is at least in the twenties in terms of quality?
Does that not bother anyone else? How could a socialized system possibly be any worse than that. Go read the Economist (a great newspaper with a somewhat conservative slant), even they say a socialized system would work in America and would be better than what we have now.
If any other industry had the same return on investment that we have with health care, not only would it likely get an overhaul, but would more likely close up shop due to it’s failings. Imagine if the electrical company had the same return on investment. Electricity would cost so much only the rich could afford it, assuming the electrical company didn’t go out of business.
Let’s just say I’m a little weary of anti-Moore articles right now, especially when they are referring to his new flick Sicko.
I think you’re all wet with your Healthcare ideas,plus your put-down of your Michael Moore. You should be thanking Michael Moore. As a Canadian - I am.
yeah, uh… not so much.
What, do Sweden have a low economic growth??? What are you talking about?
“Sweden has an excellent health care system, very comparable to France, but it are these countries that end up having low economic growth”
Here’s the GDP figures for Sweden,OECD and the USA.
Year SWE OECD USA
2000 4,4 4,0 3,7
2001 1,2 1,1 0,8
2002 2,0 1,6 1,6
2003 1,8 1,9 2,5
2004 3,6 3,2 3,9
2005 2,9 2,6 3,2
2006 4,7 3,2 3,3