Michael Moore slices up US health system in new film

[elef]

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Michael Moore slices up US health system in new film

 

 

 

Cannes, France - Michael Moore unveiled his latest attack on America's shortcomings at Cannes on Saturday with "Sicko", a scathing documentary that exposes the dark side of the US health system and its powerful insurance lobby.

 

The film played to a packed-out crowd in the film festival's biggest, 2,000-seat theatre.

 

It was also the first of two non-fiction US films shown -- A-list star Leonardo DiCaprio was on hand to present his own pet project, the documentary "The 11th Hour", about man's impact on the environment.

 

In "Sicko", Moore flays a health system that, he shows, leaves 50 million Americans without access to medical care -- and which even cruelly pulls the rug out from under many of those who mistakenly think they are properly covered.

 

The documentary fires off side shots at US President George W. Bush, the follow-up to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Iraq war -- all subjects of predilection for Moore, who won Cannes's Palme d'Or in 2004 for "Fahrenheit 9/11".

 

This time, the filmmaker has landed in hot water for a stunt in "Sicko" in which he takes a group of ailing September 11 emergency workers to Cuba, where they receive medical treatment.

 

The US government has opened a probe into the trip, which potentially breaches its laws restricting US citizens from visiting the communist island.

 

"I don't know why the Bush administration is taking this action. It's hard to get into their heads about why they do anything... This is an administration that flaunts the law, flaunts the constitution," Moore told journalists after the screening.

 

"The point was not to go to Cuba, it was to go to American soil, to Guantanamo Bay and to take 9/11 rescue workers there to receive the same medical care given to the Al-Qaeda detainees," he said.

 

But the group doesn't enter the Guantanamo US military base, and instead gets good care from Cuban doctors in a hospital.

 

Moore also heads to other countries -- Canada, Britain and France -- to show how their national state-run health systems, often derided as "socialist" in the United States, offer a far superior level of care than the US one.

 

The problem in America is that private Health Maintenance Organisations run the system (under legislation brought in by president Richard Nixon) -- and they do so by limiting coverage and payments, and by "buying off" politicians, the documentary alleges.

 

"They are legally required to maximise profits for their shareholders," Moore noted, adding that he feared any reform that might come in under a new president could simply end up putting "tax dollars in the hands of private companies".

 

The real solution, he opined, was to "steal" what worked in other Western countries and apply that to the United States.

 

Asked whether he was prepared for the inevitable backlash from the deep-pocketed US medical insurance companies, Moore admitted "they may be a scarier force than Karl Rove or George Bush" but added: "It is my profound hope that people will listen to this film."

 

Moore said he declined to have his film shown in the line up vying for the Palme d'Or this year.

 

"I already have the Palme d'Or. What do I want? Another Palme d'Or?" asked the filmmaker, who also picked up an Oscar in 2002 for "Bowling in Columbine".

 

Stephen Schaefer, a US critic for the Boston Globe newspaper, hailed the new movie and predicted it might do even bigger US box office business than "Fahrenheit 9/11".

 

While the facts "Sicko" lays out "make me sad as an American," Schaefer said it was "a very strong and very honest documentary about a health system that's totally corrupt and that is without any care for its patients."

 

Agence France Presse

 

[cavanami]

M. Moore has the $$$ to really do something on this issue but I (we) have been hearing about this for many years.

 

When Clinton was prez, he appointed his wife to study and fix the problems...8 years of Pres. Clinton and no results on the health care...now, over ten years ago or so???

 

The rotten politicians know that they can just wait it out and do nothing while the people they "work" for suffer.

 

F'ked up system where the politicians get higher salaries, high retirement benefits and better health care then the voters!!!

[elef]

politicians get higher salaries

 

Not just politicians, also their girlfriends, a funny thing about Wolfowitz and World Bank. I read wikipedia some days ago and found out that he gave her just under 194 k dollars free of tax and they mentioned that she was sent out on some mission but that the World Bank still paid that salary.

 

In swedish media some weeks ago, they instead reported that the higher salary never was paid by World Bank. It was the transfer salary as the GF moved to State Department and that her salary was higher than Condoleezzas.... so it's the american taxpayers who pay if that's correct. :thumbdown:

[McBif]

I haven't seen the contemptible Michael Moore's film and won't (unless it's on an airplane) but...

 

I used to half-suspect that socialist countries like Cuba were bullshitting about their infant mortality and life expectancy rates but after some reflection (and noticing the lack of attacks on their claims) I realize that their comparable rates to capitalist countries is legit.

 

Now, consider that the healthcare money spent per person in Cuba is something like -what?- 1/100th of that spent in the USA, Canada, Australia etc. and you have to ask yourself: WTF IS GOING ON????

 

That's the real scandal, and not one I assume Moore has the sense to talk about.

 

So, it should be obvious that 95% of the reason most of us are alive is due to clean water and food, antibiotics, vaccinations, postpartum care etc.

 

I don't have the figures, but I suspect that something like 5% of the money poured into the health industry pit is spent on basic public health measures, and the rest on fancy stuff and -most of all- wages for the health workers.

 

In my province of Ontario something like 40% of the budget goes to health. It's outrageous.

 

I also notice that at a time when people live longer and healthier than at anytime in history, they worry and bitch about health more than at anytime in history!

 

Our ancestors would quite correctly despise us.

 

 

 

[Guest lazyphil]

i just saw a clip showing to fresh looking/sounding immigrants in the uk who had just had a baby at an NHS hospital and they chuckle about saying this couldn't happen in america, i.e jump off a plane, having payed little or no tax and get free healthcare, yippeee, the NHS is at breaking point and that fat fuck (sicko, good movie title, take a took in a mirror u over weight wallrus and use your ill gotten gains and hire a personal trainer and dietition) uses aa an example how this is better system than the american system while tax payers cant get the drugs they need and are available for cancer and other illnesses because the NHS is bankrupt. Fuck him, muppet!

[Bangkoktraveler]

You say NHS is bankrupt, but the US health industry is a defunked disaster. We buy insurance and get shit. We pay taxes and get a finger.

[bibblies]

I won't bother to attack Michael Moore too much ('Team America' already did an excellent job :thumbup: )

 

I'll just note that the main reason why Cuba has such a "good" health system is, ironically, because they're an isolated economic basket-case with people not free to make their own choices. This means:

1. The people are rationed. They eat a diet of the essentials, not of endless junk like most of us in the free West. For similar reasons, people who grew up with war-time rationing have generally better health than those who came after. They avoid the diseases that come with obesity and sloth.

2. Doctors knock on the doors of people to make pretty compulsory health-checks and treatments. Imagine that happening in the free West!

 

So, basically it's working because they tell people what's good for them and enforce it.

 

I say it's ironic because, in my opinion, the main person who should take responsibility for health is yourself. You have one body, take care of it! If you don't care how you treat it, why should anyone else?

 

So, when a slob like Michael Moore complains about health care, I find it pretty funny. Look at him! I'm taking a wild guess here but I think my money would be safe if I bet he stuffs himself with junk and takes no exercise.

 

He and western fatties like him would be the first to complain if the burgers were taken away from him as in Cuba. Yet that's the first essential step, fattie!

[Fidel]

Yeah fuck Moore! Go corporate world rulers!

 

Phil. What kind of system would you prefer to see in the UK? One where you pay your taxes, plus inflated health insurance, or get no care at all?

 

Bibblies, why exactly is Cuba an "isolated economic basket case"? Is it perhaps because the almighty US enforces an embargo?

 

From good 'ole wikipedia:

 

The United States embargo against Cuba (described in Cuba as el bloqueo, Spanish for "the blockade") is an economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed on Cuba on February 7, 1962.

 

It was codified into law in 1992 with the stated purpose of bringing democracy to the Cuban people, and in fact is entitled The Cuban Democracy Act.

 

The fact the US didn't impose sanctions on the Batista dictatorship and many other dictatorships it supports, lead some scholars to believe that the reason for the embargo was revealed in a declassified 1964 State Department document which declares Fidel Castro to be an intolerable threat because he "represents a successful defiance of the United States, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and a half," since the Monroe Doctrine declared that no challenge to U.S. dominance would be tolerated in the hemisphere.

In 1996 Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act which further restricted United States citizens from doing business in or with Cuba, and mandated restrictions on giving public or private assistance to any successor regime in Havana unless and until certain claims against the Cuban government are met.

 

In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton expanded the trade embargo even further by ending the practice of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies trading with Cuba in dollar amounts totaling more than 700 million a year.

 

As of 2007, the embargo which prohibits American businesses from trading or conducting business with Cuban interests is still in effect, making it one of the few times in history that United States citizens have been restricted from doing business abroad, and is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history.

 

The United Nations General Assembly has passed a non-binding resolution condemning the embargo every year since 1991. The most recent condemnation took place on November 8, 2006, by a vote of 183-4, with the U.S., Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands voting against.

 

So Bibblies, the great promoter of freedom and democracy FORBIDS IT'S CITIZENS FROM DOING BUSINESS WITH OR EVEN FUCKING VISITING CUBA! Go America!

[bibblies]

Thanks for 'telling' us that America has an embargo and restrictions on Cuba. Those of us below the age of, say, 10 didn't know that. (Soon after that point, most of us also realised that communism is a bad idea that doesn't work in the real world. I hope one day you reach that point too. )

 

I said 'isolated' partly because America has sanctions (though it's not as if every country blockades it - in fact, most don't, I think. So are you saying that a country needs America? That would be ironic. )

 

Also, it's isolated because Castro's not really a fan of free-market trade economics, is he? Or much else in the outside world.

 

I say it's an economic 'basket-case' because it's a communist country ruthlessly run by a dictator with no clue of economics. The clue's in the word 'communist'. That word and 'economic basket case' always go together.

[Fidel]

Oh, I give you more credit than that Bibblies. I know, I know, the embargo is intended to BENEFIT the Cuban people, to bring them democracy and prosperity. Just like when Batista was running the show, and everyone, even the little man, had his own piece of the Cuban Capitalist Dream! Oh God be with the days!

 

If only the citizens of countries in whose affairs the US intervenes didn't get it so wrong all the time! Won't they ever learn?

 

Take Palestine as an example. The West wants free and fair elections to take place. What do the muppet electorate do? Vote Hamas! Jesus, they're not supposed to vote Hamas, the fools!

 

So, the US puts in place another embargo.. to bring democracy to the Palestinians. The reasoning? If we make them hungry, starve them a little, they'll make decisions with more clarity, won't they? THEN they'll have democracy.

 

But wait, just like in Cuba, it didn't work? They don't want democracy? Tsk, tsk, what can we do to bring them democracy? Perhaps lift the embargo on certain items, like assault rifles and ammunition? Ahh.. this'll work! Now we have a US armed faction (Fatah) fighting the mistakenly elected Hamas.

 

This should be instructive to the Palestinians on what democracy really is, right?

 

I wonder, would they do the same in Cuba if they could? Maybe sponsor some terrorist attacks on innocent civilians to brighten their enthusiasm for democracy, and then set the terrorists up in a luxurious lifestyle in Miami?

 

Maybe that's why Fidel is a little wary of "the outside world".