Good point. I think the Justice Dept. helped him out the most when the announcement last month that they were investigating his trip to Cuba.

__________________


my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

Absolutely and without question. Might as well have bought 50% of the tickets!

__________________
2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

An interesting twist:

'Sicko' leaves top Democrats ill at ease

So, Fox likes it, and Dems don't.

In other news, end of the world sighted - water and non-perishable food recommended.

__________________
2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

That's because those Dems are not true liberals, and most of them receive huge money from the Health Insurance companies. Moore's movie is a big attack on the insurance companies. Dems like Hillary and Obama are only proposing increasing the size of Medicaid to pay for the uninsured. The only one proposing what Moore wants (which is to do away with the insurance companies alltogether) is Kucinich.

The Republicans probably do not have a problem with the film because they feel it will divide the Democratic Party just as the article you linked explains. It's kind of like how the Republicans helped Ralph Nader to get on the ballot in many states in 2004.

__________________


my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

You just don't get humor, do you?

__________________
2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

BY DAVID GRATZER
Thursday, June 28, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

TORONTO--"I haven't seen 'Sicko,' " says Avril Allen about the new Michael Moore documentary, which advocates socialized medicine for the United States. The film, which has been widely viewed on the Internet, and which will officially open in the U.S. and Canada on Friday, has been getting rave reviews. But Ms. Allen, a lawyer, has no plans to watch it. She's just too busy preparing to file suit against Ontario's provincial government about its health-care system next month.

Her client, Lindsay McCreith, would have had to wait for four months just to get an MRI, and then months more to see a neurologist for his malignant brain tumor. Instead, frustrated and ill, the retired auto-body shop owner traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., for a lifesaving surgery. Now he's suing for the right to opt out of Canada's government-run health care, which he considers dangerous.

...

Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore's claim that ERs don't overcrowd in Canada. A Canadian government study recently found that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner, as defined by local medical and hospital associations. "The research merely confirms anecdotal reports of interminable waits," reported a national newspaper. While people in rural areas seem to fare better, Toronto patients receive care in four hours on average; one in 10 patients waits more than a dozen hours.

...

In Britain, the Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients wait more than a year for surgery. Around the time Mr. Moore was putting the finishing touches on his documentary, a hospital in Sutton Coldfield announced its new money-saving linen policy: Housekeeping will no longer change the bed sheets between patients, just turn them over. France's system failed so spectacularly in the summer heat of 2003 that 13,000 people died, largely of dehydration. Hospitals stopped answering the phones and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves.

...

Canadian doctors, once quiet on the issue of private health care, elected Brian Day as president of their national association. Dr. Day is a leading critic of Canadian medicare; he opened a private surgery hospital and then challenged the government to shut it down. "This is a country," Dr. Day said by way of explanation, "in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."

...

Admittedly, the recent market reforms are gradual and controversial. But facts are facts, the reforms are real, and they represent a major trend in health care. What does Mr. Moore's documentary say about that? Nothing.

WSJ Link

Yeah, Marxist reforms are really the way to go. If you want to die, that is...

__________________
2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

Again using Canada as the example. Canada is the worst example of socialized medicine. In fact, Canada doesn't actually have socialized medicine. They have some half-system which is somewhat like what Hillary Clinton is proposing we do here. It doesn't work.

If you are going to use Canada as your poster child for socialized medicine, then how about using Mexico for your example of what privatized health care looks like.

Canada is a bankrupt lousy system which allows the private drug companies, private medical facilities, and private medical schools to run, but simply pays the high bill for everyone. Thus, they spend too much and have to make cuts to keep the budget down, so people have to wait to receive proper care.

How about using a system like Cuba as your example....a country that actually has real socialized medicine:


Health Care In Cuba More Complicated Than on SiCKO

Experts say that is because Cuba focused on prevention and because its universal free health care allows Cubans to see a doctor quickly and treat illness before it needs costly procedures.



On key statistics measured by the World Health Organization, Cuba is in line with the United States.

The average life expectancy of a child born in Cuba is 77.2 years, compared with 77.9 years in the United States, according to the WHO.

The number of children dying before their fifth birthday is seven per 1,000 live births in Cuba and eight per 1,000 in the United States.

Yet the United States spends more than 26 times as much on health, $6,096 per person a year, compared with only $229 in Cuba, the WHO figures show.

While Cuba has 73,000 doctors, twice as many doctors per capita as the United States, in recent years it has sent as many as 15,000 to work in the slums of Venezuela, its main political ally, in exchange for vital oil supplies.



Dr. David Hickey, a transplant surgeon at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, said Cuba is a world leader in primary health care based on preventive medicine.

"It's a very sobering experience for someone coming from the affluent West to see what they can achieve," he said.

Hickey, an honorary professor of surgery at Havana University, said he had nothing to teach Cuban doctors who do heart, kidney, pancreas and liver transplants.

A decades-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba forced it to develop its own molecular biology industry, which produces innovative drugs that prevent rejection in transplants.

Cuba has developed the world's first Meningitis B vaccine which is available in Third World countries but not in Europe or the United States due to U.S. sanctions.

__________________


my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

Guess you didn't read the full linked article, eh?

Plenty of examples from other countries in the article:

Oh wait, that was in my original post. Guess you just didn't read it.

Here's some more:

What was that about Canada again?

Oh - and if Cuba's system is so good, why did they have to have a Spanish doctor save Castro's life? Surely the world's premier health care system had one doctor capable of saving the Dear Leader's life?

__________________
2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

The numbers speak for themselves....

Infant Mortality Rage (deaths per 1,000 live births)
Japan: 2.8
France: 3.41
Canada: 4.63
Sweden: 2.76
Cuba: 6.04
Singapore: 2.3
Spain: 4.31


Life Expectancy
Japan: 82.02
France: 80.59
Canada: 80.34
Sweden: 80.63
Cuba: 77.08
Singapore: 81.8
Spain: 79.78


(numbers taken from CIA World Fact Book)




Ok....so in order to make your argument for privatized health care, here is the link for the CIA World Fact Book:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...ook/index.html


Make a list of a few countries whose health care system you like, and list the statistics for those countries. I bet you can't name a single country that even approaches the numbers of the countries I listed, all of which have some form of socialized medicine.



BTW, the things you posted above have nothing to do at all with the argument Moore is making in his film. Nowhere is he suggesting nationalizing the medical facilities and hospitals, which is what your entire article seems to be about. In fact, most of the countries on my list here have private medical facilities and hospitals.

The difference is that they don't have private health insurance companies and the prices the drug companies charge for drugs is regulated by the government. They also cover 100% of their popuation. That is what Moore is proposing, and that is what this discussion is about.



Do you have a problem understanding that a profit making system for health care has a conflict of interest? They don't make any money if you stay healthy. They only make money if you get sick. Thus, the focus is on treatment, not on prevention or cure. Is that logic so hard to understand?

__________________


my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...