Michael Moore's new documentary "Sicko" opens today

Johnny, you can't look at the socialized systems in France and think they are wonderful without looking at the heavy burden and price the French pay for them. They have had chronically high unemployment since the 70s that is the worst in Europe. I believe it recently dipped below double digits for the first time in a while. No one would want that for America. Their taxes are burdensome beyond anything Americans would comprehend. And they have a flagging economy that is weighed down by huge government budgetary deficits caused by their socialized systems and their over-regulation of business. It just isn't that wonderful in France. It's why several major strikes, widespread protests and riots have broken out the last few years. When people are out of work and their economy is perpetually stagnant while the countries around them are prospering, they riot.

It's precisely why Sarkozy was elected and they have started to go pro-market and anti-socialism. They are finally realizing their ideas haven't worked. It is particularly true of their health care system, which is built on a lie. The French were always so proud of it, but it is unsustainable. It operated at an $8 billion deficit last year and they have gradually had to cut more and more from what it offers and have actually left people uninsured with the reforms they have begrudgingly made--which don't begin to make the cuts they are going to have to make. Sarkozy has been somewhat honest about it--proposing that people have to pay part of the cost for drugs, tests, doctors visits and hospital stays. Such ideas are an insult to the French consciousness. But things had gotten so bad there that he was elected anyhow.

Their system is not something we should be looking to emulate. It is the equivalent of maxing out a credit card and pretending that you won't ever have to pay it back. They can't afford to sink their economy anymore and have so many people jobless by mortgaging their country to pay for their unaffordable promises.

 

Where did I say ANYTHING about the Bush administration having given us fiscally sound policy? They have spent way more than they have taken in. That is bad. And we are going to pay for it.

Either way, you are making a losing argument if you are arguing that the French economy and the French people have done as well as Americans have. Their GDP per capita has consistently been 30 percent below the U.S. Such high unemployment will do that. The socialized systems, the regulation of business, the mandatory 35-hour workweek, etc. has destroyed their economy. Chirac destroyed that country. Such a large percentage of their population is without work.

As for health care, whether it is France or the United States, there is NO system that can give universal coverage that takes care of everyone's needs. Health care is too expensive. We can't afford that. And the French can't afford it. What the French have done is destroyed their economy trying to offer it. We have not tried to offer it, so yeah, we are not as enlightened as the French... But then again, we haven't had 10 percent unemployment and an economy that bounces between the shitter and stagnant.