The best movie of the year... I still can't believe it...

Has a socialized health system gotten us a cure for AIDS?

 

three bags, I'll answer your question if you'll answer mine.

I'd be equally happy to have surgery in Havana or in Kansas City (I've been in hospitals in both cities, by the way). If I had to pay whatever bill followed, I'd take Havana every time.

Now, your turn: Do you see anything at all wrong with making a profit off sick people?

That's the real question here -- the philosophy of it.

And just to give you some ballpark about the profits we're talking about... After my gallbladder operation, after I returned home to Canada, my Canadian insurer "negotiated" with the U.S. hospital. My $48,000 bill was cut to $20,000 -- still insane for a thirty-minute operation, but I'm guessing the hospital wasn't taking a loss there.

That's quite a markup.

And that's perverse, if you ask me.

 

I think that it would go a lot further than the system we have now. AIDS patients tend to not have money, so companies can't make as much money off them, therefore they don't have as much incentive to try to find a vaccine or treatments.

The free market works for a lot of things, but when it comes to life's basic needs, it does a terribly shitty job a lot of times.

 

That's a bait-and-switch, Junkie.

If any country in the world could have "perfect" healthcare, it's the U.S.: You have the money and the technology and workforce to make it possible.

Why you've chosen otherwise, I can't begin to fathom.

 

I had my gall bladder out 5 years ago. I had to wait for my surgery since I was performing at the time and had no understudy. I was in the hospital for a week, got stellar care and left the hospital without a dime leaving my pocket. Honestly, if the same thing had happened to me while working in the U.S., I don't know what I would have done.

 

I imagine Moore -- I didn't see him on the most recent list of the world's billionaires, by the way -- believes his documentaries are "doing something."

That's like saying every reporter is wasting his life, Junkie, because all we do is watch from the sidelines.

And, you know, try to inform.

 

Sorry, Junkie. You choose it every time you vote.

 

The current health care system in this country is a drag on our economy in so many ways.

1) I want to start my own business. In free-market America, that should be a snap, right? Just go for it. Sorry. I have a wife, a kid, and I need the health insurance my fulltime job provides. I am not free to move because I need the bennies.

2) Companies must pay for bennies rather than using those resources to innovate. Example: Newspapers.

3) Insurance company fights new employee over procedure, claiming a "pre-existing condition." Employee must pay for procedure. Goes bankrupt paying medical bills. Loses house.

4) I've seen it estimated that 45% of the money spent on medical care in this country goes to administration costs (paperwork related to insurance, insurance exec pay, etc). For those worried about socialism, take a look at thre overhead costs of the Social Security Administration: Less than 5%.

 

Junkie, Bowling for Columbine got KMart to stop selling ammunition, for starters.

It also increased traffic to strip clubs in Windsor.

 

Look, I realize someone says "free market" and your knees jerk but, when and if there is a cure for AIDS, it's going to be the result of work done by the US Centers For Disease Control, and government-funded research in France and Sweden. For god's sake, read the history of the disease.
The discovery of the virus in the first place was a triumph of big-government.
The rest of this is all the smoke that gets blown every time a) Michael Moore makes a movie, and b) people talk about reforming our broken health-care system. We have the resources to do it well, and we do it abominably. The US medical profession sold its soul years ago to the insurance companies, who are the greediest bastards on the planet, and we're still paying for that sin. The Clinton plan -- which, by the way, was nothing more than HMO's for everybody -- got sunk because of dishonest journalism (in The New Republic, especially), dishonest advertising (Harry and Louise), and bought-and-paid-for legislators on both sides of the aisle.
And, as an aside, in 1996, in order to get re-elected, Clinton signed a welfare "reform" bill that was even harsher than most of the people advocating reform wanted. That wasn't enough, junk?

 

Where'd three bags go? He's left Junkie all alone.

I fear I'm being [unmentionabled].

Good thing hurt feelings are covered by OHIP up here.

 

You can't solve a problem with a movie.
You can show people the problem and let them insist that it be solved.
What are we talking about here? Upton Sinclair didn't clean a single slaughterhouse himself, but The Jungle got us the Pure Food and Drug Act. William Lloyd Garrison didn't personally free a single slave, but his publishing helped bring about freedom for all of them.