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

TBF hits the nail on the head. What the country needs isn't socialized medicine but REAL government oversight to control prices, cut down on insurance fraud, protect doctors, hold drug companies accountable for their products, keep insurance companies honest and cap hospital profits at reasonable levels. The problem is that, as some have mentioned, drug companies, insurance companies and others in the medical field have a lot of pull in Washington these days. Thus, the real problem is a much larger issue, which is the influx of interest groups into the affairs of private citizens.

I would like to see some hard-and-fast rules adopted and then a medical judicial board appointed to try cases where companies or individuals step out of bounds. I'd also like to see stronger constraints on doctors who are accused of malpractice and tougher standards for those who accuse doctors of malpractice. It might be nice to have these cases brought before a special judicial board rather than the current situation, where Joe Blow and his fellow jurors rule that some guy who lost a foot deserves $31 million.

 

Here is a law review article advocating for exactly that.

http://www.law.wfu.edu/prebuilt/dworkin.pdf

 

It's time to skip over Washington and handle this problem on a state-level. Movements to move to a socialized system are gaining traction all over the country. If they make the state-wide ballots, I think these issues may be hard for the insurance companies to defeat.

 

Actually, and here's where we part company, I think, it isn't his job to show us how to fix it. It's OUR job to find out how to fix it and then demand that it be fixed. In fact, one of the things I admired most about Bowling For Columbine, was that it DIDN'T propose easy solutions to the problem of gun violence. It showed, pretty clearly, that gun laws aren't the entire answer, and that the number of guns didn't necessarily lead to increased violence. It also backed away from easy criticism of violent video games, etc.
Making people think is prima facie good work, I believe.

 

Your assessment of my comparison is spot on as well.

 

I still just feel like you're putting a lot on one guy. There are plenty of people with more money than Moore who haven't done anything to change the system. Why are they free of blame? Because they shut up about it? You're blaming Moore for coming up short, but hopefully you reserve far more blame for the people in power who have actually made the decisions and have created this system.

 

That wasn't me arguing. That was me ending the argument. When you start insulting, I move along. I don't do that.

 

That's a cop out, Junkie. Your employer has plenty of resources. Does that mean that all newspapers should not only shed light on the issues but also solve them?

 

Junkie
The role of a documentary is not to "solve" a problem but to make people aware of the issues.

Am in the middle of watching a great four part CBC doc called "China: The Sleeping Giant'. The second one was about the incredible growth in the manufacturing centre and what it entails: the largest migration in the history of man from the countryside to the large cities ; the brutal working conditions of the workers; the non-existent workplace safety regulatiions; the discarding of injured workers like so much flotsam and jetson.

All so North Americans can buy cheaper baby strollers at Wal-Mart.

It is not the responsibility of the filmmakers to fix whatever problems they point out.

Another example: CBC did a doc a few months ago about an older gentleman who believed the Ontario Lottery Corporation denied what he considered his rightful lottery winnings. What this doc ultimately revealed --there were several follow-up episodes--was wholesale corruption in both the OLG & amongst some of their retailers.

The guy got his money, the head of the Corporation got fired and the government instituted new safeguards that prevented retailers from screwing with the system.

Unfortunately, the guy passed away but THIS series of docs showed exactly what a documentary can do.

It is NOT the responsibility of Moore to fix the health care system.

Oh, and just generally (not you Junkie) can we stop with the "socialized medicine" stuff? Canada doesn't have socialized medicine. We have government-funded healthcare. And if someone doesn't know the difference, they probably shouldn't post on this thread.

 

Well, we have people who don't know the definition of communist, so that's not surprising either, JR.

 

i grew up receiving socialized medicine in the us and got world-class care

and three bags, apparently based on some of your postings here, you have too

 

As our former PM Trudeau once replied when accused of being a communist, "Well, actually, I'm a canoeist" (Which he was)