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

I'm looking forward to seeing this...Malcolm Gladwell had a pretty good article in The New Yorker last year about how fucked up our health care system was and how much money we pay for bureaucratic bullshit. And after dealing with Blue Cross I find it impossible to believe how any government-run system could be any worse or be any more of a pain in the ass for doctors. (To have doctors recommend treatment for you, but for it to be delayed while the insurance company approves it...that's mind-boggling.)

 

There is precious little capitalism in the healthcare system in this country. That is one of its fundamental problems.
Within capitalism, hospitals would have to run themselves like businesses. As it is now, they exploit unbelievable tax breaks, destroy the tax base in countless communities and then discharge care only to the benefit of the physicians who work there and the administrators who employ them.
This is not capitalism. In capitalism, hospitals that so poorly served their markets would go out of business and those that did well would flourish. That's hardly the case in this country.

 

I'm glad someone else has seen it. I don't doubt that Moore has put a spin on this flick like he does his others, but as someone who has been told that I have to pay for an ambulance ride because it wasn't pre-approved by my insurance, I share his outrage at the insurance companies.

I honestly see this as one of those rare issues where democrats and republicans should be completely united...

 

Maybe I'm naive, and I thought Fahrenheit 9/11 was an unfair movie, but this flick doesn't have that kind of ring to it...

 

Largely fraudulent? Says who?

Start your list.

And even if he is--which I would dispute --he sure as hell isn't more fraudulent than Fredo and his Gang of Thugs.

 

Don't the poor people in the Mississippi Delta get free healthcare anyway?

They would be no better off in a comparably rural area in Western Europe, no. I don't think so.

 

I'm talking about quality. There is generally no way health care in poor areas, especially rural poor areas, are as good as hospitals in areas which have better resources.

Actually, I have a sister and sister-in-law who are nurses, and another sister who is studying to be a nurse. If you listen to them talk, you would be very wary going in any hospital.

 

I actually had the opportunity to talk about health care with a Salvation Army leader. He's British. He's been in the United States for the past 16 years, and he's heading back to England. He said poverty in the United States is far more acute than in England. He said the socialized medicine in England keeps a lot of people out of the welfare lines. He said prescription costs and illness are two factors that drive people toward poverty.

I hope Michael Moore addresses these areas in his film. I'm glad he's doing something to address issues in this country, but I felt that he misfired several times on his last film. There was more ammunition there to pin the Bushies to the wall, and he danced around it with innuendo about Bush family ties to big oil.

 

I don't think Fredo has a Gang of Thugs. I think they're a collection of incompetents.

 

OK, I'll say it.
Hospitals are not factories.
And I love the notion that, if we just let The Market work, the good will drive out the bad an we'll all be driving water-powered unicorns to work, whereas history tells us that leaving The Market unfettered means the growth of heedless, mediocre monopolies.

 

Moore makes the comparison to policemen and firemen. What if your house was on fire and the firemen showed up and said, "Well, it will be $50K to save your children and another $75K to put the fire out..."

I would have no problem making doctors like firemen or policemen. If we could set up something where doctors get their college and med school paid for by the government in exchange for 10 years of being a doctor. Set it up like the military. I'm not saying it would be easy to do, but it's something people should be working on...

 

Seems to me that Junkie is in automatic defense mode. Moore made the movie thus it must be bad. There is no real debate or discussion. Just simple "Moore is a fraud" crap.

Three_bags, while taking what is essentially the best healthcare that America provides based on his choice to serve in the military, refuses to recognize that healthcare is complete and utter shit for a vast amount of Americans.

The things I have seen and dealt with is disgusting. Our current system is about as screwed up right now as it gets. What the country does need is serious reform.