Someone else's review of Michael Moore's SICKO
(It's by Kurt Loder, MTV music news.)
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Hollywood — Comments (59) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Most of us are aware of whom and what is filmmaker, novelist, critic, political scientist, journalist, social scientist, non-Euclidean geometrician, and group theoretician Michael Moore. I'm sure many of us know that Mr. Moore's latest film, Sicko, is about insurance companies having cooties.
I'm not going to watch the film, but a review wouldn't hurt.
I've been looking for an objective review, and I've found one in an unlikely place. This is a tough one. Okay, some of us remember, I'm sure, when MTV played music videos. For many of us, pop culture ended when they stopped doing this some time in the '80s (I think), and they later turned over their music news to a fellow named Kurt Loder. I don't know Kurt, never met him, know little about him, etc. Whatever. He's Kurt Loder, MTV music news.
Kurt Loder of MTV has reviewed Michael Moore's Sicko, in an almost discursive manner, bit the money 'graphs, in my opinion, is reproduced beneath our fold:
Kurt Loder, MTV music news, wrote:
Unfortunately, Moore is also a con man of a very brazen sort, and never more so than in this film. His cherry-picked facts, manipulative interviews (with lingering close-ups of distraught people breaking down in tears) and blithe assertions (how does he know 18 million people will die this year because they have no health insurance?) are so stacked that you can feel his whole argument sliding sideways as the picture unspools. The American health-care system is in urgent need of reform, no question. Some 47 million people are uninsured (although many are only temporarily so, being either in-between jobs or young enough not to feel a pressing need to buy health insurance). There are a number of proposals as to what might be done to correct this situation. Moore has no use for any of them, save one.
As a proud socialist, the director appears to feel that there are few problems in life that can't be solved by government regulation (that would be the same government that's already given us the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Motor Vehicles). In the case of health care, though, Americans have never been keen on socialized medicine. In 1993, when one of Moore's heroes, Hillary Clinton (he actually blurts out the word "sexy!" in describing her in the movie), tried to create a government-controlled health care system, her failed attempt to do so helped deliver the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives into Republican control for the next dozen years.
I'll differ on a detail. Hillarycare played a part in the '94 Congressional elections, but Republican performance and Clinton ineptitude and sleaze kept it in the GOP slot for years after that.
I don't have to see Moore's little drama to agree with the rest of the statement from Kurt Loder, MTV music news. He seems to be telling us that the movie is socialist propaganda of the sloppiest sort, and that people won't come away from it with any real answers to our national questions about health care except the canard that socialism functions properly.
It doesn't. Good riddance, Michael Moore, and good job, Kurt Loder, MTV music news.
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Someone else's review of Michael Moore's SICKO 59 Comments (0 topical, 59 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
...he's under no obligation to justify it. :)
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
...and I wouldn't want to be an enabler.
It's such a fine line between stupid and clever. - David St. Hubbins
the free market and medical care therein. The movie praised socialized medicine, which by its nature stymies medical progress and kills people with inefficiency.
Would an objective review grounded in reality say: "Michael Moore is right! We must strip incentive from medicine!" No. An objective review of the film would be negative but would approach the movie as what it is.
Objectivity is not equal time for evil.
That's right, socialized medicine is terrible! Which is why privatized healthcare has gotten us where we are today. Where you have to declare bankruptcy after a visit to the family doctor, malpractice and poisoning by pharmaceuticals is one of the top 5 causes of death in the US, and our 'family doctor' is directed by their owner (big pharma) to care so much about our well being that they churn out the newest drugs like door-to-door magazine salesmen after mere minutes of impersonal computer-guided 'questionnaires.'
Damn that inefficiency and Michael Moore's lies.
Yeah right..
I'd make you write a paper on the subject, except that I'm not entirely certain that you didn't have someone type this post out for you.
Blam.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
If you are seeing big pharm perhaps manipulating the system in an unhealthy way, then propose a solution.
Try to find one that doesn't collapse the entire health care system into a steaming compost pile. Find one that does not remove the innovation incentives or profit incentives. How would you do that? FDA tweaks? Shortening or modifying the shape of drug patents. Beef up anti-trust to increase market granularity.
I'm not immune to your arguments. For example, the medicaid perscription drug deal appears to me to be an entrenching advantage to big pharm. Were you against it?
And you might try not arguing that a system that objectively delivers much lower quality health care is inherently better than our current system because it delivers that lower quality to more people equally. The vast majority of us find that opening reason enough to skip your entire analysis.
I have no problem with Pharm companies making big bucks. Heck, if you cure a disease, make our lives better, etc., you should be able to make a ton of money.
But I do have a problem with them lobbying to ban us from buying drugs overseas. They do so because they sell the drugs much cheaper overseas and have us pay for the R&D in the States.
Has anybody written comprehensively (no, that's not a swear word all by itself) about the reasons it is possible (nay, necessary) for American drug companies to sell drugs at a higher price in the United States than the lower price they sell for elsewhere?
My guesses include "Americans (generally) can afford to pay more, so they are asked to pay more," "Americans insist on a higher level of care, therefore the demand is higher, making drugs more costly," "They would be sold at the higher price overseas, too, except those markets don't support that price; or, Foreign governments price-fix the drugs, forcing the companies to provide them at a lower price, which they can do because their fixed costs are covered by their US sales yet the foreign sales are still profitable enough to cover the variable costs of production," etc.
About that last one--you mentioned it yourself--If we could re-import all those drugs from Canada at the Canadian price, would that not reduce or eliminate sales at the higher US price, also eliminating the sales that cover the fixed costs, also eliminating all that R&D that creates the drugs in the first place?
What important drug has been developed in Cuba? What life-saving treatment has been developed in Cuba? Why do we export AIDS-treatment-drugs to the third world, rather than the other way 'round?
Of course you could buy your drugs from China--isn't that a comforting thought?
We've traded our National Sovereignty for cheap roofing and yardwork.
I agree that our current model for medical care needs serious change, but I don't think a socialist approach is the right answer. There must be many better models for medical care than our own broken system. Socialism isn't one of those.
as an example of how to do medical care is a sadist and a fraud.
Anyone who asserts that the US medical system is deficient in comparison to Cuba's is a fool.
I don't need to spend my hard earned money to reconfirm that Michale Moore is to telling the truth what Baron Harkonnen is to good business practices and family values.
For many of us, pop culture ended when [MTV] stopped [playing videos] some time in the '80s (I think)
It was more like the early 90s. They were still playing lots of "hair band" videos in the late 80s. It was sometime during the Grunge Era and early 90s Hip Hop that MTV really stopped playing videos. ((Co?)Incidentally, videos starting sucking circa the Grunge Era anyway...)
(TRL under Carson Daly, when MTV wouldn't even play the entire video *during a Top Hits countdown!* was the final nail in the MTV coffin.)
Of course, for a while, VH-1 picked up the slack. Then they too, sometime in the mid- to late-90s stopped playing videos too.
Then FUSE picked up the slack... until they too recently stopped playing music videos as well.
Can you tell that I'm bitter at the (so-called) "music" cable channels?!!
(Threadjack over!)
It's a right-wing talk-radio plot, I tell you. The big shots won't let the music videos have a chance now. If they would, people would still watch (at least two of you) and the balance of the Universe would be restored. (Of course, the two of you are not the demographic MTV is looking for.) Gee, maybe that's why they don't play the videos now. Nope. I still say it's a right-wing talk-radio plot!
We've traded our National Sovereignty for cheap roofing and yardwork. Next month I get a new screened porch!
... is Michael Moore. He is all about putting forth his agendized view of ... [fill in the topic]... than actually making an objective documentary film. The guy is a prime example of the devolution of truth in our culture. Truth, unfortunately too often, is being defined by one's political cause rather than by facts. For a good read see David Gratzer's article Who's Really Sicko over at Opinion Journal.com
Jack
The World's Ruined
I've never seen one of MM's "movies" and it will always be that way. Reliable sources have told me, however, that my kids will be forced to do so via our "public" school system. And one of those sources said the teacher, having assigned the class to watch Fahreheit 911 would not allow the viewing of Fahrenhype 911, nor was a student allowed to pass out a list of the movie's factual errors to classmates. And....anyone challenging these types of practices at said "public" school have been labeled as Academic-freedom-stifling bigots.
Wow.
No way to quit having them charge us for the privelege either.
Though not a sterling one. He was at one time and may still be a chief writer for Rolling Stone. What can I say, in my pre-GOP days of the 80s I subscribed.
"Be intolerant. Because some things are just stupid"
- Ryan Dobson
I might watch this just to see what he has to say. Prior to becoming a Marine, I was an insurance agent dealing primarily in group medical insurance. I know the insurance industry inside and out when it pertains to medical insurance. A socialized system in this country would be disaster. The insurance industry is huge and would prevent a socialized system from coming into play just by lobbying alone.
It's good to see someone from MTV actually providing a review that isn't off the deep left end. I would have expected the opposite from MTV to be honest.
on your perspective of the industry and why letting the feds run it would be a disaster. I happen to agree, but I'd like to see your insider's perspective.
____
CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
I had written several prior to the new blog system being enacted. I would love to write some blogs on the subject.
Any chance the blogs she's referring to can be resurrected?
And I'd still encourage you to write a new one. Thanks...
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
Try here. Let me know if that works for you.
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
Try this
"I should be allowed to think" -- John Linnell
When the socialized systems are actually more efficient to run and the death rates from inefficiencies in the socialized system being considerably lower per capita than the death rates due to lack of access, I don't understand how you can make that claim. The most efficient health care systems are the socialized systems. It's hard to argue that the current health care system, or any shift to a more free market approach to health care would lead to increasing efficiency when the data suggests otherwise.
We don't have a free-market system... we have a 50% socialized system. That's how much of our health care expenditure is paid by the government. Also, I normally don't equate rationing and wait listing of services to be considered particularly efficient either, but that might just be me. (It is well off from any economic equilibrium, though) Keep in mind that the only way these socialized medical systems get any advancement in terms of medical technology, however, is due to our free-market system which allows pharmaceutical and medical equipment firms to make up their costs of R&D before shipping it off overseas, where they have price controls limiting the financial viability of a new procedure.
For being a "free-market" system, ours sure doesn't seem like it. For example, how many other for-profit institutions, other than hospitals, do you not have an easily accessible price list?
"The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent, law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose." - James Earl Jones
The Canadian government purchases drugs in bulk so its easier to negotiate a price and there's also efficiency gains by actually purchasing products in bulk rather than individually. The Canadian government and the drug companies are negotiating as legal monosopnies and legal monopolies respectively. If at any point the drug companies felt that they wouldn't be making income by selling their drug to Canadians, they could discontinue the drug. And the drug companies are situated in the States, where the profits will most likely be invested in the the R&D workforce exists so its hardly fair to complain that you're losing out because Canadians have cheaper drugs. But other than Canada purchasing drugs in bulk, I can't see how it 's the dominant mechanism to us saving money in health care expenditure. Canadians purchase drugs privately just like in the States.
The issue is the nature of insurance itself and the phenomena of adverse selection. Insurance fails to work when the people can opt out. Young and healthy people will decide to opt out rather than remaining in the system. The increases the risk in the pool of people who decide to remain and thus insurance premiums are going to have to go up to the people who remain in the insurance group.
Also, what socialized systems excel in is eliminating advertising for the system and the complexity in dealing with many different health policies. The administrative costs are much higher in the United States than in Canada and savings can be achieved by moving to a single payer insurance, contrary to your claim that the costs are associated with who pays for the R&D industry.
The pharmaceutical companies sell to Canada not because they have any ability to recoup losses incurred from research there, but because the price they can get exceeds marginal costs. You're kinda forgetting the whole "right of first sale" thing when discussing research and development. Everybody's clamoring for the second sale, and nobody wants the first, leaving that to us.
Adverse selection is an obvious problem, but one that's not exactly unfixable. Keep in mind, the current health insurance system grew out of FDR's New Deal-era wage freezes, and wouldn't exactly be considered something that economists would fawn over (because it's not). However, private health savings accounts and replacing traditional coverage with high-deductible catastrophic care insurance would go a long way to actually introduce a price competition aspect to the market again. Monopsony is just as bad as monopoly, and one should be able to look at the evidence for more than five seconds and point this out.
"The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent, law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose." - James Earl Jones
"the data suggests," my alarm for mind-numbed robots with an education/social sciences/liberal arts degree goes off. Probably the socialized systems can provide at best mediocre health care for 100% of the population. I like an environment in which I can actually work, make money, and be sure that I get far better than mediocre health care. The rest fall in where they may.
In Vino Veritas
come from the same sources that 'prove' Cuba under castro has excellent health care?
Liars not only lie, they use numbers to lie.
The fact that people under socialized systems of health care come here to the US and not - except for Mooreon's schills- to Cuba for advanced health care puts the lie to those statistics.
The efficiency stats are generated by ignoring huge parts of the health care experience - the most important being actually receiving the health care.
There are serious reasons to doubt that socialized medicine systems are even capable of generating or reporting valid metrics.
It's similar to the arguments against No Child Left Behind leading to teaching to the test - except more valid.
In socialized health care the entire complex has incentives to:
1) Save money by denying care - just as in the private system - but without the oversight of government - because government is the system
2) Manipulate the metrics used to measure quality of care on the uphill regularoty side
3) Manipulate the metrics used to measure quality at the provider end, because "efficiency" is tied to funding
It's a bad idea. "Efficiency" is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Michael Moore is to Hillary Clinton as Joseph Goebbles is to ______ ______ .
And we forbid comparing even a socialist like Moore to a Nazi. Hit my contact form if you can think of a way to explain around this one.
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
The Nazis were Socialists as well... the name is a shortening in German of "National Socialist". I won't make a difference just because one group killed people intentionally while the other just doesn't care for human life, although I do believe that whoever first makes the Nazi argument in a political debate is almost always the side that has lost. That's the only reason I'd try to avoid grouping apples with apples.
"The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent, law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose." - James Earl Jones
I think Clinton would disagree to a large extent with Moore's prescriptions. Moore's ideas are much more like Kucinich's.
I'm not sure why people have such a negative view of socialism. For a smaller, less export-driven country, socialism can work quite well. It's just not a very good approach for the United States.
"I should be allowed to think" -- John Linnell
Socialism is perfect - for my family. We pool resources and work together for our common good.
Next, you move to the small town, where there is actually some validity to Hillary!'s "It takes a village" - except she doesn't mean a village, of course, she means a commune.
Villages have reasonable "socialism" performance, because the group members know each other relatively well. For example, LOCALLY funded public schools.
After that level, "socialism" sucks.
What about his Fahrenheit 9/11? Was that supposed to be spoof on the "ACTUALL" 9/11? I think that Michael Moore one: should never be called Mr., two: is what the title of the film is called "Sicko". Also, I think that he is not only a "Nazi Socialist", but a "Nazi Socialist PIG". I personally didn't watch that movie, and the reason why I didn't watch that is because I think that any American, let alone anybody that can make a movie about such a horrible attack shouldn't be considered as a human. One more point, he is just like the reporter that called our troops mercenaries, they are just the same.
But you can explain to him why he should let your account be reactivated, too.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
inaccuracies. He states that Michael quotes a figure of 18 million Americans will die each year because of lack of insurance....untrue, Michael states 18,000 (see USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/healthcare/2002-05-22-insurance-deat...).
I haven't watched the film yet, but I will. I worked within the healthcare field as a physician and a medico-legal expert for nearly 20 years and from what I've read about the film, Moore seems to have got it right.
Not sure what it means but even Fox News thought it was smartly articulate non-partisan call to action and a much more mature film than previous attempts by Moore.
thought it was great comment being made.
Honestly it makes the assumption that somehow because Fox News said it, somehow every conservative in the universe is going to say "Ah, if Fox said it, it must be true, long live Michael Moore and socialized medicine."
Honestly, I can't say that the idea of socialized medicine appeals to me much. I have done the US military system-the continuity of care totally stank, and we eventually opted out of the system for our children and paid more out of pocket, because we weren't getting consistent or reliable care. Then don't get me started on my complaints about the VA-which is often held up as the model for the "good" way government run healthcare should be done. Makes me shudder-we use the system, because it is all there is, but if given a choice between my private plan and the VA style system, give me my private plan even if it costs a little more.
I don't know whether your assertion is accurate or if Loder is right, but you cannot say that the review is "loaded with inaccuracies," which would render the entire review dubious at best, by citing only one.
You join the argument for socialized medicine? You believe that will work best for the sick?
Well, you're the post author.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
One of Moore's statistics seems wrong on the face of it. So I checked.
From your quoted review (I won't be watching Moore's movie):
"18 million people will die this year because they have no health insurance"
According to the official US stats
there were 2,398,343 deaths from all causes in 2004
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Excellent catch, Brian. Would be interesting for someone to take the movie script and do a close analysis on all the claims he makes. Most who go to see it won't even bother to question a thing he says.
for someone to take a movie review and do a close analysis on all the claims he makes. Most who read it won't even bother to question a thing he says.
Here's the article. I'm not sure how much weight I'd give to a CNN fact check, but there it is.
Moore apparently says 18 thousand in the movie, not 18 million.
"I should be allowed to think" -- John Linnell
Not dealing directly with the movie since I haven't seen it, but I understand that a big theme of the movie is that even if you have insurance you're not necessarily covered. I can attest to that personally as my insurance company found a way to not pay for an MRI I had in the ER sticking me with the bill. Interesting tidbit learned. The price I was billed is rather different than the price the insurance company would have actually payed had they not found a way to weasel out of it which is different than the cost of someone without insurance would have been charged. Somehow that must be wrong...
My sister just last year went into the hospital with extreme nausea. After 2-3 days of not being able to even keep water down she went to the ER. About 14 hours in the ER she still couldn't keep anything down but the IV had done a good job of making her better. Given her frail health they decided to admit her until she could eat which she did the next day on some powerful anti-nausea drugs she stayed on for a few days after ($22 every 8 hours). Week or two later the insurance company says they aren't going to pay anything but the ER portion because it wasn't a valid reason for admittance. Hospital says it's not their problem, they just provided care. Good news on this one, after 2 months the hospital agreed they should have just tossed her out of the ER and never admitted her and thus they would stop trying to collect.
I'm willing to bet everyone personally knows of similar stories, but the fact that people with insurance are having those issues isn't going to make our current system popular.
Here's a tidbit I wish I didn't know. There are corporations who determine high medical cost/risk individuals so they can advise companies not to employ these people. In most cases it isn't the individual themselves but a spouse or child. This enables companies to keep their premiums down. Since they can afford to buy very high end computers (which is how I know of them) to do their data mining it must be a very profitable business. If an individual with a spouse needing a transplant or dialysis can't get a job and thus coverage who does that benefit? Eventually that family will just end up on medicaid once they've lost everything or the hospital will shift the costs to everyone else and we'll still end up paying for it. In fact the individual would be well advised to not get a good paying job even if he/she could find one without benefits (or even with since it would be a pre-existing condition for the next year in the transplant case) because the most likely scenario is bankruptcy after a transplant and in that case he/she is better off making under the average income with the new bankruptcy laws. Again, this makes no sense to me. It's like when welfare was paying as well as a real job. What incentive was there to find one?
I understand competition, and the benefits of a free market. But do we have a free market or one bought by lobbyists? Health insurance should be fully portable. You leave a job, you can keep paying the premium and keep the coverage. Had insurance and switched to another there should be no pre-existing clauses allowed. Remember when some HMO's claimed pregnancies as pre-existing conditions? I'm sure Sicko probably has a bunch of similarly evil plans cooked up to make profits by insurance companies.
Are you self employed? I think we should be able to buy insurance at corporate rates, or at least be allowed to purchase insurance as a group to get lower rates. Oops, state law here prevents any attempts to purchase insurance that way...
The problem isn't all about evil HMO's or insurance companies. Liability/lawsuit reform is a real issue as well. In the last decade alone something like 15 hospitals in Philly have stopped delivering babies due to costs. There are only 8 left, and one of the big remaining ones is thinking about closing down. Clearly this isn't a good thing. I don't know exactly how much liability reform would help but what happens when a necessary and essential service becomes too costly for hospitals to perform? I'm sure someone will always do it for those with non-HMO plans, but what about the vast majority of people?
Moore may be totally wrong in his movie, but the reason he's even able to make the movie is because our system has some rather large problems. I'd rather try to fix it, but with the insane lobbying power of the medical industry I have a really hard time believing that's possible... If the industry isn't willing to address some of the problems I can only think Moore's single payer plan will continue to gain popularity especially as the % of income spent on medical expenses continues to rise and people get more and more annoyed with the whole mess.
I usually read through all the comments before I make a comment of my own but I really dont like Michael Moore and it would just piss me off to read anything good about him.
"Most of us are aware of whom and what is filmmaker, novelist, critic, political scientist, journalist, social scientist, non-Euclidean geometrician, and group theoretician Michael Moore". This is being unusually kind for someone that doesn't like Moore, wouldn't it just be easier to say " Liberal Lying Punk"!
I have seen the movie, partly out of curiosity, and partly because I've always had an interest in the health care industry due to family reasons. I went into the movie with an open mind. With all the hype surrounding it, I expected to be blown away, but in fact, it came across more like a college documentary with a large budget.
First, he more or less categorizes France as paradise. From the fact they have "free" health care, nanny services, and even someone who will do your laundry (which he carries on about throughout the movie). He doesn't point out that many in the middle class in France pay nearly 50% of their income to taxes (while their deficit climbs). He fails to mention how wasteful their health care system is, how they prescribe more drugs than anyone in Europe, and how they routinely run into problems with staff shortages, supply shortages, and lack of resources. That their population has become so dependent on the government that 15,000 people died in 2003 when a heat wave came and everyone waited around for the government to fix it.
He hand picks some people who were affected by the debris at Ground Zero. While I applaud these folks for what they did, he portrays them as though they worked for the government and were owed something from them, when in fact they were volunteers. I'd love to see these people receive donations from people, to have some good Samaritans help them out. But I don't think it's right to blame the government for this.
The movie is filled with stories like this, of people down on their luck because of medical bills and lack of insurance. It's depressing, just as it is to hear about anyone who is having a tough time in life. But it's still cherry picking stories. There is no mention of medical breakthroughs we've had over the years in medicine that have saved or improved lives because of our current system. There is no mention of how the leaders of other countries fly here for health care, how the best doctors in Canada move here for higher pay, and how we pay much less in taxes than these countries.
There are some good points in the movie though. He does delve into some of the underhanded tactics of insurance companies. How they play legal games, tell doctors how to do their job, and save money at the expense of a person's health. So while I disagreed with almost everything he said in the movie, he does bring to light an issue that will most likely effect everyone at some point in life.
Overall, I expected more substance. There are problems in our health care system, I don't think anyone can deny that. Doctors need to pay outrageous money for malpractice insurance to cover ridiculous lawsuits, our insurance companies have overstepped their boundaries in some areas, and our infant mortality rate is embarrassing. But he chose to focus on a couple stories. And while they are sad, they don't give any overall perspective on our health care. They tell our system from the side of a few people, not from the overwhelming majority of Americans who are treated by the finest medicine in the world. It's propaganda at its finest, and a waste of an opportunity to cover the REAL problems in our health industry.
Using Cuba as an example of fine healthcare is ludicrous. You first have to assess the system as a standalone going concern.
Are these socialized systems paying their fair share of drug R&D costs? Those blockbuster life-saving drugs don't develop themselves. Rather, the promise of the American market-driven healthcare system plus stringent patent protection gives them incentives to invest heavily in blockbuster drugs. In socialized medicine you'll find no such incentive. In fact I would strongly suspect that Cuba, like Africa, steals from pharmaceutical companies by counterfeiting drugs. (Remember that patents are required to explain the composition of a drug.) So the United States subsidizes Cuba, Africa and the socialized world by developing drugs for the lucrative American market. Americans pay what the drug is worth while other governments negotiate the price down while others steal outright.
That's one driver for the high cost of medicine.
Consensus doesn't prove anything, in science or anywhere else, except in democracy, maybe. - Reid Bryson
There isn't much theft these days. Pharm companies have learned that it's better to sell to these countries for what you can get from them, then to sit on the drug and wait for someone to steal it. You have to remember that many generic drugs being sold in this country are actually produced by the original manufacturer and sold to the generic company at a discount.
But you are right that we do subsidize the R&D for other countries. But that is also the fault of the Pharm companies who sell to the small countries at huge discounts and lobby our government to block our ability to buy drugs overseas.
Michael nevers says such. I watche dteh movie last night and can attest to that fact. He actually states 18,000 Americans will die each year as a result of having no insurance. He quotes an Institute of Medicine study that states 18,000 Americans die each for lack of insurance. As far as other numbers quoted throughout the movie, a recent review by producers with CNN state that essentially all the proposed facts in Sicko are accurate.
Americans with money have access to many of the world's best doctors and services....but even having money doesn't guarantee the best care. Seeing your doctor is still the 4th leading cause of death in the US.
45 year-old retired physician.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Corporate medicine, or more accurately corporatized medicine is a disaster. After practicing for nearly 12 years in California I became fed-up with what has been called by thousands of physicians around the country "Mangled Care" or managed care for the uninitiated.
Mangled care was a disaster for physicians every bit as much as it was for patients. A common scenario required me to seek permission to order a CT scan or MRI from a non-medically trained clerk before I could proceed with an evaluation of a patient. Failure to get pre-approval woudl result in either the patient or the doctor being billed for the services.
The practice became so outlandish that the carrier (read insurance company) would occasionally order a "tentative approval" and you could proceed with the test. At a later date, say 30 days or 60 days later, the carrier's expert panel may decide to reverse their initial decision and demand that the physician pay for the service.
The US system is broken. Countless studies attest to the relative lack of efficiency, the unparalleled high cost, and the near total lack of preventative care (save vaccines).
Socialization in and of itself is not the answer....but in this humble physician's opinion it should be considered part of the solution. Wall Street is not the answer either....as the last 15 years have demonstrated.
45 year-old retired physician.
run system somehow that kind of rationing won't occur to save money.
It will and it does all the time.
I don't live in California.
I live in New England. I have an HMO type plan, and I can honestly say to date I have never had any problem getting medical care, specialist care when needed, therapy (I have a child with an autism spectrum disorder), or to date not a single claim has been denied.
Makes me wonder if the problem isn't in what HMO's run in California, or maybe California way over regulates the inducstry compared to where I live.
I will say that I have experienced government run healthcare with the military and the VA-both of them are less than spectacular, and I much prefer my private plan. Shoot we ended up opting out of the military system and taking our children to a civilian pediatrician, because the care they received through the military system was terrible. We paid more out of pocket, but in the long run it was worth it.
Not to thread crap - and obviously not to defend Moore's methods. But this:
"I've been looking for an objective review"
Indicates to me that you went looking for a bad review. That is to say, any good review you viewed as biased - any unfavorable reviews; objective.
Why not just go and see it for yourself? I will. I will probably dislike it intensely and come to many of the same conclusions - but at least they will be my own objective conclusions.