I saw it on HBO this week-end. I had no idea other countries (UK, France, Canada, Cuba, etc.) gave free medical to its citizens, and it IS quality care.

I wonder what it would take to get the US there. What are the pros and cons?

Jo

Yep, and Brits still complain about the NHS !

A nation of whingers, we Brits are....

You got a very one-sided view of things with Michael Moore's movie. For what it's worth, a number of Canadian journalists, at the Cannes film festival, took issue with Moore's portrayal of health care in Canada, saying things are not as rosy as Moore says.

In fact, countries like Canada and Britain have long waiting lists for operations. It is not uncommon for folks in Canada to seek treatment in the US that they would have to wait years for in Canada. Cancer treatment? You might have to wait 6 to 12 months to start chemotherapy. And it is illegal to find a private doctor and pay for it yourself - because that would be jumping the queue.

In fact, in Canada it is faster for a dog to get a CAT scan than it is for a human, because veterinarians are not part of the system.

Also, these countries tend to have MUCH higher income tax rates than here. When I was a teenager, I lived for 3 years in Scandinavia, and knew a middle-class family that had to pay over 60% of their income in taxes. I was given free state-subsidized dental care, despite the fact that my father was a US embassy employee and we therefore paid no taxes at all - and he even called the local "kommune" (county) to inform them of this.

Bob - do you remember "Yes, Minister"? My favorite episode was the one where they had a hospital that was fully staffed with 500 administrators, but no doctors or nurses because of government cutbacks - and therefore no patients.

I figure that for this to have been funny, there must have been some ring of truth to it. Am I off base?

Hi CC

"yes minister" was very funny ! Its not that bad in real life though !

There's been a few experiments since then.

Currently the NHS runs to meet many many performance targets, but these aren't necessarily indicative of a good, efficient health service.

And there's still too much wasted cash & resources.

But we have great healthcare free at point of need which is kind of hard to decry.

In the UK I pay 40 % income tax & national insurance * tax) tax overall plus 17.5% income tax on most everything you buy and a 70% tax uplift on gasoline / diesel for transport.

Overall that's near 60% tax.

I guess I won't argue that Canada/Britain/etc don't have good healthcare. I'm sure you do. The question then becomes whether or not the high tax rate is an appropriate trade-off, or whether the system in the US, with lower taxes and private insurance, is a more efficient way of delivering the services. And at this point, I really can't get involved any further in the debate, because I'm not as well-informed about the issue as I might have been a few years ago.

I used to be very passionate about politics, and would have flogged an issue like this to death - but since I reconnected with my wife, for some reason my passion for politics is gone. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I consequently have not been following this issue as closely as I would otherwise have!

Anyway, one point I will make is that Michael Moore's film did present a very one-sided view, and he did in many places take liberties with the facts.

Bob, my favorite part of that Yes, Minister episode was when the Minister was shown an empty operating room filled with expensive equipment. When he comments its a shame its not being used, the hospital administrator replies "Oh no - it's a very good thing. Prolongs service life, cuts down on maintenence costs." <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

My one experience with this kind of government run health care was my dental appointments in Scandinavia. This is purely an anecdote, I have no idea if this ever happened to anyone else, or if it was common - but the filling I got in Copenhagen was one of the most physically painful experiences of my life, second only to the gas chamber at Marine Corps boot camp.

They gave me a shot of novocaine, then set to drilling my teeth for my filling. Unfortunately, the novocaine didn't "take" - so I felt the whole thing. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Later, on my way to school, the novocaine suddenly kicked in. So when I arrived at my classroom, I was a rubber-faced, drooling idiot. Bleach!

My sister's husband was stationed in Germany for a few years and at the time (don't know current situation) they had socialized health care there.

Well, I guess military benefits no longer include dental care for the depentents like it did when my father was in the Air Force so my sister took her son to get his teeth cleaned at a German dentist office. The dentist had no idea what my sister was bringing her son in for because I guess they don't do twice annually teeth cleaning over there? He asked her what she meant, and asked if she wanted him to brush her son's teeth for him! LOL

I live very close to Canada. Some people from my state go up to Canada to get that eye surgery so they don't have to wear glasses; I'm not sure if they go to Canada because it's cheaper there, quicker there, or the Canadian city they go to is so much bigger than this town that it's more available for hat reason? But for other types of surgeries Canadians who can afford it come down here rather than wait for years and risking they might die first.

Socialized medicine and the semi-socialized practice we have here both have negative issues. Moore isn't a good pimple on a pig's [censored] given how he mistreats the facts. In point of reference, he is likely doing what he does for the purpose of profit from those in this country who are looking for fault and don't care where they find it.

The biggest problem we have here is the level of CYA that is practiced because of the potential for lawsuits. This drives up bills and consumes large quantities of time from doctors, nurses and other professionals that would be better spent providing care.

Larry

I saw it a couple weeks ago, and at first I was ready to flee our great country- the way he portrays us is oh-so-unflattering. But, in my constant quest for the truth, I thought, why not check out the "biggest anti- michael moore website on the internet" as mentioned by him in the film. It struck an unsettling note within me b/c I felt if he gave the guy the $12k out of pure caring and unconditional love, why would he then use it in the film to make a point..? While the site is very right-winged (I am an independant), and I do not agree with some of the stuff on there, it is also very informative. It showed me how one-sided his accounts in ALL of his films are, and not at all the "documentaries" they are made out to be. A documentary by very definition is supposed to give all sides of an issue, and let the viewer make up his/her own mind. This film does not do that, and therefore is not a true documentary. It is as most things are-to be taken with a grain of salt.

My biggest complaint with our system is two-fold:

1. I agree with the set-up of private healthcare, but do not agree on the margin of profit it accumulates. When the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are at the top of the stock market, while malicious non-payment practices are being used, it is our government's responsibilty to "police" the situation. They do not do so, mostly b/c of the payouts given to our so-called respresentatives to keep their mouths shut. Not to mention the joke that our Executive and Judicial Branches have become. Which brings me to-

2. I agree with _Larry_ in that frivilous lawsuits have become the norm here and have created huge problems within the healthcare industry. In my state of OH, OB/GYNs are few and far between due to the number of lawsuits and the ridiculously high payouts awarded to the winners of these cases. We are now a country where a man can break into someone's home, get stuck in the garage without and escape route for days, and then sue the home owners for the mental distress of being trapped. Here's the killer part...HE WON!

Common sense is hard to find these days!!!

Its an unwelcome American import here in Britain, that compensation culture.

Thee are ambulance chasers on every street corner.

I had my arm in plaster a couple of years ago and I was stopped by a "where there's blame, there's a claim" agent with a clipboard. They asked and i explained I broke my wrist using a badly set up piece of gym equipment.

They got almost sexually excited ! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I told them I wouldn't be suing and this girl got ANGRY at me !

She fetched her boss and HE got angry at me.

Then it was my turn in the Queue at the ATM and I walked on. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

We were at IHOP a couple weeks ago with our 3yr old son, who I swear won't eat ANYTHING except a certain kind of mac/cheese and dinosaurs, which come in a little microwavable container. We took one with us, knowing he was hungry and would only eat what we brought, and absolutely nothing from their menu. When we asked them to heat it up, they refused. The manager came out when my H got angry and said it was due to liability reasons. They heated up a baby's bottle and the parents didn't shake it up or check it-just shoved it in the baby's mouth, and it scalded him. The parents were suing the restaurant over it. I was like "Who is suing the stupid parents?"

Unreal.

Exactly - it is, by definition, a propaganda film, not a documentary.

Personally, I've always thought Michael Moore is the American Leni Riefenstahl.

I have a different take on this. Personally, I have no problem with pharmaceutical companies making lots of money. These are people hard at work conquering diseases and developing medicines that make life better for millions of people.

My wife is developing early arthitis, and there are dozens of new drugs to treat arthritis. I suffer from severe seasonal allergies, but with allergy drugs on the market today, I don't have to suffer like I used to 10 years ago.

Who knows... there could be a cure for cancer or a cure for AIDS developed by these companies one day. But there won't be if they are driven out of business by profiteering lawyers and ambitious politicians.

If anyone deserves to be making bucketloads of money, I'd much rather it be the people producing life-saving and quality-of-life-enhancing medicines than, for example, Hollywood studios or ambulence-chasing personal-injury lawyers.

Anyway, just my opinion...