Posted on 10/28/2007 12:14:03 PM PDT by Stoat
The fourth estate has always had a bad name, but it seems to be getting worse. Journalism should be an honest and useful trade, and often still is. But now that journalism has more power than ever before, it seems to have become ever more disreputable. In recent years it has been brought lower and lower by kiss-and-tell betrayals, by “reality” TV, by shockumentaries and by liars, fantasists, hucksters and geeks of every kind, crowing and denouncing and emoting in a hideous new version of Bunyan’s Vanity Fair.
Outstanding among these is Michael Moore, the American documentary maker. He specialises in searing indictments, such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, and has, without a doubt, a genius for it. Although his films are crude, manipulative and one-sided, he is idolised by millions of Americans and Europeans, widely seen as some sort of redneck Mr Valiant-for-truth.
Nothing could be further from the truth. His latest documentary, Sicko, was released in cinemas last week. Millions of people will see it and all too many of them will be misled.
Sicko, like all Moore’s films, is about an important and emotive subject – healthcare. He contrasts the harsh and exclusive system in the US with the European ideal of universal socialised medicine, equal and free for all, and tries to demonstrate that one is wrong and the other is right. So far, so good; there are cases to be made.
Unfortunately Sicko is a dishonest film. That is not only my opinion. It is the opinion of Professor Lord Robert Winston, the consultant and advocate of the NHS. When asked on BBC Radio 4 whether he recognised the NHS as portrayed in this film, Winston replied: “No, I didn’t. Most of it was filmed at my hospital [the Hammersmith in west London], which is a very good hospital but doesn’t represent what the NHS is like.”
I didn’t recognise it either, from years of visiting NHS hospitals. Moore painted a rose-tinted vision of spotless wards, impeccable treatment, happy patients who laugh away any suggestion of waiting in casualty, and a glamorous young GP who combines his devotion to his patients with a salary of £100,000, a house worth £1m and two cars. All this, and for free.
This, along with an even rosier portrait of the French welfare system, is what Moore says the state can and should provide. You would never guess from Sicko that the NHS is in deep trouble, mired in scandal and incompetence, despite the injection of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
While there are good doctors and nurses and treatments in the NHS, there is so much that is inadequate or bad that it is dishonest to represent it as the envy of the world and a perfect blueprint for national healthcare. It isn’t.
GPs’ salaries – used by Moore as evidence that a state-run system does not necessarily mean low wages – is highly controversial; their huge pay rise has coincided with a loss of home visits, a serious problem in getting GP appointments and continuing very low pay for nurses and cleaners.
At least 20 NHS trusts have even worse problems with the hospital-acquired infection clostridium difficile, not least the trust in Kent where 90 people died of C diff in a scandal reported recently.
Many hospitals are in crisis. Money shortages, bad management, excesses of bureaucrats and deadly Whitehall micromanagement mean they have to skimp on what matters most.
Overfilling the beds is dangerous to patients, in hygiene and in recovery times, but it goes on widely. Millions are wasted on expensive agency nurses because NHS nurses are abandoning the profession in droves. Only days ago, the 2007 nurse of the year publicly resigned in despair at the health service. There is a dangerous shortage of midwives since so many have left, and giving birth on the NHS can be a shocking experience.
Meanwhile thousands of young hospital doctors, under a daft new employment scheme, were sent randomly around the country, pretty much regardless of their qualifications or wishes. As foreign doctors are recruited from Third World countries, hundreds of the best-qualified British doctors have been left unemployed. Several have emigrated.
As for consultants, the men in Whitehall didn’t believe what they said about the hours they worked, beyond their duties, and issued new contracts forcing them to work less. You could hardly make it up.
None of these problems mean we should abandon the idea of a universal shared system of healthcare. It’s clear we would not want the American model, even if it isn’t quite as bad as portrayed by Moore. It’s clear our British private medical insurance provision is a rip-off. I believe we should as a society share burdens of ill health and its treatment. The only question is how best to do that and it seems to me the state-run, micromanaged NHS has failed to answer it.
By ignoring these problems, and similar ones in France’s even more generous and expensive health service, Moore is lying about the answer to that question. I wonder whether the grotesquely fat film-maker is aware of the delicious irony that in our state-run system, the government and the NHS have been having serious public discussion about the necessity of refusing to treat people who are extremely obese.
One can only wonder why Sicko is so dishonestly biased. It must be partly down to Moore’s personal vainglory; he has cast himself as a high priest of righteous indignation, the people’s prophet, and he has an almost religious following. He’s a sort of docu-evangelist, dressed like a parody of the American man of the people, with jutting jaw, infantile questions and aggressively aligned baseball cap.
However, behind the pleasures of righteous indignation for him and his audience, there is something more sinister. There’s money in indignation, big money. It is just one of the many extreme sensations that are lucrative for journalists to whip up, along with prurience, disgust and envy. Michael Moore is not Mr Valiant-for-truth. He is Mr Worldly-wiseman, laughing behind his hand at all the gawping suckers in Vanity Fair. Don’t go to his show.
Minette Marrin is a journalist, broadcaster and fiction writer. She is a columnist for The Sunday Times, and has also written for The Sunday and Daily Telegraphs and The Spectator and The Asian Wall Street Journal. She regularly contributes to television and radio programmes
The Brits are angry at Moore’s Marxist propaganda. And the Cubans are beyond irate.
great first paragraph. keep it up, please.
From the column...Michael Moore, the American documentary maker...specialises in searing indictments
When will Moore do a searing indictment of that trillion dollar mistake, public housing, which contributed to the evils of prostitution, illegal drugs, gun running, cop killing, murder, and rape?
Before Americans "buy into" government controlled health care, they need to take a good look at government controlled housing,
You're quite welcome and I'm delighted that you've found it to be worthwhile :-)
From the column...Michael Moore, the American documentary maker...specialises in searing indictments
When will Moore do a searing indictment of that trillion dollar mistake, public housing, which contributed to the evils of prostitution, illegal drugs, gun running, cop killing, murder, and rape?
Before Americans "buy into" government controlled health care, they need to take a good look at government controlled housing,
Excellent points.
I will not be holding my breath, waiting for any sort of honest treatment of anything from him, particularly in the matter of one of the foundations of the American Left, that being the endlessly-discredited "Great Society" programs of the Johnson era.
A proud, unabashed Socialist such as Moore will blame everything under the sun (preferably 'those evil Republicans') for such failures and never the corrupt and intellectually dishonest nature of the programs themselves.
Such honesty interfere with his goal of undermining America at any and every opportunity.
Moore is nothing but a fat scumbag who couldn’t find his you know what if he had to.
Minnette almost gets it.
Socialized medicine can NEVER work
No, he is a conniving opportunist and propagandist, and a very rich one at that.
Good article, but Vanity Fair is by William Makepeace Thackery. She seems to be confusing it Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan.
Minette reminds me of the Libs.
“Communism CAN work. We just didn’t quite have it right last go around.”
Interesting side note: a short list was released recently of the documentaries that are in the running so far this year for an Oscar, and “Sicko” wasn’t on it. Could it be that even the leftist morons in Hollywood realize they can’t put enough makeup on this particular pig to make it presentable on Oscar night? (I mean “Sicko,” not Barbra Streisand).
“None of these problems mean we should abandon the idea of a universal shared system of healthcare. It’s clear we would not want the American model, even if it isn’t quite as bad as portrayed by Moore. It’s clear our British private medical insurance provision is a rip-off. I believe we should as a society share burdens of ill health and its treatment. The only question is how best to do that and it seems to me the state-run, micromanaged NHS has failed to answer it.”
The definition of socialism (Marxism) is state control. Her remedy must be more state control. The idea of markets, economic freedom, and distributed decision making is alien to her at least for health care. The idea that health care is a public good that should be distributed by a central authority is ludicrous. Rationing, long lines, and poor service are the only logical result except if you have the cash to pay for your own health care.
She is also a dangerous asshat
I loved the recent article on Britain proposing a 200 pound license to give smokers the “right” to buy $11 a pack cigarettes. By their own admission the fees collected would do nothing but fund the administrative fees of the proposed program. Nothing but expanded Gov. Did I mention that they also would require you to “register as an addict”? on applying for the License?
Madness
'the name Vanity Fair comes from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. . .', ...
Well, don’t I feel like a ‘tard. :P
I think my karma just ran over my dogma.
My personal opinion is that our current system should be scrapped. Administrative fees are out of control, Gov regulation is out of control. I estimate that 25% of your healthcare dollar actually goes to the doctors. the rest is consumed in administrative BS.
I think HSA’s and a direct Patient Doctor relationship would cut down on waste. back that up with Catastrophic insurance to be used in the event of a true need.
My only Problem with HSA’s is that they still fall under administrative review as proved today.
I have one, and I don’t get to make my own decisions. Well I do but they are subject to review. The reviewers and approvers and the insurance agents all get a salary and are diluting my health care dollar
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