Who's Really 'Sicko'

WSJ ^ | June 28, 2007 | DAVID GRATZER

[Brilliant]

'I haven't seen 'Sicko,'" says Avril Allen about the new Michael Moore documentary, which advocates socialized medicine... She's ...preparing to file suit against Ontario's provincial government about its health-care system...

Her client... would have had to wait for four months just to get an MRI, and then months more to see a neurologist for his malignant brain tumor. Instead... [he] traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., for a lifesaving surgery. Now he's suing for the right to opt out of Canada's government-run health care...

In the U.S., 83 House Democrats voted for a bill in 1993 calling for single-payer health care. That idea collapsed with HillaryCare... Mr. Moore's documentary intends to change that, exposing millions to his argument that American health care is sick and socialized medicine is the cure...

Mr. Moore goes to London, Ontario, where he notes that not a single patient has waited in the hospital emergency room more than 45 minutes... In Britain, he tours a hospital where patients marvel at their free care... In France, a doctor explains the success of the health-care system with the old Marxist axiom: "You pay according to your means, and you receive according to your needs..."

Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore's claim that ERs don't overcrowd in Canada. A Canadian government study recently found that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner... The research merely confirms anecdotal reports of interminable waits... Toronto patients receive care in four hours on average; one in 10 patients waits more than a dozen hours.

This problem hit close to home last year: A relative... nearly died of a strangulated bowel while lying on a stretcher for five hours, writhing in pain...

In Britain, the Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients wait more than a year for surgery...

[Brilliant]

If universal healthcare passes in this country, then ready the cyanide.

[mewzilla]

US Health Care Saves More Lives Than Socialized Medicine

Anyone who thinks socialized medicine is such a great idea should be made to spend some time in a country that has it.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Yes,
I had a friend that was in London on vacation about 10 years ago. He had a serious back problem and found himself in a ward with 20-30 others. He could not sleep there, as people were constantly waking up screaming or crying. Finally, the hospital figured out that he had Blue Cross (health insurance) and that meant he could pay for his own doctor, etc. He was transferred to a semi-private room, got a good doctor, had the surgery and was on the plane home to the USA in good time. He was told that if he had been left in the ward, he would still be there, and the surgery might not have happened.

[mollynme]

While visiting family in Norway I met a woman who had suffered a devastating miscarriage. Her doctor told her that the cause was a benign tumor in her uterus. She could have had it removed in a relatively simple procedure but the arbitrary rules of health care rationing said that she would have to lose 3 (!) pregnancies before she would be eligible for the surgery.
Unwilling to go through the heartbreak again, she and her husband were considering adoption.

[mewzilla]

Between the higher mortality rates and the wait times, why anyone would want this is beyond me. And don’t tell me the poor aren’t covered. Over 90% of my county taxes go to cover our share of Medicaid costs.

[Dilbert56]

Stephen Hawking wsa visiting one of the Scandanavian countries back in the late 1970’s. He contracted pneumonia. The socialized health care system there told him since he already had ALS, and his quality of life was going into the toilet anyway, they wouldn’t treat him and he should just die. He rejected that advice, went back to England and got treated, and is alive today. One of history’s premier thinkers would have been dead 30 years ago because a government was deciding who is eligible for treatment and who should just shut up and die.

[CaptainAmiigaf]

A good friend visited one of the countries lauded by Moore in his “Mockumentory”. He sickened, but had to wait to see a doctor. After being seen by a doctor, but still waiting for treatment for two weeks, his desperate wife had him flown home. Too late, he was dead in two days from a condition too far gone, too fast. His own doctor said in the “awful” USA, he would have been in the hospital 4 days, at home for a week and back to work.
A lifelong friend visited another of Moore’s favorites. Same tragic result, worsened by an AMERICAN doctor’s statement that similar results in the USA would have led to criminal prosecutions and legitimate law-suits.
I condemn Michael Moore to live in the world he professes to love. Where does he go for medical treatment???

[JessieHelmsJr]

bookmark