One fact that was left out of Sicko--and for the life of me I can't understand why he did this--is that in all of the countries he visits (Canada, France, England) he doesn't mention the fact that private insurance is available to anyone who wants it. In Canada, many employers pay for private insurance for their employees. In fact, Canadian health care is privately driven, with doctors and insurance companies managing the system.So, all of the nail biting fright being lobbed from the right about "forced" health care in these countries is just simply not true. I wonder why Moore left this out of the film as it would've helped his case immensely.
3 comments:
I didn't get that either. I have been up to Canada a few times and have some good friends there. All of them have private insurance and get to go to whatever doctor they want to visit.
Our "free" government would like us to not see how well other systems work. I know they are not all perfect but much of what we hear our leaders say are just plain lies. But hey, we are a nation filled with selfish people who don't give a flying rat's ass about anyone but themselves.
I would suspect that MM left out the discussion of continued private insurance coverage because to include it in the film is a lose/lose proposition. To address the issue at all you must take one of two stances:
1) Eliminate private insurance coverage, which would decimate a multi-billion dollar industry. Clearly a politically untenable position which, while rating high on the emotional scale, would be political suicide for any politician serious about implementing uhc.
2) Continue private insurance coverage, which by almost all accounts - especially those of proponents of universal coverage - continues rationing of care, lowers the overall standard of care, and drives up the overall cost of care. All these points are antithetical relative to the cause.
It's really just an illustration of what HMHC stated in his posting. MM isn't interested in debating the issue as much as he is interested in framing the issue according to what he deems to be right. Including the private insurance issue would not serve that end.
The best bit in the film for me was the Ronald Reagan recording from the 1960s on the "evils" of socialized medicine. It was so blatantly obvious that it was put out by the insurance and pharmeceutical industries--such propoganda!!
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