A cable movie channel recently has re-aired the 2007 Michael Moore film, "Sicko." His film starts out describing a man who had to make a tough decision after a table saw accident sliced off the ends of two fingers. His ring finger would cost $16,000 to re-attach, while the middle finger would cost $62,000. (Who would have guessed that the ability to "flip the bird" at someone could have such a high price?)

His health insurance company would only pay to re-attach one of the two fingers. The man chose the cheaper ring finger for re-attachment. Many of us would have both fingers re-attached, then let a jury force the insurance company to pay under a civil suit. The health insurance company would then settle out of court to avoid negative publicity. But what's done is done.

Curiously enough, all throughout the film Michael Moore raved on about numerous examples of what Michael calls universal health care, and how great the Canadian and British health care systems are. The cashier in British hospitals gives out money for transportation, and there is no bill associated with hospital stays there. Everything appears so incredibly idyllic

I call the reader's attention to the term universal health care. In Brittan, it isn't called Universal Health Care. Since it's inception after the war in the early 20th century, it has been known as the National Health Service. In Canada, the free service to Canadians is under the organization known as Health Canada. [1]

So where did Michael Moore get the phrase "universal health care" from? In his film, he documents Hillary Clinton's despised campaign for universal health care. But some ideas don't die that easy, and universal health care is one of them. It's not that much different than gun control or hate speech legislation, that keeps raising their ugly heads over, and over, and over again.

Michael also seems to idolize the socialist way of life, showing 50 year old USSR propaganda films of socialist farms in action with lots of men and women handling grain and wheat. These actors are singing, smiling, clean and happy while they are working their butts off, long after the dawn of mechanized farming.

Michael then personally associates American libraries, police and fire departments as free services and claims these are socialist ideas, too. (Heck ­ if this is all free, then where do my taxes go then? Maybe he doesn't have to pay taxes.) The entire world, all apparently except for Michael Moore, know just how "wonderful" the USSR government worked for it's people, and just how "happy" they were under many decades of iron-fisted power. Yet socialism is clearly what Michael promotes in the film "Sicko."

If Michael truly believes socialism is so wonderful, I urge him to pack up and move to Russia, and go there to try and re-instate the Soviet style of government. He should bring a film crew along, so they can document to the world what it's like to be hauled into court. Then film him being led downstairs after sentence is pronounced into a room in the basement of the courthouse, which has a drain in the floor. A man with a gun then says, "Do not turn around comrade." That's Russian style justice. I'm not making this up ­ this is exactly what one documentary showed several years ago how they hand out capital punishment. And the man that received this sentence wasn't convicted of treason but was convicted of being a serial killer. The trial lasted about one hour, and sentence was pronounced and carried out immediately. Treason is the highest crime in any country.

What would Michael Moore think of socialism during his last few minutes of life?

I can recall watching "Sicko" about two years ago and wondering where government-sponsored health care would be like. Such health care would lead to employers dropping coverage all-together and forcing people to let uncle insure them. And companies like Wal-Mart would be jumping up and down, happy as a lark. Union leaders would have their hands tied.

In Sicko, Michael clearly avoided the REALLY tough issues ­ like serious long term illnesses. In countries like the UK and Australia, drugs to slow disease progression are denied to patients as being too expensive. From a cold government economics perspective, it benefits the government if the chronically ill do *not* get well and die instead. Drugs like Copaxone that now cost more than $2,300/month to fight MS are routinely denied to patients in national health care countries. And there is evidence to back this up, too.

Read this excerpt about MS drugs being denied in the UK due to a lack of funding:

"A lack of funding has forced a Cardiff-based MS service to start a waiting list for patients who could benefit from beta interferon and Copaxone.

Experts told the Western Mail that Health Commission Wales has also told the South Wales MS service to become more "efficient" to ensure more patients can be treated. But without adequate funding the service could be forced to cut back.

The funding crisis comes just a year after the service, which is based at the University Hospital of Wales, was hit by a similar cash shortfall. Now experts are concerned there will not be enough money to pay for the latest MS treatment, Tysabri, which was approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence last week.

Dr Trevor Pickersgill, a consultant neurologist at the University Hospital of Wales, said, "The money has run out and we are building up a waiting list."

Beta interferon and copaxone cost an average of £10,000 per patient per year for the treatment alone."

-Dated Oct 2007 [2]

Building up a waiting list, i.e. getting behind on treating patients. Can that be a good thing?

Unfortunately, disease in the chronically ill does not stop progressing while waiting for drug funding. Now imagine a country like the USA, where one estimate put the number of patients with MS in the millions several years ago. Yet today, we are told by the government that there are only about 400,000 MS patients. If this is true, then why is it that almost everyone you speak to knows someone, or has known someone afflicted with MS? That doesn't make sense.

In returning Sicko, there is abdundant evidence today just as there was in 2007 that socialialized health care systems have serious hidden pitfalls and regular funding shortages. Often countries with these systems have liberal immigration laws, and many immigrants cannot be paying taxes commensurate with health care services received. These problems were not discussed in the film. HMO and insurance company based health care certainly are far from the perfect answer, since everything they do is profit based and shareholder oriented.

While I personally despise endless government regulations, there are actually times when properly thought-out regulations are the solution. That is, if it can be done with the perpetual lobbyist interference. In the seventies government dropped may regulations on price controls for oil companies.

Government politicians claimed competition would keep the price of gasoline in check. History shows exactly the opposite happened when the regulations and price controls were removed. Is it any accident that for the past 30+ years, gas stations raise and lower their prices simultaneously each day ­ with differences of just a few cents or less between competing brands? Does that sound like true competition, or more like blatantly ignoring anti-trust laws?

In health care, we must have the right government regulations to fix the current system. In all fairness, Moore's film made many valid points. Perhaps the most important point is the wide-spread refusal of insurance companies to provide insurance policies to people with pre-existing conditions.

There can be little doubt that government universal health care in America will not work. Lobbyists and special interest would get involved and completely screw it up, as would regulations that surely won't save lives but will do just the opposite. The assisted suicide provisions in the universal health care bill are only a small hint of what would be to come, if uncle provided all health care.

Ted Twietmeyer

tedtw@frontiernet.net

[1] - http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/index-eng.php

[2] -http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseaction/show/pageid/1809