Google Protects Healthcare From Michael Moore 1153
An anonymous reader suggests we stop over to ZDNet for a case where Google may be stepping on the wrong side of that famous Don't Be Evil line. A Google staffer is offering to help the healthcare industry contain the damage that Michael Moore's film is about to do. (Here is the original Google Health Advertisement blog post by Lauren Turner; in case it disappears, it is reproduced in full in the ZDNet post.) Quoting from the Google post: "Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through 'Get the Facts' or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them? We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message. We help you connect your company's assets while helping users find the information they seek."
Moore's propaganda (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mod Parent Up! (Score:1, Informative)
This isn't Google doing PR (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't it propaganda to frame Michael Moore's documentaries as mere propaganda, and isn't doing so also an attempt to dismiss the films as irrelevant? Especially in the absence of any counter-arguments or proper criticisms of the films? Ok, Moore is propaganda, yup, I believe you, well just because you said so... Way to counter propaganda with ideology.
A truly honest person would have to admit his films are not completely devoid of facts or statistics. And that sometimes the facts *are* one-sided, there isn't always balance in the world. And by the way, America isn't the perfect Disneyesque world, all rosy and wunnerful and perfect.
As for Lauren Turner, she's doing what sales and marketing types do, targeting her message by identifying with the fears and needs of her specific audience. She's trying to sell ads. Ads are only a small part of a proper PR campaign and I doubt Google is getting into the PR business.
Re:Of course (Score:2, Informative)
The Medicare Part D plan here in the US seemed not help, possibly made things worse. My grandmother has to spend $500 to $1000 a month on medication, that is quite hard on most people of her age. One of my dads good friends went bankrupt paying his late wifes medical bills, then later committed suicide. Talk about 'if you can afford it' if you ever get diagnosed with something expensive enough to ruin most people.
Google seems to slowly get more creepy and evil. They are no there yet, but I personally do not like Yahoo/Google/etc catering to the Chinese government, screwing with search results, etc.
Re:Moore isn't Neutral (Score:5, Informative)
[disclaimer: I am a med student and a member of the medical student section of the AMA.]
I hear this reasoning time and time again, and I'm convinced this is an urban legend. The AMA has no jurisdiction over the number of slots available in US med schools; at best, the AMA has influence over the number of residency slots available (since they do act to certify certain specialty and subspecialty boards). In fact, the counter to the fallacy promoted by the parent post is that there are more residency slots available per year than US med school graduates.
If you want to find fault, blame the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), which certifies med schools and would be the body most responsible for the number of med student positions in the US. It is not affiliated with the AMA.
Re:google doesn't do evil by protecting evil (Score:3, Informative)
Insurance Companies are Evil.
Pharmaceutical Companies are Evil.
Medical Professionals do the best they can in a system which is rigged against them.
Not really evil, just a bit unwise. (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the facts on Canadian health care (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.openmedicine.ca/article/view/8/1 [openmedicine.ca]
Open Medicine, Vol 1, No 1 (2007)
A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States
Gordon H. Guyatt, P.J. Devereaux, Joel Lexchin, Samuel B. Stone, Armine Yalnizyan, David Himmelstein, Steffie Woolhandler, Qi Zhou, Laurie J. Goldsmith, Deborah J. Cook, Ted Haines, Christina Lacchetti, John N. Lavis, Terrence Sullivan, Ed Mills, Shelley Kraus, Neera Bhatnagar
ABSTRACT
Background: Differences in medical care in the United States compared with Canada, including greater reliance on private funding and for-profit delivery, as well as markedly higher expenditures, may result in different health outcomes.
Objectives: To systematically review studies comparing health outcomes in the United States and Canada among patients treated for similar underlying medical conditions.
Methods: We identified studies comparing health outcomes of patients in Canada and the United States by searching multiple bibliographic databases and resources. We masked study results before determining study eligibility. We abstracted study characteristics, including methodological quality and generalizability.
Results: We identified 38 studies comparing populations of patients in Canada and the United States. Studies addressed diverse problems, including cancer, coronary artery disease, chronic medical illnesses and surgical procedures. Of 10 studies that included extensive statistical adjustment and enrolled broad populations, 5 favoured Canada, 2 favoured the United States, and 3 showed equivalent or mixed results. Of 28 studies that failed one of these criteria, 9 favoured Canada, 3 favoured the United States, and 16 showed equivalent or mixed results. Overall, results for mortality favoured Canada (relative risk 0.95, 95% confidence interval 0.92-0.98, p = 0.002) but were very heterogeneous, and we failed to find convincing explanations for this heterogeneity. The only condition in which results consistently favoured one country was end-stage renal disease, in which Canadian patients fared better.
Interpretation: Available studies suggest that health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent.
Further reading on the Canada vs. U.S. comparison is:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/00
Canada's Burning!
Media myths about universal health coverage
By Theodore Marmor & Kip Sullivan
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Informative)
The US has the most expensive per capita healthcare in the world, and Canada comes in second. The U.S. ranks only 37th in the world in quality health care - yet nationally America spends 82% more per person on health care than others. Canada also fails to fully benefit from the money spent, so I don't think either is a model for healthcare efficiency.
There are countries which perform better than the US while still spending less than the US government already spends. You'd be better looking at New Zealand, the UK and Australia to see what works.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publ
Re:Here's the facts on Canadian health care (Score:3, Informative)
Which is, incidentally, why only one Democrat is for single-payer care, because the rest of them know it's a non-starter, and they want to win (whereas Kucinich knows he can't win).
Re:Micheal? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Here's the facts on Canadian health care (Score:4, Informative)
The American health care system is hugely inefficient, in part because it devotes huge resources to deciding who to cover and who to deny coverage. Spending large amounts of money to figure out who is likely to get sick makes sense to improve the bottom line of individual companies, but overall it lowers the quality of care for patients by reducing available resources.
I live in Canada. I have quite a bit of experience with our health care system, having an elderly family member with cancer. I can only describe his care as excellent. I spent days in the hospital, and I got to observe in detail what went on there, and I cannot think of anything that could have significantly been improved.
That said, the quality of care has been declining recently. However, this is primarily due to cutbacks instituted by neoconservative leaning governments. They are deliberately starving the public health care system with the eventual goal of creating a parallel private system. The reasons they are doing this are largely ideological, in that they believe the private sector can do no wrong. It also seems likely to me that our government has been bought and paid for by private health care interests.
That said, our system is still quite good. Someone else I know is currently going through cancer treatment, and there isn't much I can see wrong with her care. Because her treatment was urgent, she didn't have to wait very long for her chemotherapy. But what is perhaps more important is that the treatment was received without fear of bankruptcy. We don't fear losing our coverage here. We don't wonder whether or not our claim will go through. We simply show up to the doctor or hospital and receive our care.
With the release of Sicko, be prepared to be deluged by propaganda against public health care. There is just too much money to be lost by the private health care industry for them to give up in this battle. Although Michael Moore tends towards bombast and exaggeration, his basic thesis is correct. The American health care system is deeply flawed, and other countries do a far better job of caring for their citizens.
Re:Of course (Score:1, Informative)
i mean, i'm assuming you're telling the truth and that your friend really does pay $1,500/month, but i'm guessing maybe he's old (relative to a 20-something) and has a wife and kids to cover or something?. . . 'cuz if he's a single, relatively healthy 20-something you might wanna tell your friend to shop around a bit 'cuz he'd probably get a better deal elsewhere. . .
again, i forget how much i used to pay as a self-employed dude in my late 20s but i'm pretty sure it was around $200/month. . .
Re:Not Evil (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mod Parent Up! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Moore isn't Neutral (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidi
However, no this is a capitalist marketplace and things like foods and housing are leisures where many aren't necessary for survival: for instance one needn't shop at Whole Foods to survive when they can grow their own food... Also housing is based on property, and one doesn't necessarily have to be housed at all.
The problem is when you apply this logic to health care, which at its core means without it, you cannot survive. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure they provide equal opportunities for survival for anyone because everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To deny anyone medical care because of money is to deny the right of life.
Medical care isn't a leisure, and shouldn't be expected to be paid like one...
And don't confuse this with me saying that there is something wrong with private insurance, there is something wrong with free public insurance.
There are some things which should be free to citizens, education, police, speech, and health care. I am not making a case for welfare. I am making a case for basic human rights which a democratic government of the people should provide for the people.
Re:Moore isn't Neutral (Score:3, Informative)
Because none of the following are present in healthcare, and all are required for a functioning free market:
- elasticity of demand
- elasticity of supply (aka low barriers to market entry)
- consumers informed sufficiently to make intelligent choices
Free markets are great when these are the case. Health care misses all by quite a lot. NOTE TO SELF-TAUGHT ECONOMICS WANNABES: Free markets are not the right solution for everything.Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Informative)
In the film, Moore interviews people in the hospitals and clinics. In France, it turns out no one in a large table of expatriated Americans had to wait more than an hour. The same was true for Canadians.
There are definitely some over-the-top, sensationalist things in Sicko that I feel Moore should have left out. He has a tendency to make films that are very persuasive, and then fuck it all up by including some inflammatory stuff. In Sicko, he does an extremely good job of exposing how horrible the US health care system really is, and how inferior it is to systems in Canada, France, and the UK. I can definitely say from personal experience that it is inferior to that of Japan. My girlfriend, a med student, has had to do extensive research about health care policy in the US, and she's reported back to me how horribly screwed up our system is because of the health insurance companies.
The entire film, Moore was very on-point and convincing in his criticisms without being so inflammatory that it would turn a typical right-winger such as my uncle off of his film (contrast this with the ludicrously radical 9/11 and Columbine). I believe the first hour to hour-and-a-half could possibly convince some conservatives of the desirability of the French or Canadian system. But then he brings his Canadian relatives on. Guess what? They're afraid to go to the US because the health care system is so bad. That, I believe, is the moment at which he ruins any credibility he could have had with his opponents. If Sicko was a legitimate documentary, those scenes wouldn't have been there. I also think the Cuban scenes were counterproductive because he goes on about how great Cuba is, while at the very beginning of the movie, he reveals a chart that shows Cuba is ranked below the US in health care.
I'm a believer in universal health care from personal experience. The first hour-and-a-half of Sicko is great, and isn't propaganda in the bad sense (lie and doublespeak) so much as honestly-done research which happens to also be persuasive (good propaganda). Then Moore let me down.
The film was still good, and I am still waiting to hear a good argument against this: we have socialized the fire department. Why can't we socialize another facet of society that saves lives?
Whatever, it's 3am and I need to go to bed. I need to get up early to play with my Mac, write for a Crooksandliars.com, hang out with my Hollywood friends, go to a seminar on stopping global warming, and I need to go polish my Honda Insight.
The American Health Care System.... (Score:3, Informative)
... has served me fairly well. My only problem, so far, was when coverage for a particular medication was denied by my insurance because their book said it wasn't indicated for my particular diagnosis. Never mind the fact that my rheumatologist could direct their attention to some studies that indicated it might help me. The book said no, and that was that. I could not afford the $500 a month bill, so we are trying another drug instead. I hope it will work.
Which brings me to something that bothers me about the debate on heath care. Strangers wanting to 'give' me anything, in this case health care, raises a red flag. I'd love to ask the people advocating the idea this: why do you want to pay my medical bills? There's no such thing as a free lunch, someone, some where, will be pay the cost. What do I / We have to give up?
If universal health care looks like it is going to happen in the United States, keep this in mind: The people that will be making the rules, congress, are the same people that change their minds more often than they change their underwear, and they do it by commitee. The past is littered with examples of this almost since the founding of our country.
Are these the people we want in charge of our health? No matter what kind of a private / public system they create in the beginning, I guarantee you this: the congress, the president, the supreme court, and the federal bureaucracy, will eventually be completely in charge.
The insurance companies already hinder decisions made by doctors because some book says so, what would make us think that the government will be different?
FrankRe:Here's the facts on Canadian health care (Score:3, Informative)
Everyone has the same service; this guarantees that the rich will not gut the service.
As a Canadian, who has this same service, I have a problem with it.
The problem is that there are waiting lists for many health care services. What it amounts to is that if say, my mother is sick, and put on a waiting list - yet a private clinic has the space, I am FORBIDDEN from paying to help my mother. What this amounts to, is that someone who works hard all their life to aquire money is forbidden from using it to help their family. Do I think universal healthcare is a good idea and a right? Yes. Do I believe that it should be forced so that those who have the means and the funds to help their family should be denied that right? No.
This is why many Canadians who can afford it go to the states for certain procedures. The waiting lists can get in the way. While it is true that most procedures that are considered threat to life are generally fast, not all are. A friend of mine has been on a waiting list for gall bladder surgery for six months. With the money to pay, the only option is to go to the US for the operation as you can't jump the line here. You just have to sit and suffer. Is that fair to someone who has worked hard to aquire their money and status? Is that a fair picture of freedom to say "oh, you may be able to afford it, but we won't let you buy it."?
So, I believe that universal healthcare is a right - but if you have the funds to get faster or better service than the basic care, that should be available to you. To "level" the playing field, you make the lines longer... If my friend gets surgery in the US - then she gets what she needs - and there is one *LESS* person in the waiting line for gall bladder surgery in Canada - meaning someone here gets moved up the list. I see that as a good thing for both people.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Informative)
So I don't think you can make the argument that in other countries its simply cheaper because it's subsidized by everybody. It's cheaper because its run under a more efficient and more effective system. The total amount of money going into the system (from individuals, corporations and government) is less, and you are getting significantly more (healthcare coverage for everyone). In fact, if the US could implement a system similar to that of Germany's, Canada's or the UK's, it would probably SAVE you money and provide you with better care.
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Informative)
And I suppose if you obediently believe every line that Moore has to tell you about the matter is the whole and honest extent of the truth, then there is no possibility that anything could counter it.
The point is, it's hard to dispute Moore's facts. Of course he presents those facts in a biased way. But he's making an argument, you can't blame him for that. The core facts he uses to make his case are true (http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/28/sicko.fact.c heck/index.html?eref=rss_topstories [cnn.com]).
Competition, Market (Score:4, Informative)
But this is not the contribution I wanted to make. I have a question: is all out competition, wide open free market always the solution? Will the fight for corporate survival always bring the best product on the market and the leanest execution? Hmm, I guess no. I don't want to take on good 'ol Microsoft we all hate, just let me mention another industry: mobile telephony. Do you americans already have a pervasive, standardized cellular network or are you just starting to after years of quarreling standards and vendor lock-ins. We, the EU, have had this GSM given from the beginning of the digital cellular rollout and today enjoy continental roaming and dirt cheap terminals since a decade. Sure, some of you will argue that GSM is so much worse than some other patented, exclusively licensed protocol you can only use with one operator (and good luck if you travel to a city where the incumbent went with the competing protocol) but I'm happy to travel anywhere on the continent and be sure that either by voice or SMS, there an infrastructure that'll work for me.
My point is sometimes fragmentation, darwinism, de- or lack of regulation, don't work at all and actually break the toy for everybody. Public safety, health care, unemployment subsidies are all systems that do work after all, will have their own set of gripes and pockets of inefficiency but still manage to make a better life for those that contribute and make use of it. Take me for example: I was hospitalized and had an appendix removed within 12 hr and all I had to pay for was a 15 EUR ticket (although I did risk getting mis-diagnosed... but that's more because of what I mentioned in the first paragraph...)
Re:I don't have health Insurance (Score:2, Informative)
Now, I live in the US and pay $150/month for medical insurance through my company. My company actually pays $1000/month (I know because COBRA costs $1150/month).
So already, that is more than what I was paying before yet in Canada I had 100% coverage (not 80% - deductible - $20/50/150 copay depending on type of visit).
Also, the use of the term "socialized medicine" was created by the healthcare industry in the US in an attempt to demonize an efficient form of healthcare coverage which threatened the existence of their horribly inefficient and poor quality system. Universal healthcare systems are used by the rest of the developed world and their costs are WAY less, they provide better care/service and everybody is covered. See here [wikipedia.org]
Why is universal healthcare cheaper/better than the alternative? Here are just a few reasons:
-Because there are reduced administrative costs determining coverage
-Standardized costs for procedures so less lawsuits between insurance providers or individuals against hospitals
-Reduced malpractice insurance because fewer lawsuits over pricing, insurance fraud, insurance coverage, and greater use of standardized procedures.
-The government would have an incentive to reduce costs which would result in the creation and increased enforcement of stringent of FDA regulations, increased preventative medicine, etc.
-It would drive private insurance premiums down (since an efficient and consistently reliable alternative is available they would be forced to improve their efficiency and quality of coverage to stay competitive)
-If you lose your job or quit, you can still get sick and survive
-Access to healthcare is increased.
-It would cost less. Right now the US spends more per capita on healthcare than every other developed country and it is the only first world country without universal healthcare and is ranked as one of the worst healthcare systems in the world.
-Reduced prescription drug costs. The government would likely regulate drug costs based on effectiveness like MOST OF THE WORLD DOES ALREADY. This would reduce the money spent by pharmeceutical companies on marketing and force them to spend more on R&D.
Re:Not Evil (Score:3, Informative)
Health care in Japan is definitely cheap, but I don't know where you found easy or effective.
The list:
Oh, and the medicine here is in no way socialized--health insurance is largely privatized, but your employer is required to put you on it. You only get on the public one if you have no job, and the benefits are lower and the co-pay higher. Price is lower because everyone has insurance, but without the profit motive, there's no reason to provide better service. Right now, getting the person back in the office a million times is incentivized, because it's the only way you could make any money. But in the US, getting someone well ASAP is incentivized for private practitioners, because that wins new patients.
Seriously, if you had some good experiences, I'm happy for you, but you ought to come back and have a sit among people who have seen both ways and hear the horror stories. I am always worried that I'll get really sick here. If you have dece
Re:Mod Parent Down! (Score:5, Informative)
not closed source kind of evil (Score:4, Informative)
This is the closed source kind of evil.
I don't like Michael Moore's work, but somebody had to point at the elephant in the living room here.
The AMA set itself up as a gatekeeper to the medical profession and medicine. A legal system embedded in our culture keeps the information and materials required to treat injuries and illness out of the hands of the public. This was purportedly (and logically) done to improve the quality of care in general, since a great deal of medical treatment was once done by unlicensed quacks who did more harm than good. The problem is that this occult (hidden) cabal has evolved into a self-serving priesthood of medicine that limits availability of care in order to drive its value up. A necessary part of this equation is that a large number of people have to suffer from the deprivation of care in order to maximize the value equation. Even the kindest, most generous doctors must participate in the system in order to get into the profession in the first place and to remain in it. If they want to donate their time and expertise to the poor they can only do it if they go abroad.
Add that the medical profession has been victimized by another unaccountable secret cabal of insurance providers set up as gatekeepers to the doctors, and you get a system that's horribly broken. If a doctor wants to treat the indigent for free, for cash or for reduced rates, he can't because the insurance companies would terminate his ability to be compensated through insurance and he would go bankrupt in short order. The proponents of the status quo are horrifically wealthy and intend to stay in that condition. I heard somewhere that medicine accounts for a ridiculous percentage of our GNP, and it's growing at a terrifying rate.
Throw in a third layer of gatekeepers, the lawyers that sue out of business every doctor that doesn't have absurd amounts of insurance coverage and you have a system that can't be fixed. I have often wondered if the lawyers were in collusion with the insurers to keep this broken system in place.
This is not some academic theoretical discussion for me. For nearly 20 years I lived without coverage. Through great care, the avoidance of treatment I really needed and the good fortune to be close enough to cross the Mexican border one day I really needed care, the American healthcare system only bankrupted me once in that period. I can't imagine what poverty I would be living in if I were chronically ill, less fortunate or less careful.
So don't be confused. This is very much the "closed source" kind of evil. If it were possible for a kind and generous soul to study medicine and get accepted by the medical community and devote their life to the general practice of medicine for the good of their community, there would be a clinics everywhere that took cash at reasonable rates because that quality of person is abundant still and they could make a decent living at it. I'm not saying it would be a route to country club membership, but not everyone who wants to be a healer cares about that.
Re:Not Evil (Score:4, Informative)
The primary problem with any indirect services setup (indeed, any system where people make regular payments into the kitty and expect a payout in time of need) is that you've divorced the cost of said services from the ability of people to pay for them. Like any socialist state, that can work, as long as you can trust your foxes.
Whenever people pay for goods or services directly, out of their own pockets, there's a limit on how much can be charged. At a certain point, either people stop buying from you (if what you're selling isn't a necessity) or someone else comes in, undercuts you, and takes your business: in other words, there's a negative feedback loop established between consumers and providers. Much of modern business practice revolves around finding the sweet spot, the price point where you've balanced off the sales price and the number of customers willing to pay that price to maximize profit. It's a tricky proposition.
WIth the health insurance system, there is no direct connection between what the consumer pays for health care, and what the health care providers charge the insurance company. The feedback loop is open, which is great because it means that you get to set your own sweet spot and who cares what the patient can pay! What's even worse, though, is that the same people that sit on the boards of hospitals also sit on the boards of insurance companies and pharmaceutical outfits, so we don't even benefit from an adversarial relationship between those three. How much people can pay (and how much suppliers can charge) have no intrinsic relationship to each other anymore. Whether or not the insurance company even bothers to pay for a given individual's needs has no relationship to how much that person paid into that company. "I've been paying you guys for thirty years! Can't you help me?" "We don't cover that." Tough.
Normal economic incentives and controls simply don't apply in the insurance business, the people running the show don't really care if you live or die, and providing health care is, at best, a secondary objective.
Re:Not Evil (Score:1, Informative)
Damned rght there. I was appalled to hear, just two days ago, from a friend, about an ambulance ride for her sister, visiting from Switzerland. When the ambulance arrived, the attendants were told that the woman to be transported was in an upstairs bedroom. They stopped in their tracks, counted the stairs and recorded the number. Turns out it's not just three dollars a mile, it's also three dollars per step that they have to take to an upper floor. Likely they counted the two steps up to the front door as well. That's on top of the enormous base rate for the truck roll itself.
BTW, the price at the hospital came to $8000 per night (that's right -- THREE zeroes) and that's before the first Band-Aid (tm) is issued.
Another Googler's opinion (Score:3, Informative)
The health insurance system in this country needs changing. If anyone tries to convince you otherwise, look at them as an arm of an organized, effective, and massively funded propaganda campaign. And if they're an unwitting arm, that just means they're not smart enough to tap in to their share of the obscene overhead that the insurance industry rakes in.
Overall, I think Google is going to do a lot more good than evil in terms of contributing to the debate on healthcare reform. If I thought this, or anything else they were doing, was really evil, I would not be working there.