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."
Not Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I guess if your friends in the Healthcare industry are pure evil, then Google is being evil, but I don't see how you can construe that as "protection". Apparently the submitter, however, would like to protect "Sicko" from the health care industry's web sites. Meh. Lame.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pfft (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a film out that, if you take the point of view that the vast majority of the people who see it do, talks about how people who are sick and dying are not being helped by people who amass large amounts of money (and prestige, public goodwill, etc.) for helping sick people. Google, in the role that I and a lot of people understood them to have for most of the last decade, could reasonably be expected to do nothing about it - only make sure that people found the information on the subject that they chose to try to find. In a more realistic worldview, they sell ads, they advertise that they sell ads, and if people on side of the debate or the other, or both, buy ads that's how it goes - the service is there for anyone who wants to buy. Instead, when:
they don't say "Fuck off. We don't do propoganda." No, they get involved. If no one's come to them yet, they actively reach out. To one side. The one with the money. The one with the blood money. If you weren't there already, this is the last nail in the coffin of the notion of Google as anything more than any old corporation with its requisite ration of evil.
Re:Not Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
And if that's your world view, you're probably adequately opinionated that no one can hope to convince you that it is otherwise. I'd like to hope that most people can entertain the notion of a middle road which characterizes both Moore and the health care industry as neither impeccable nor pure evil, ascribing to both the property of providing some information which is both true and valid.
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
The insurance companies deny payments for life saving operations to their clients because they know they can get away with it. This is evil. This is not closed source kind of evil. This is not copyrighting music kind of evil. This is killing honest hardworking americans who are paying them kind of evil. I think the term 'blood money' is totally appropriate.
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
The AMA, and doctors in general, are a real part of the problem. We would have more doctors if we didn't do so much hazing of medical students. We don't let anyone into medical school, and then we make them waste hellish years of their lives studying shit like anatomy that most doctors never use, or staying awake for 30 hour days during their residencies. By the time they emerge from the hazing process they are fatigued and bitter
Initiation rites are part of the occult sciences (Score:3, Interesting)
In law it's called "passing the bar". The idea is to rate-limit admission of new practitioners of the arts through processes that are arbitrary and unknowable by the applicants. It's part of the veil of mystery that vests the practitioners with supposed special powers.
In short, I agree with you. What this system needs is some light.
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
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:5, Interesting)
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]).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the problem with these things. When the truth gets a bad spokesperson, people discount it.
I for one would had to see Moore do a documentary on the Holocaust or the Sudanese Genocide. People would actually give the genocide deniers a legitimate platform in which to put forth a counter view just because Mo
Quite Evil - from a physician (Score:5, Insightful)
And I can also assure you that the denials of care that Moore described were not the exceptions, but the rule. I have a patient (whose details are a bit obscured in this story) who has a number of serious medical problems. He has a history of a bleeding ulcer and recently began to have symptoms that were the same as he'd had when he had the ulcer. So I prescribed a Proton Pump Inhibitor (the one that was the preferred drug on that insurer's formulary.) They denied it saying that he had reached the limit of the number of medicines he was allowed to have. In order to have the ulcer medicine he would have to go off of one of his diabetes, blood pressure, or asthma medicines or pay for one of them out of pocket.
And sorry, but the cries of 'socialized medicine' being worse than what we have are for shit. If everyone has the same insurance, then every doctor and hospital would take it. I transfer patients every day from the ER to other hospitals when mine is perfectly able to provide them treatment and the patients want to stay at my facility. But their insurer says they won't pay for them to stay to have their appendix removed at the community hospital in their town, but demands they be transfered to a facility 40 miles away that is 'in network.' Of course they can choose to stay if they want (and we would treat them as required by the EMTALA law.) However their insurer gives them the ultimatum: be sent to another hospital they don't want or be faced with the $30,000 bill for their surgery and recovery in the hospital they do want. So the claims of not being able to 'choose your doctor or hospital' are not what you'd have in a single payer system, but are what you get every day if you are insured under an HMO, PPO, or other device used by the insurance industry to deny you care.
And that is what its like for those with insurance. For those without it can mean death or permanent disability. I see people in the ER every day who have delayed or avoided care because of uninsurance who experience severe consequences because of it. Perforated appendicitis because of a delay due to worries about costs. A child admitted to the hospital with a kidney infection that could have been easily treated with oral antibiotics days before but wasn't because of lack of access. Renal failure in a person with diabetes left untreated. People with bent forearms because while they were appropriately treated and splinted in the ER, they were unable to see an orthopedist for subsequent definitive treatment because of lack of insurance. That is stuff you expect to see in the developing countries, not the richest country in the world. Of course it is easy to see the villain in that scenario as the evil orthopedist who would not see him for free. (And I will admit ortho is one of the worst offenders for unwillingness to provide uncompensated care.) However why should one group of professionals (health care providers) be expected to shoulder the cost of health care for 15-20% of the US population simply because the country refuses to? I don't mind paying taxes to support health care for all in the US, but I do take issue with the tax being exclusively applied to doctors and nurses and PTs and RTs etc, while an attorney or programmer or businessman who makes as much or more than I do pays nothing.
The saddest part is that we already spend in GNP well more than enough to cover every man, woman, and child in the US with a health care system that the world would envy. We pay about 15% of our GNP for health care, while most developed nations spend around 7-8%. If we took all of the money that goes to 'profits an administration' (about 30%) in the for profit health insurance industry, as well as negotiating for drug prices that were on par with what the rest of the developed world we would have enough to pay for everyone.
So I think Moore is right: Its sicko.
Nick
Re:Quite Evil - from a physician (Score:5, Interesting)
Though to be honest paying that tax pisses me off a bit precisely because of one specific wastefulness: Medicare Renal (for those with ESRD.) Diabetes affects about 20 million Americans (mostly type-2). If you have diabetes and no insurance, you are most often unable to treat your diabetes. Untreated diabetes results in many complications, but a common one is kidney damage resulting in ESRD.
So instead of paying $1000/year to treat a type 2 diabetic with a pill costing $1/day, we wait till he has developed severe and inevitable complications of that untreated diabetes. Then once the horse is out of the barn, we decide to treat him at the cost of $30,000-40,000 per year plus often a kidney transplant (about $100,000 of yours and my taxpayer dollars). So in addition to costing much more, this squanders a scarce resource (kidneys for transplant) into a group whose ESRD could have been easily an inexpensively treated. An ounce of prevention is not only worth a pound of cure, its a shitload less expensive as well
Its like refusing to pay to put oil in your car till the engine seizes and then buying a new engine. That is, fucktarded.
Nick
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because most Slashdotters have a more intimate knowledge and relationship of the issues involved, can pinpoint the detrimental effects, and can speak to the issue with assured clarity.
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
This argument would have more weight if US insurance companies weren't fat with profits. Even in states like mine where they're legally required to operate as non-profit organizations.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Health care in Japan is definitely cheap, but I don't know where you found easy or effective.
The list:
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet is democratic: all points of view are available. When people on blogs and websites choose to promote some political ideas over others, this simply reflects the state of the internet world as it really is. If people choose to spread the word about global warming, or about Moore's movie, etc, that's a true reflection of the web world and of what those people feel is important.
And that's how it should be. Who is Google anyway to decide that some ideas on the internet are so repugnant that they should be balanced with privileged "education" messages in prominent positions? That's not the job of a search engine.
If some people feel strongly about "educating" others on a subject, they can do like everybody else does: make a website, and convince people to spread the word.
Google the company should stay out of "educating" if they value the trust people put in them. There are plenty of other search engines who can take their place if that trust is sufficiently eroded.
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a comparison of Canadian vs. U.S. health care from a peer-reviewed medical journal, by Gordon Guyatt, who is one of the world's top experts on comparing health care systems. The article points out that the U.S. health care system costs about twice as much per capita for the same or worse results.
Well, it depends on what you mean. If you mean Canada has the same or better results for everybody, no, it does not. Indeed, for many people, it has significantly worse results, especially those in the upper and upper middle class, and that's the point: no one is willing to have their freedom taken away, and their taxes increased, in order to be significantly worse off, even if it benefits others. There's better solutions out there that don't harm a lot of people for the sake of improving the care of a
Re:Here's the facts on Canadian health care (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone has the same service; this guarantees that the rich will not gut the service.
This is called "social justice", something sorely lacking in the US.
Ever wondered why the crime rate is so low in Canada? It's not because guns are outlawed. No, it's simply because welfare helps ensure that someone that hit the bottom of the barrel will not have to turn to crime in order to survive.
Paying slightly more taxes than in the US is a very cheap price to pay to insure that I do not risk being mugged each time I walk home late at night.
And everyone is glad to pay those few extra tax dollars.
The "freedom" those measures take away would only benefit the top 0.01% of the population anyways.
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing I said implied that's how it should be. I said the proper solution would be one that improves the care of those with poor care, without significantly adversely affecting the care of anyone else.
So what?! Having universal medical coverage does not rule out private healthcare. You can always pay for a better doctor. Anyway, did it occur to you that people with shitty health also have less money, and even better, are not insured because no company wants them? Tell me how is that fare?
Everyone has the same service
Yep, and it's a damned shame.
I see, just because you turned well, you want others to suffer? It is your f*ckin health, for christ's sake! It affects your basic human right to live!!! There is something wrong with your country, if you let even 1/3
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:Here's the facts on Canadian health care (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, and what I don't understand is why the issue of universal/socialized health care is rarely suggested at the state level. Clearly there is some significant portion of Americans who are interested in seeing universal health care, or there wouldn't be a discussion. So why don't some of the states try it? But all discussion I've seen has been for or against implementing federal health care.
I watched Sicko, and if nothing else, it did get me thinking more about the issue of health care. I don't quite buy Moore's argument that we need federal health care, but I do believe it's a worthy debate to have at the state level. In the movie, he tries to sell us the idea of socialized health care by pointing to the other socialized services we enjoy: firefighters, education, police departments, etc. All of these serve the public good (in theory, if not always in practice), but these services are largely managed at the state or local levels. I think there could be room for health care in that list. At the very least, I believe it's a worthy enough issue to be on the table for debate.
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Well, it depends on what you mean. If you mean Canada has the same or better results for everybody, no, it does not. Indeed, for many people, it has significantly worse results, especially those in the upper and upper middle class, and that's the point: no one is willing to have their freedom taken away, and their taxes increased, in order to be significantly worse off, even if it benefits others. There's better solutions out there that don't harm a lot of people for the sake of improving the care of a lot
Re:Here's the facts on Canadian health care (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's the way it also works in a lot of European countries (but not of course all of them). Everyone pays for the state system from taxes (so rich people who never use it are paying far more than the poorer ones who do), but there are is also private healthcare funded by those who choose to buy insurance or pay for a one-off item
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:Not Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
In Canada, drug prices are strictly regulated, and for the most part, are not marketed to the public. Not having to market is a tremenduous cost cutter and leaves more money for what little research is done by pharmaceutical labs.
In the US, pharmaceutical companies spent three time as much for marketing than they did for research.
That's because you believe that one day you will become a zillionnaire. Then, one day, you'll realize that no matter how hard you work, you'll get passed over by people sleazier than you who excel more than you in the art of bullshit and licking arse, so you'll never get a zillionnaire. But since this will never happen, you better have an universal system that is paid for everybody and that leaves no one behind. Not even the filthy rich.Re:Not Evil (Score:4, Funny)
The fun part is that the US government already runs a highly successful single payer health care system: the Veterans Health Administration.
Re:Mod Parent Up! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Mod Parent Down! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent Down! (Score:4, Interesting)
Then moore said he went to Canada and went to a hospital emergency room and saw nothing different then in America. He said there wasn't any waiting like everyone says. And the interviewer asked a few questions then Moore finally admitted that there is generally a 4 to 6 week waiting priod to see specialist and then to ge treatments authorized.
So, at least from an interview promoting the movie, it seems like everything is contrived in the same sense the GP was claiming. This move is "Moore of the same" (pardon the pun). Or at least all indecations seem that way.
Re:Mod Parent Down! (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on what your definition of "evil" is (Score:3, Insightful)
I enjoy the conservative reaction to Michael Moore. They hate him so much that they discount anything he says automatically. He could tell a conservative his hair is on fire and that conservative would use his final breath denying it as just another liberal plot.
I like Michael Moore. Most of the time he's on my side of a given issue. The only problem I have is that he can sometimes get a little sloppy when he's being cute and this gives critics a means of attacking the messenger directly and the message by proxy. I thought there were some weaknesses like that in Bowling for Columbine that undercut a good message. I was very pleased with Fahrenheit because he took himself out of the picture for the most part, critics could no longer direct their ire at Michael Moore the director. There were so many clips where administration officials could only be taken at their own recorded word, there's just not any way to spin what was said. Critics were left with saying "Michael Moore is a fat fuck, therefore what he said is wrong."
With SiCKO, it really doesn't matter if you are left or right, conservative or liberal, dem or rep. Health care is a problem for all of us. This system is fucking broken. To all the conservatives fuming at Michael Moore for saying nice things about France's health care system, shouldn't the US be able to outdo France? Shouldn't we be able to beat them at health care if we're the greatest nation in the universe?
What it boils down to, there's enough money and wealth in this country to pay for everything, it's just concentrated in the wrong hands. How many fucking billionaires do we need? How many Enrons do we have to see before we start seriously taking the business-criminal class to task? I'm not just talking about a few show trials that accomplish nothing, I mean serious reform. Because the mess that is health care is just another symptom of the greed disease that is killing us.
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I'm not just talking Iraq with the military spending either. No new jet planes, aircraft carriers etc. Some might argue for this, some might argue against it, some might try and find some other place to get the money. But in truth the US choose national security over national healthcare. I've go
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The only way you can really do this is crippling tax rates on the super rich, which only work for so long and has a side benefit of killing the industrial drive that creates them. Or you gut the military spending.
Yeah, military spending would be a nice place to start. We spend more on warfare than the rest of the world combined and we're still getting our asses handed to us by irregulars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We spend like crazy but we sure don't get much bang for the gigabuck. And according to that CNN poll, "The United States spends more than 15 percent of its GDP on health care -- no other nation even comes close to that number. France spends about 11 percent, and Canadians spend 10 percent." Those countries
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I respectfully suggest you go over to the SEC site and download and read the yearly statements of the Big Pharma companies. You'd be surprised how they actually spend their money, as opposed to what they tell the public via their PR firms. And yes, the low-level drones in such companies do
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The only way you can really do this is crippling tax rates on the super rich,
One thing that gets glossed over in SiCKO is how much profiteering there is in the U.S. healthcare system. For example, when my Grandmother was in the final months of her conventional treatment for Multiple Myeloma (sp?), her doctor perscribed Thalidomide [essentialdrugs.org]. Cost for a one month supply (30 pills, iirc) was $2309.99. Cost in Brazil: $0.09/pill. Thalidomide's patent has long-since expired, but the U.S. distribution company has patented a method that's supposed to keep the pill away from pregnant women (Thali
Moore's propaganda (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't need to be "fair" or "balanced" (Score:5, Insightful)
To boil it down to a soundbite (in appropriate MM style), is this quote: "The industry -- doctors, drug makers, hospitals, insurers -- is charged with greed and putting personal interests above patients'.
It disgusts me that the mass media like to skirt around issues by claiming things aren't "fair and balanced". If I can't afford to feed my family, what good does it do me to know that my neighbour just had filet mignon for the fifth day in a row?
The issue is not whether the US healthcare system is incapable of producing good results, nor whether the most vulnerable in the country are taken care of. The issue is that there are large parts of the US population that is unserved or underserved by the current health system. They are un(der)served because they are not so poor as to fall under medicare, but they are not so rich as to be able to afford proper health care themselves.
It should not be beyond the capacity of a wealthy, civilized country to ensure that its entire populace--particularly its hard-working middle class--is kept healthy.
(And no, I'm not arguing that Canada has a perfect system, either)
- RG>
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
(And no, I'm not arguing that Canada has a perfect system, either)
Then we agree. Both systems are foobar just that there are not that many "objective" people that can admit it. I have lived 10 years in the US, and about near triple that in in Canadian system and can honestly say they BOTH have serious problems. I am going to get the revenge of the mod down but what the heck...
Canada's claim to fame is that it is "perceived" to be universal. And it is sort of if you overlook the regional approvals tha
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sicko should have to be fair and balanced the way that "Fox News" is "Fair and Balanced" (apologies to all non-neo-cons, emphasis on double quotes)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I admit I am becoming quite conservative over the last few years and would formally agreed with you.
The problem I see is as of right now if the cost of health care keeps going up by the time 2020 comes along 100% of all taxes will just pay for medicare/medicaid!
Universal health care will break our government and cause it to bankrupt. Also the public sector is quite bad and I have seen Can
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.
Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Newsflash folks: criticism is the basis of both science and democracy. The ability to be self-critical is what makes science and democracy different from religion and theocracy. You can't criticize Jesus. That means you can't learn, you can't grow, and you can't improve. Hurray!
People who scream 'Michael Moore hates America' are pathologically incapable of thinking critically or handling criticism, even when it is constructive criticism that is desperately needed. Accept Sicko for what it is: a searing and accurate indictment of our disgraceful healthcare system. Unless you are wealthy, our healthcare system is a catastrophic failure. It is complete and utter crap compared to the systems in other developed countries, and it is an embarrassment to our country.
If you care about our country and have a functioning brain, you'll get over the knee-jerk reactionary denial and accept this unpleasant truth, and then go out and help make a change.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This appears to be t
Re:Critical thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
However even this point was considered by several people to be in support of one side or another, which is why the whole conversation about critical thought is so amusing. Think critically, but assume everything is black and white and that anyone who disagrees must be arguing the opposite "side".
What's more disappointing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Google must be smiling.
So, the debate is over then? (Score:5, Insightful)
A Google person is offering to help health care organizations tell their side of the story, and this is "evil"? If you think this is "evil" then I guess you think there is no room for debate here.
Personally, I think health care issues are not so cut-and-dried as that. For a look at the other side of the story, consider this editorial from MTV:
'Sicko': Heavily Doctored, By Kurt Loder [mtv.com]
steveha
Not really evil, just a bit unwise. (Score:3, Informative)
Sicko is BS (Score:4, Interesting)
From MTV no less. But its worth a read. In short, you can't mandate access to a scarce resource without rationing. The best course of action (IMHO) is to reduce the cost of healthcare. And no, I'm not talking about making health insurance charge less by some law, I'm talking about reducing the real costs. The cost of malpractice insurance is one area that creates a big impact on the final cost of health care. Also moving more of the development of new drugs into public institutions and making sure that the results aren't privatized. Even patent reform could help in this area.
There are underlying realities in the health care industry that can not be changed. You can't increase the number of EFFECTIVE doctors and you can't make them work for peanuts. You can drive down the costs of education, equipment and drugs through the use of public funding though.
Re:Sicko is BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely. And how does the US handle that rationing right now? Money. Call me a socialist, but I'd rather the rationing be based on, you know, who needs the resource more. Honestly, who gives a damn if someone is forced to wait 6 months for knee surgery, when the alternative is a blue collar worker being denied a heart transplant?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, in the current US situation, the answer is "whoever has more money". You're telling me that's the best possible solution?
In the end better health care is one of the motivators to be successful
Well, given the GDP of the EU, which is primarily composed of natio
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please do not take this as disagreement with the US attitude towards health. In general it is what I consider to be "right" and most other countries to be "wrong". Dead wrong, as you will see.
In most other countries, from what I have read and seen in quite a bit of travel, it is assumed that you will at some point in your life get sick and die. This is viewed as a natural event that cannot be altered, stopped or even delaye
I think the biggest reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
On an aggregate level though, it's easy to see what kind of healthcare we provide. We can make up statistics which show how we're doing for the people overall, and we can make socialeconomic considerations on whether to improve them. In short, we can say "If we could cut waiting lines by X%, recovery rates would improve by Y% and we'd recover Z% because people are shorter on sick leave. The US can make those statistics, but not govern by them. You instead go by rules like "If we replace this with inferior treatment, our costs will be cut by X% while our malpractise/wrongful death costs will increase by Y% (where X > Y). The best hospital case is the one you dropped like a hot potato, refused to insure and so left in a ditch. Here the best case is to pick them up, get them to change their lifestyle so they won't burden our system later. Basicly, the more likely you are to need help the less likely you'll get it.
Some of the arguments I hear are quite ridiculous, like if healthcare was free then people would abuse it. Look, you don't go doing extreme sports and go through all the trauma, pain and lengthy recovery just because it's free. The average guy would rather not have to deal with doctors and nurses and hospitals any more than they need to. Nobody asks for a mentally or physically son or daughter so they can have their life upended, no matter if we donate money for equipment and accessibility tools like guide dogs, hearing aids, wheelchairs, ramps and whatnot. Some people just got a big "fuck you" in the lottery of life, which society should work to undo.
Yes, some people are probably going to end up in healthcare because of their own lifestyle and/or stupidity. But it's not certain the guy who died of a stroke in his 50s is more of a burden than the 90yo slowly dying, in fact I've read some material to the contrary. Elderly people are notoriously expensive to treat, they're frail and often have complex health issues which makes them hard to treat with high risk of causing new issues and are slow to recover. Nursing homes for elderly which have trouble getting out of bed, clothing themselves, feeding themselves, going to the toilet, personal hygiene etc. quickly drain much more resources that younger people who usually either recover or die. In fact, that's likely to be the biggest problem with an aging population here in Europe, but it sure doesn't get easier the American way.
Absolutely staggered... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rarely have I heard such sneering disdain for the poor and for documentary makers. Michael Moore makes films that try to show you what has happened to your country and mostly all you can seem to do is sneer at him.
The attitude of "pay or fuck off and die in the gutter" is not acceptable in a civilised human being. What, do you think it's cool to be mega-wealthy and then refuse help to someone who's in need? What has happened to your humanity?
And some hopeless retard actually said "socialism is a bad idea". What, and the fucked up, society wrecking, planet consuming filth called capitalism is better?
Socialism is your only hope, its just that those who make the most money from this retarded capitalism thing have a vested interest in promoting socialism as a stupid evil that would spoil everything because it would spoil everything - for them. And you've fallen for it. Well duh! is, I think, the correct response at this juncture.
As for Google...
After China are you really that surprised? It's surely more a case of, if they go mega evil slowly enough most of you will still be trumpeting the fact that "hey, but they use Linux" when the google-bot delivers the evidence against you in the google-court.
scanning the comments on moore below (Score:5, Insightful)
(smacks forehead)
that the idea that michael moore ever could be neutral in any way, or that such a yardstick should ever be used in criticizing him, is to me, naive beyond ridiculous. folks, if you have passion for any topic in this world, sticking to neutral facts won't get you one iota of interest. it will get you obscurity. in other words, NOBODY is neutral on ideological topics. the right, the left, the middle, any other ideological position you can think of: if you want to judge michael moore, judge him on his ability to elicit interest in a subject matter. his neutrality? HA! am i supposed to laugh that you honestly think this is a valid subject matter?
everyone attacking moore is of course not neutral either. so why all the talk of neutrality? it's patently ridiculous. i was in fact just reading another story in the new york times, an interview with the great werner herzog [nytimes.com] on his filmmaking, and i think everyone here needs to consider these words when considering michael moore and "neutrality":
folks: every single word you read, every conversation you hear, anywhere, is biased. everyone is trying to sell you a bill of goods, all the time. furthermore, you yourself are not neutral, and never were. no media ever will be neutral. no media ever was neutral. you go through life with a bullshit meter, or you don't go through life at all
having realized that, we judge moore in a different light: his ability to engage and persuade. on this level, moore is unmitigated success, and an object of jealousy and hate for those on the right of issues. who cares? they have their own successes in the field of persuasion that liberals in turn hate and are jealous of
facts are overrated folks. as werner herzog says, you can cling to them if you wish, but that only makes you an unimportant obscure accountant. persuasion is what matters. because human belief is not about cold hard static facts, it is about your passion for how things SHOULD BE, not how THEY ARE. there are no facts to be had about how things should be. in which case, clinging to the need for "facts" in subject matter like healthcare is at best missing the point, and at worse, naive and stupid
everything you read and hear is full of smears, propaganda, lies, errors, partisanship, etc. a random cacophony of background noise. your average person's healthy critically minded bullshit meter can weed the useful from the unuseful. your bullshit meter should be on red alert all the time: those with an agenda aren't random riff raff, they are dug deep into every media outlet existing, that has ever existed, and will ever exist. some of you need to accept that
some of you lament the increasing bias you see in the media landscape today. ha! you are honestly going to tell me there was some place and some time in the past when things weren't biased? are you trying to tell me you suffer from historical myopia, romantic nostalgia or something? NEVER EXISTED FRIEND. AND NEVER WILL
do you want to blindly trust the m
I don't have health Insurance (Score:5, Interesting)
But this is okay for most of you, RIGHT? After all, YOU have company health insurance, and you're single..RIGHT? Well, so did I, until one day when I was LAID OFF!
Don't you DARE say that the health care system in the USA is fair or equitable! It isn't...and I'm LIVING PROOF OF IT!!It will be very interesting to see.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google might want to consider changing their motto to "We pander to anyone that can pay". It's slightly less misleading.
Anyone know if they have a defense industry advertising blog? I'd love to see that one.
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?
FrankPeople will pay anything... (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of people believe that the US health care system is free market. It is not. 50% of all health care dollars are spent by the government. The government runs 5 socialized health care systems: medicare, medicaid, military hospitals, VA hospitals, and the indian hospitals. The rest is heavily regulated from top to bottom. It might be only 10% free market. Most of the problems with it are attributable to government interference.
Remember our wounded soldiers the government abandoned at Walter Reed Hospital? Look forward to plenty of that with the government running your health care.
Come On.. (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no love lost for insurance companies from me, but I'd much rather they too have free speech, even if it means "spinning" things their way, than to start censoring anyone who disagree with Michael Moore.
-Bill
I don't see a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Google were evil if they tried to pick and choose who can use them to advertise.
Now, it was perhaps in bad taste for Google to advertise specifically to the health care industry, but that's still this side of evil, in particular since Sicko really is not completely accurate.
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...)
Free speech is EEEEVIL! (Score:3, Interesting)
You want evil, go look up what Castro does to dissidents.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Moore isn't Neutral (Score:5, Insightful)
You think H1B visas are bad? Try going into a local hospital. We're importing a lot of our medical workers from overseas now. My mom is an RN and she tells me that she wouldn't want anyone she knows going into an American hospital. Her fellow nurses stand vigil when family members go in. A fellow nurse had to stand guard over her heart attack husband lest one of the unskilled new nurses kill the man with her incompetence. The dumb bitch dropped an IV needle on the floor and picked it up as if she were going to use it on him. One of the new stunts hospitals are attempting is replacing RN's with cut-rate staff with less training than CNA's, a gaggle of McJobbers with each one doing a small portion of the RN's overall job. Do they know what they're doing? Hell, no. But the hospital figures the wage savings will be far greater than the cost of wrongful death suits. I haven't even gone into the chaos that comes from immigrant medical workers who can't speak the fucking language. I have no problem with foreign people and foreign ways but if lives are on the line, communications had better be standardized! If the hospital is in Cuba, we can speak Spanish. But if the hospital is in the States, we'd better be speaking English and there better not be an accent thick enough to club someone with. Poor communication kills. And let's not even get into the Medicare fraud perpetrated by for-profit home health agencies, going into fucking hospices to give physical therapy to terminal cases. Look! The patient is going to be dead inside a month, there's no need for --oooh, did I see money?
There are some things far too important in life for dollars to be the deciding factor. Health care should NEVER be a for-profit enterprise. Anyone who says different needs his insurance revoked right before he's kicked down a flight of stairs. See how you like it now, asshole.
Re:Moore isn't Neutral (Score:5, Insightful)
You need a car to get to a job. How much are you willing to pay for the car? I'd pay enough that I'd soon make a good return on that job compared to some job I could get to without the car.
You need a treatment or you'll die. How much are you willing to pay to stay alive? I'd pay everything that I have, because it does me no good when I'm dead. This doesn't depend on how much I have. In fact, I'd be willing to pay money I don't even have yet. This is why so many people go into debt to stay alive in the USA.
Since the value of your own life is essentially boundless, markets don't regulate health care well.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming that there's only one person able to save my life, sure. Of course, that's not much of a market.
That one person is going to make a lot of money... so much that other people are goi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Because none of the following are present in healthcare, and all are required for a functioning free market:
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:Moore isn't Neutral (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, most people understand food pretty well. We buy it all the time; it's fairly obvious what we need and what we're buying. Almost no one understands health care, and health care decisions are far more crucial than what food to buy. Do you really want the people making decisions for you at the most vulnerable point in your life to be motivated by how much money they can make off of you, rather than what would be best for you? With the exception of elective stuff like plastic surgery, health care just doesn't operate in a free market, and allowing a profit motive is just asking to be exploited.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you really want the people making decisions for you at the most vulnerable point in your life to be motivated by how much money they can make off of you, rather than what would be best for you?
This doesn't change in a fully socialised health care system:
http://news.netdoctor.co.uk/news_detail.php?id=180 52027 [netdoctor.co.uk]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3196134.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.nice.org.uk/ [nice.org.uk]
Etc, there's several more examples. In a socialised system, instead of making money off you, the care depends on how much you're going to cost the budget. Exactly the same thing as commercial healthcare.
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether or not you agree with him is irrelivant: the point is to open debate. Bring the issue into the open rather than let it fester like sores that don't get treated.
And as far as documentaries being neutral, I really wish people would get over that fallacy. Unless you're Ken Burns making a documentary on somet
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Michael Moore in a nutshell. All he does is polarize subjects. I watched part of Fahrenheit 9/11 some months after it came out, and while people who wanted to believe what he said could take it as gospel, it was clearly biased and misleading to anyone of a neutral or opposing views on
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
That fact alone is more persuasive than the entire Michael Moore film. Michael Moore's real talent lies not in persuasion but in playing with the people in power as if they were kitty toys. The reactions they cause would be hilarious were it not for the fact that these were the guys running the nation--example, during the 2000 elections when MM got Alan Keyes to mosh in a pit with his friends from Rage Against the Machine Gary Bauer's quote pretty much outdoes anything I could actually say about it:
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ignorance (Score:3, Insightful)
Try not being a GOP puppet. Thinking for yourself isn't nearly as hard as you might imagine.
This is my favourite though:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So pharmaceutical companies charge well in excess of manufacturing and research costs. This covers the marketing. Why, then, are they wasting all this money on marketing? I know! So they can make more money. Why? Because
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Amusingly enough, that's not entirely true. One of Moore's major points was that in the US, even if you have health insurance, they still won't pay for anything if they can find any excuse not to - and they put a lot of effort into finding excuses not to.
You know all those pages and pages of terms and conditions that came with your policy, that you didn't really study carefully? As soon as you want any money, they're going to go over every line with a fine-tooth comb, and if you forgot to dot an 'i' or cross a 't', they won't pay.
The only way to get reliable access to the medical system in the US is if you are so wealthy that you can pay your own medical bills, without relying on an insurance company. That's something in the region of the top 1% of the population. The rest are screwed (this means YOU).
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Except of course for the 45 Million Americans who cannot afford it and have no insurance.
What Cuba has is an excellent 'low tech proactive health care system for every one' as opposed to the United States which does not. It has high tech medicine availible for those who can pay. In Cuba I can go to a doctor as soon as I feel unwell. I will then be treated usually preventing my illness, say pneumonia, from getting worse. I know the visit to the doctor is 'free' as opposed to in the United States where I only go to the Emergency room when I am nearly dead because I cannot afford to go to a doctor at the beginning of the illness and then the state has to pick up the entire cost on my hospital stay.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
That's assuming you're employed with insurance. Ever priced self-employed insurance? It's -way- more than $150 a month. A friend of mine pays $1500 a month. It just about approaches his mortgage, and in a few years (due to inflation), it will surpass it. Isn't that a bit ridiculous?
The US system is probably worse than you think... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now compare the US model to that of its western, developed world counterparts. All of a sudden, the US model doesn't look so great, does it?
The US medical system is flawed. Yes, you have access to some of the greatest medical care in the world, but that is true if and only if you're able to pay for it. If you're not covered and you can't afford it then you might as well not exist.
Approximately 41-44 million Americans have no health coverage. That's about 15 percent of the population. Approximately 18,000 Americans die every year because they couldn't afford simple screening and preventive care for chronic diseases. Note, that's not because they couldn't afford an expensive treatment, it's because they didn't know that they had a serious illness until it was too late to do something about it.
To put that in context, six times as many Americans die every year that need not have died because of this one reason alone than died as a result of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. (Where's the "War on Illness"?) And that's the thousands more that wouldn't die if they had access to basic medicine and treatments that people in, say, Canada and Europe would take for granted.
Health insurance in the US isn't about providing patients with the best possible care. Instead, like all businesses it's about providing the maximum possible profit to shareholders, as required by law. As much as 30 percent of US private health insurance premiums is eaten up by overheads and profits. Medicare, the state solution, has overheads that amount to just one percent, and no shareholders to take a pound of flesh.
If the private sector solution is so efficient then why does it suck so much money out of the system?
15.4 percent of the US GDP is spent on healthcare. Healthcare expenses is the number one reason for personal bankrupcy in the US. Compared to their counterparts, Americans pay through the teeth for healthcare, yet the US is ranked only 37th (based on general health of the population, access, patient satisfaction and how the care's paid for) by the World Health Organisation.
By comparison, Canada spends less than 10 percent of it's GDP on healthcare, yet is ranked in the top ten. In actual terms, Canadians spend half as much per capita as Americans do (Canada's GDP/capita is a lot lower than it's southern neighbour's) yet get better overall care. Life expectancy in Canada is three years greater, both for men and for women, there are fewer infant mortalities, etc.
Don't get me wrong, there are things to be admired about the US. But, generally, healthcare provision is not one of them and neither is it likely to be for a very long time unless someone is brave enough to do something about it.
Yes, the US system might be better than Cuba's but, to be honest, that's of little consolation to the millions of Americans who literally can't afford to be sick.
Re:The US system is probably worse than you think. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the whole "public healthcare raises taxes" argument is lost right there -- if the States had a system anywhere close to the efficiency of other industrialized nations', they could theoretically be spending just as much at the government level and chuck most of the private health costs. Of course, that's probably unrealistic in that it would likely be politically difficult to build a system like that out of the one in place now.
Anyway, since I can't recall all of the sources of the statistics I've read, I did a bit of googling for you. Right off the top, the OECD (http://www.oecd.org/) [oecd.org] is an excellent source that often pops up in such discussions. They have an entire section on Health statistics of member nations.
And here's spending info courtesy of the WHO: http://www.who.int/whosis/database/core/core_sele
This includes per capita government spending on health care, which happens to show that Canadian governement spending (for example) is less than U.S. Government spending, per capita.
And a bit of a comparison of average life expectency and spending on health care (note the disparity when it comes to the U.S.): http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php [ucsc.edu].
Anyway, what tends to bother me the most about these debates on Slashdot is that it often comes down to people with data to back them up versus people who blindly believe that the American system MUST cost less. I mean, it isn't government-run, right?
That position is undeniably false, and I really wish we could at least get past that part of the debate so that something meaningful can come from these discussions. Of course, faith in the free market, just like any other faith, doesn't require facts to be believed.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
As surprising as this may be, it's just a straight-up plug for the utility of their text search ads.
Is it evil? Well, now. That's quite a question.
Sure, HMO's are evil. Sure, censorship is evil. But it would also be evil for google to refuse to sell ads to the health insurance industry.
This is not, as people have stated, a sign of google moving to protect its interests and maximize profits in a way that puts people after corporations. Offering these services, in order to let health insurance companies respond to a particularly strident and vocal political opponent, by selling them context ads, is hardly evil.
Far from it. I'd rather have text ads than know about the truly evil PR crap that is, and will continue to be, spewed across our television screens if the HMO's really feel threatened, like they did in the mid-90's.
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I hate bloodthirsty health professionals ...
The healthcare professionals aren't the bad guys - they're just doing the best they know how for their clients (patients). What most don't realize is how their medical education has been coopted by pharmaceutical companies. In the early 1900's, the Carnegie foundation financed the Flexner Report, which was used to start shutting down about 1/2 of the country's medical schools. Closures fell disproportionately on for-profit schools, because the curiculum at schools which operated on grants could be influen
Re:Micheal? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The numbers being given by other posters are