Google Protects Healthcare From Michael Moore

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

This isn't anwhere near as evil as collecting user's browsing data or cooperating with Chinese censorship. They are offering companies a PR service. I hope you're not saying that it's wrong to counter propaganda? That's all Moore's 'documentaries' are really, even when he makes good points (which isn't all that often).

Re:Not Evil

Indeed. From the title, one could expect something like "Google is censoring search results about Sicko!". But really, Google is saying "hey, healthcare guys, you've got stuff on your website - here's how to get us to index it better and find it" (insert standard non-spammy search engine optimization strategies here) "and you can even advertise with us while you're at it!"

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.

Pfft

Not even the diet-coke of evil.

Re:Pfft

You kids and your newfangled evil. Back in my day, evil had Moxie.

Re:Not Evil

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".

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:

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.

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

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.

Now, if you do believe that our friends in the health care industry are pure evil, and that they're spending blood money, then yes, Google is, indeed, being evil. 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. As such, anything that the companies say to contradict that must, in fact, be evil propaganda utterly devoid of any informative content, with the ultimate design to boost their image (and their profits) - at the expense of all that is well and good in the world, if necessary.

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

Forget Moore's general idiocy for one moment and concentrate on the health insurance industry. Everything he is saying about the american health insurance industry is true. They do give bonuses to their employees for finding excuses to deny patients operations they desperately need. They do everything they can to weasel out of their obligations when other people's lives are on the line.

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.

Re:Not Evil

moore is a sensationalist idiot

many people who are sick and dieing cling to unproven treatments which aren't covered by the funds for very good reasons

Just watch the movie before being prejudicial. You have no clue what you are talking about. It's not just about the "Rainmaker" cases where they kill someone that needed a bone marrow transplant (not experimental at all) which they do show one case of. It's also not about the millions of Americans that have absolutely no health insurance even though that should be enough to upset anyone. No, what's really wrong with the system is how every single step of the way, the medical companies are fighting with you. From the ambulance ride to the IV drugs to the overpriced prescriptions, they are looking for some way to stick it to you. The fact alone that they make more money by giving less medical care is completely flawed and ultimately a case of "letting the wolves guard the chicken coop".

Re:Not Evil

OK, I will bite. What does he say about the american health insurance companies that is untrue? Im not talking about the cuba trip, or his fascination with socialism in general, just want to know what you think is untrue about the health insurance companies. I am not defending him as a filmmaker, I know a lot of what he says is horribly misleading. But he really cant help but be correct when he talks about the health insurance industry because there are serious problems there. So what is he saying about the health insurance companies that is untrue?

Re:Not Evil

It's "fox guarding the henhouse" but I take your point.

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.

not closed source kind of evil

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

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]).

Quite Evil - from a physician

Pharma and the insurance industry are evil. Moreover in the case of the health insurance industry they serve no purpose. Previously insurers would assume risk and in doing so merit some financial reward. With the advent of capitation and risk selection, they don't even do that anymore. They are leeches, that in the words of Sicko: Flat Suck.

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 fo

Re:Quite Evil - from a physician

That would be a tax to cover a percentage of the population: those who are over 65 who have worked (or their spouse worked) ~10 years while paying that tax, many of the disabled, and those who have end stage renal disease (ESRD) who need dialysis. That would not be what I spoke of in the quote you used which is health care for all.

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

Here's the facts on Canadian health care

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.

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/2000/000 7.marmorsul.html [washingtonmonthly.com]
Canada's Burning!
Media myths about universal health coverage
By Theodore Marmor & Kip Sullivan

Re:Here's the facts on Canadian health care

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 of other people.

Canadians have decided long ago that it is not right for a rich man to have better service when it means that everyone else will have worse.

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:Here's the facts on Canadian health care

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

First of all, let's just note the fact that federalized health care is blatantly unconstitutional. No, I won't explain that in detail, because I am tired of explaining about enumerated rights and the Tenth Amendment.

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.

Re:Here's the facts on Canadian health care

We also have humane and effective universal health cover in Australia and you can take out private insurance if you want a private room for mum and baby, silicone implants, ect. The idea that "world class" health care could bankrupt any family is a bipartisan "evil" in this country.

Re:Not Evil

I agree that our health care system could be improved. However, Michael Moore's proposal - go to a single payer system - is not the answer. In Canada, one of the systems highlighted by his film...

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.

The U.S. ranks last of six nations overall. As in the earlier editions, the U.S. ranks last on indicators of patient safety, efficiency, and equity. New Zealand, Australia, and the U.K. continue to demonstrate superior performance, with Germany joining their ranks of top performers. The U.S. is first on preventive care, and second only to Germany on waiting times for specialist care and non-emergency surgical care, but weak on access to needed services and ability to obtain prompt attention from physicians.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publi cations_show.htm?doc_id=482678 [commonwealthfund.org]

The real tragedy from Australia's point of view, is that our government has an ideological commitment to drag our healthcare system down to the US's level, instead of bringing it up to match the top performers.

Re:Not Evil

Still, changing to the "single-payer" system would make things even worse in that regard.

Not at all. The Canadian "single payer" health-care system has only 3% administrative overhead, as opposed to 35%-40% for the private US one. And since everyone is covered identically, there is no time lost finding out if someone is insured for this or that treatment. Nor are people fired because the employer's insurance is tired of paying for the employee's children expensive cancer treatment.

There's also a significant incentive for the single-payer government solution to cut its own costs by, oh, passing legislation on what people are allowed to eat (and I'm sure there are some people out there who already would like to outlaw Big Macs).

There is no such thing in Canada, and pity the hapless government who would pass such laws...

Now, I'm not a big fan of such things, but the notion of that kind of legislation scares me... as does the notion of health care as a bureaucracy. (You thought insurance companies were bad? Wait until they're more like the DMV.)

FUD. There is no bureaucracy; treatment and/or procedure are covered or not. Every time a medical act is performed, it is clear-cut whether it is covered or not.

... drugs are expensive because researching them takes lot of money paying intelligent people with expensive educations, and which may or may not be successful.

Oxdung. Most drug research is performed in university labs with government money. Drugs are expensive because they have to be marketed to the public because in the US, it's a "free" "market".

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.

The outrage some people seem to express at wealthy people being able to pay other wealthy people for quality healthcare seems a silly to me.

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.

Maybe if the doctors were all humble and devout servants of the greater good of humanity, they would be just as willing to treat the poor, and not make a lot of money, and things would be more equitable in the world, yeah. But they're not charities, they're people, and their efforts are their own, to dispose of as they will.

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

While I'm sure the Canadian healthcare system is all of those things, it requires tremendous Faith in the US government to implement such a system so light on bureaucracy that it can actually be effective. I for one lack that kind of faith and I think the real root of the problem is that most people in the US feel that way as well.

The fun part is that the US government already runs a highly successful single payer health care system: the Veterans Health Administration.

Re:Not Evil

In Canada the gov pays 1/2 as much on our behalf for a longer life expectancy. There are wait list for surgeries but is more demographic problem then any real problem with the system. Any pay as you go system with a large number of upcoming takes and a smaller pool of givers is going to have some of these problems. But they are ironed out with time and a stable demographic spread. Considering your private system takes twice as much funds from the government per person then our public system, and a non-trivial portion of your population is uninsured or under insured I'd be careful about pointing fingers.

Re:Not Evil

Dont get me wrong, I have a pretty low opinion of Michael Moore, but his criticisms of the health insurance industry are very accurate. They do routinely find ways to deny life saving operations to people who have been paying their premiums their entire lives. Let me repeat that, people who have been paying for the insurance their entire lives die because the insurance companies want to save a few bucks. This is very evil. Moore cant help but be accurate in his criticisms of the HMOs, its so easy to find outragous stories about what they have done to their clients. Socialism may be a bad idea, but something does need to be done about these insurance companies letting their clients die. Shame on google for trying to help them with their image. If they want to clean up their image they should stop trying to find ways to let their clients die.

Re:Not Evil

Socialism may be a bad idea, but..

This is precisely one of the problems Moore touches on, universal health care != socialism

Re:Not Evil

True, everyone gets treatment, but many are unable to be treated in time or figure out their paperwork.

This is one of the things Moore reveals in this film as untrue. I know people in Canada and the UK. I lived in Japan. All have socialized medicine in a sense. I can tell you it is 100% true that health care in Japan is cheap, easy, and effective. From what I've heard from Canadians and Brits, their health care system is vastly better than how it is portrayed in the US.

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. /sarcasm

Re:Not Evil

Thats the whole point of insurance. People each contribute on the offchance they need super expensive surgery and if they end up needing it they can get it. If it werent for the chance of one day needing some high dollar surgery then noone would bother with health insurance. If you believe that a persons life isnt worth that much money and expensive surgeries should not be done as a rule then you should also be questioning why insurance companies exist in the first place.

Re:Not Evil

It's wrong if a company wants to be taken as an honest presenter of information. Since when is it the job of a search engine to "educate" people on political issues anyway?

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.

Re:Mod Parent Up!

It seems that Moore plays loose [wikipedia.org] with the facts by omitting known relevant information, staging scenes, and disingenuously splicing together video in order to make something appear to be when it is not. He does this in all [wikipedia.org] of his films [wikipedia.org]. The issues Moore raises need to be discussed, but should be done so truthfully and without the propaganda.

Re:Mod Parent Down!

Thread 19704559 [slashdot.org] - critisisms: "It seems that Moore plays loose with the facts by omitting known relevant information" It is impossible to include "all known information" in a film or viable length. The "staging scenes" critisism could be seen as ill founded as he admits to such scenes being his contrivance to the most part, and could then be assumed by most thinking viewers to be a common device of his film direction. " He does this in all of his films." - Needs sitation or evidence. For example, for the film in question.

Re:Mod Parent Down!

I don't know if this is evidence, but I saw him in an interview promoting his book on PBS this last weekend. He goes on about how all the hospitals in the UK give people money when they leave to make sure they have a way home and food in their stomach. This interviewer asked if that was true, then why in the guardian was there a story about a 70 some year old woman treated and released and was found in the parking lot because she had no way home and no one to call for a ride. He said people fall through the cracks. He asked Moore about why, if the healthcare is so good in france, why then are they always protesting and stuff. And then more said it was becuase of the protests that it is so good. And then the interviewer asked if it is so good, why are we seeing them protest about the same stuff? and moore moved on to talking about canada avoiding the question.

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!

I can't speak for the others, but I know of how my mother was treated when she needed hospital treatment here in the UK. If the patient can't easily arrange transport to or from hospital then that can be provided free. This can be by volunteer drivers, ambulance, or even taxis. As for food I think it's true that hospitals like to make sure their inpatients have eaten before going home, but that may only be normal meal times. So it really comes down to how the discharge is time in relation to meal times. I'd be surprised if any hospital actually gave a patient money, but it's not impossible. As for the 70 year old mentioned it's possible she had said she'd already got transport arranged, but either she hadn't or someone didn't turn up. As to the exact reason that's anyone's guess and obviously it should have been made sure that she was alright. Unfortunately no system is going to be perfect and some times it will fall short of ideal.

Re:Of course

Do you realize that healthcare is the largest cause of debt in the United States? That's fucked up.

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:

Alan, a couple of weeks ago, you criticized my good friend John McCain because he expressed some support of or interest in a controversial music group [McCain had claimed to be a fan of Nine Inch Nails]. In view of that I was a little surprised this week to see you fall in to a mosh pit while a band called "The Machine Rages On," or "Rage Against the Machine" played [Bauer is either genuinely ignorant or trying to distance himself from actually knowing the name of such an evil bandboth seem plausible]. That band is anti-family. It's pro-cop killer, and it's pro-terrorist.

He then goes on to falsely claim it's what the kids at Columbine listened to.

Re:Of course

The United States has an even better medical system...as long as you can pay for it. And your changes of being able to pay for it in the United States are better than your chances of being one of the elite in Cuba.

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

There are lots of problems with the US medical system. Lack of government involvment, however, really isn't one of them. There are a couple of no-brainers that would greatly improve things, however like: 1) let individuals buy insurance from out of state companies and 2) let individuals deduct insurance and other medical expenses from their end of year taxes (rather than, at best, the not-very-good Medical Savings Plan).

And while we're at it, let's reform the patent system for drugs. Maybe if the taxpayers pay for it, don't give a patent, or give it for shorter terms, and certainly don't EXTEND the patent beyond the original terms (even if the taxpayers didn't pay for it, because then the taxpayers pay for it).

Re:Of course

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

20-somethings who choose to have $150 a month extra partying money

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...

That's a valid criticism, as long as you're comparing the US medical system to just that of Cuba.

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.

I have been doing a lot of reading up on health care statistics lately, and I recognize most of those mentioned in the above post. The most astonishing fact I've stumbled upon is that the U.S. *government* spends more on health care per capita than most other nations (including Canada). Then, you add on that the States also spend more (much much more) per person than other nations on private funding, and you can understand why the system costs more.

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_selec t_process.cfm?countries=all&indicators=nha [who.int]
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

No, no and no. It says nothing about censorship, tailoring of google's 'search formulas', or google bomb insurance. ;)

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.

Re:Moore isn't Neutral

Health Care is expensive, in part, because it's chronically understaffed due to professional-school elitism by the AMA and the Nurse's unions.

Wrong. They are chronically understaffed because so many institutions have become for-profit. The overhead of dealing with medical billing is insane and every clerk hired means one less nurse.

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

No offense, but you're an idiot if you can't see that health care is a special case. All of the markets you mention involve a normal exchange of money for goods/services. Companies have incentives to provide me with good food, housing, phone service, and entertainment, because if they don't, I won't buy their product. (energy and other utilities are another special case due to the required infrastructure, which is why they're generally provided by a heavily regulated government-granted monopoly, no free market). Health care doesn't work that way. In health care, there are two entities trying to profit - the hospitals and the insurers. When you get sick, the insurer already has your money; why would they pay if they can get out of it? If you have a heart attack, you'll go to the nearest hospital, and they'll bill you the same whether the care was great or terrible. Since neither insurers nor hospitals can be comparison shopped in most circumstances, why would they have an incentive to provide good care?

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:Moore isn't Neutral

Health care should NEVER be a for-profit enterprise.

Why the fuck not?

Although I'd object to the rather extremist language of the grandparent, free markets are terrible regulators for healthcare. To put it a little simplistically, compare these cases:

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:Moore isn't Neutral

Health Care is expensive, in part, because it's chronically understaffed due to professional-school elitism by the AMA and the Nurse's unions.

[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.

Depends on what your definition of "evil" is

And with the right lawyers, you can get very creative with the defining.

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.

Moore's propaganda

Why are we so quick to label Michael Moore's films as propaganda? It seems like a quick and easy way to dismiss him without actually dealing with what he says. I've seen SiCKO and can't understand why any average American would want to dismiss Moore so quickly. ~~ooooh scary socialism~~

Doesn't need to be "fair" or "balanced"

Pardon the slightly offtopic rant, but there is an article on the AP wire entitled "Moore's 'Sicko' gives accused little say" by Kevin Freking and Linda A. Johnson. (You can find it yourself if you want to, but I'm not about to send them traffic.)

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'. ... But one aspect missing from the film is the defense. Do not expect to hear anyone speak well of the care they received in the U.S."

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>

This isn't Google doing PR

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

It's disappointing that so many slashdotters - intelligent and educated people that they tend to be - are reactionary blowhards who obviously haven't even seen the film, and that these same people are so unable to stomach criticism.

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:Critical thinking

Then he likely would have been relating a different anecdote. The entire point of his anecdotal story was that the issue is not black and white, that in order to truly think critically about this issue you need to consider positives as well as negatives. The point of providing an anecdotal story with a good outcome was only to point out that good things can happen and perhaps should be included in any critical thinking that is done on the issue. That the issue, like so many, is gray rather than black and white.
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".

So, the debate is over then?

Ray Bradbury said it best: the remedy to speech you don't like is more speech. (As opposed to censoring the speech you don't like.)

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.

To me it just seems like Google is reminding the HMO's of a way to use Google services for damage control. As long as they would grant the same right to Micheal Moore I'm fine with it. Now if they gave a discount to the companies, then that would be evil.

Sicko is BS

I'd just like point out this link: http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1563758/st ory.jhtml [mtv.com]

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

In short, you can't mandate access to a scarce resource without rationing.

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?

I think the biggest reason...

...that universal healthcare works so much better than individual insurance is that it's really hard to determine treatment quality for an individual - each case is unique with its own development, own medical history and quite often we just don't understand why some patients recover so well or poor, or in extreme cases live and die. Often there's some religious or emotional answer given instead. If you got stuck in an operation queue for a month, did it kill you or did it make no difference? It's quite impossible to say. That means that in the US model, an insurance company is out to give you as little and cheap treatment as they can get away with, without being provable malpractise.

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...

...at the level of hard hearted, sneering ignorance in some of the posts on this subject. Let me make a guess here - a reasonable proportion/most of the responders are Americans who can afford Medical Insurance.
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

i am struck by the attacks on moore's neutrality

(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":

Q. There have been some accusations that you've taken liberties with facts in some of your documentaries and in "Rescue Dawn," particularly from the family of Eugene DeBruin. What is your reaction to those accusations?

A. If we are paying attention about facts, we end up as accountants. If you find out that yes, here or there, a fact has been modified or has been imagined, it will be a triumph of the accountants to tell me so. But we are into illumination for the sake of a deeper truth, for an ecstasy of truth, for something we can experience once in a while in great literature and great cinema. I'm imagining and staging and using my fantasies. Only that will illuminate us. Otherwise, if you're purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn't illuminate.

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

I don't have health insurance. My COBRA ran out in January. I was paying amlost SEVENTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH for Blus Cross that paid 80% of IN NETWORK stuff-and even THAT had a yearly deductible applied to it. My son caught Lyme Disease last summer, and the co pays and deductibles for that ONE incident cost me almost $6000.00! Doing consulting last year, I grossed about $52,000. Take away $1668.00 (monthly COBRA) * 12 months and then add $6000.00 to that. What do you get? TWENTY SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS! HALF of my pre-tax income went DIRECTLY to health insurance. Actually, it was closer to THIRTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS, because my wife has Asthma and takes medication for depression, and my 17 year old daughter fell on ice and fractured her tailbone. And some of you here have the NERVE to tell me this is okay??? I have an average sized family with four children on the health insurance. Health care costs were the SINGLE BIGGEST EXPENSE I paid last year! MORE then housing, MORE then food, MORE then ANYTHING...IN fact, MORE then EVERYTHING ELSE PUT TOGETHER!!!

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....

... where Lauren Turner is working next month. My affinity towards things Google hinges on it.

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....

... 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?

Frank

People will pay anything...

...for the illusion of 'free' health care.

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..

Oh Lord... Listen people, free speech cuts both way. It not only allows you to say what /you/ believe, but it also allows others to say what /they/ believe.

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

Google is offering to sell ads. That's their business. I don't see a problem with that. Of course, health care companies can use that to get their message out, just like right wing politicians, open source nerds, on-line pharmacies, and herbal viagra salesmen can use it to get their message out.

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

Hi, I'm italian and i could bring examples of extremely poor public healthcare but I won't as I think it's mostly due to a cultural incapacity to get a good job correctly done without trying to cut corners and screw anyone whenever possible. We also have a kind of mixed system where doctors can, or used to until very recently, exercise their practice both in public and private structures so that, inevitably, the public service is treated as a hunting ground where to pick up patients for expensive private clinics. Also, slackers and nepotism plague the public institutions where barons, who often own the most prestigious clinics, sit on the top chairs with the sole purpose of driving and keeping everything firmly into the ground just for the sake of exercising their feudal power.

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!

Idiot. What's "evil" about offering rebuttal google ads so heath care companies can answer Moore?

You want evil, go look up what Castro does to dissidents.

Too many issues in here for a quick soundbite

Well, I can see the conversation is being dominated by the pro socialized/single-payer/government funded healthcare crowd, but I'll try anyway.

First, let's be clear that what everyone is talking about isn't 'insurance' for the most part, but 'maintanence.' Health 'insurance' is the only sort of insurance where the insurer is expected to pay for day-to-day stuff.

You don't call up your auto insurance people when your car develops a squeal or it starts pulling to the right. You live with it, or you take it to the mechanic and pay them yourself.

You don't call your homeowner's insurance when your toilet is clogged up, you call a plumber, and you pay him yourself.

Yet for care that requires much more expertise and training than either of those two problems, we expect the normal situation to be we present ourselves at the doctor's office and somebody else pays the bill.

People are prepared to pay for maintanence in other areas of their life and typically budget for it or find someway to pay it.

The best comparison in the US is HSA (Health Savings accounts) + catastrophic insurance. The idea is you're able to pay so much per year for health care (usually $5000), and then more traditional insurance takes over above that. This way is much, much cheaper than what's normally considered 'health insurance.'

You're going to pay for health insurance in any case, weather by taxes, or buying products, or income you might have been otherwise paid, etc. The HSA way cuts out the most middlemen for every day care.

Incidentally most health care facilities offer substantial cash discounts. You handing over a check is much, much cheaper to them than filling out all kinds of paperwork for medicare or the insurance company. (Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital gives a 20-30% cash discount, for example)

Yes, some insurance companies will try to f*ck you anyway once they have to start paying. Do some research and sign up with the company least likely to screw you.

Any other way causes a seperation between the cost of a service and the decision to use it. Because of what's considered 'normal' nowadays, people don't even consider that consuming health care services might result in cutting somewhere else in their life. Get that lump checked out? You might have to go without cable this month. See a doctor for that persistant, nagging three week old cough? No eating out for you for a while.

Those kinds of equations don't enter into anyone's head, but those are rational questions. Do you value watching the sapranos this month over nipping that problem in the bud? Do you want pizza hut a few times this month more than you want to get rid of that cough?

Are you folks really going to tell me that someone shouldn't have to make a decision between the countless luxuries we enjoy in this day and age, and their health?

Are you going to tell me that not only is healthcare a 'RIGHT', but everything they would have to give up to pay for healthcare themselves is also a 'RIGHT'?

This is the discussion we're having for everybody above the poverty level.

There's so much more wrapped up in this issue, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Another Googler's opinion

That post is but one Googler's opinion. Here is another [advogato.org]. Clearly, there is much in that original post with which I disagree, and neither of us is representing official Google policy.

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.

Re:Micheal?

I suppose a lot of folks who would be disappointed or even outraged by this news are also proponents of other progressive social causes such as net neutrality.

I think you're supposing incorrectly. People who support network neutrality are generally smart people, and net neutrality is an important issue that affects our future. People upset that an advertising company (Google) is trying to sell ads are not intelligent, this is not an important issue, and it means squat to anybody's future. Who the hell decided this "news" was Slashdot worthy? Trying to earn money by doing your job is not evil. Google is not censoring anything, and not trying to "contain" the damage to the health care industry. Repair, maybe, but not contain.