Reviews of Sicko are coming in. As I have repeatedly stated, there are problems with our healthcare system. Some of them inexcusable. However, the single-payer solution that Moore proposes simply would exchange what we have for a whole new set of problems that may be even worse. Remember the grass always seems greener on the other side.
Note that Moore’s most vicious attacks are against a non-profit and a government-run hospital:
He blames all of the industry’s bad behavior on the profit motive. But one of his biggest villains – Kaiser Permanante – is a nonprofit. And while he does a gut-wrenching segment on Los Angeles hospitals dumping homeless patients back on the street after they are treated, he mentions only in passing that one of the guilty parties is a public hospital owned by the government. Aren’t those the same people he wants to put in charge of all of our health care?He tells the gripping story of a man who died of cancer after his health plan refused to pay for experimental treatment. But he never asks his audience to consider that no matter what kind of system we have, it will not provide unlimited care, especially experimental care. There will always be a gatekeeper.
Under a single-payer plan, that person would be a government employee – some might even say a bureaucrat. Would that really be any better?
Moore never gets around to telling us that the underfunded Canadian and British systems have such long waiting lists that the Canadian Supreme Court struck down a ban on private health care, and the British are buying insurance to supplement their government coverage.
