# Michael Moore tears CNN a new one **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 10, 2007, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143 "2007-07-10T01:25:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/21 "2007-07-10T12:22:30Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] What a weird allegation. He did no such thing. I’ve watched all the way through this twice and it plain didn’t happen. Moore pronounced Dr. Gupta’s name correctly and without affect. This is phony outrage taken to a new extreme. [/QUOTE] I am a big, big fan of Michael Moore and it is pretty clear that the third time he said Dr. Gupta’s name he was having fun with it. He had already expressed his disdain for both CNN’s reporting and Dr. Gupta’s failure to ask the appropriate questions about the war in Iraq without any undue emphasis on the name. He was just behaving the way people (notably David Letterman) used to have a lot of fun with Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s name. Some names are just more fun to say than others. I am certain that there was no insult intended on the part of Mr. Moore in any way, shape or form (towards his ethniicity, name or nationality, that is - his reporting is aniother story.) Some of my favorite names are from the sports world where Willie Sojourner, Orsten Artis and the classic Cocoa Crisp have graced the sports pages. Maybe we should have a thread on this topic. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/22 "2007-07-10T12:43:56Z")
[QUOTE=initech] I know what enunciation sounds like, and this wasn’t enunciation. It was mockery. [/QUOTE] For the sake of the argument, let’s say it is mockery. How do you get from there to racism? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/23 "2007-07-10T13:32:22Z")
[QUOTE=initech] The YouTube clip that **BrainGlutton** posted happens to end just before the incident in question. Here’s a longer piece: [http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/](http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/) Sorry, no timecode. All I can tell you is that the progress bar is directly below the O in “DOW” when Moore mocks Gupta. As I said, I’m a big fan of Moore. But it takes a lot of intellectual contortion to explain away this delivery. I’ve listened to Michael Moore a lot. I know what enunciation sounds like, and this wasn’t enunciation. It was mockery. [/QUOTE] Ah, no wonder we couldn’t find it in the first video! I’ve listened to it a dozen times, and I think I come down on the side of mockery, but just barely. I would allow that someone could disagree without recourse to intellectual contortion. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/24 "2007-07-10T13:49:37Z")
Well, since you brought this up…: [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Moore is also right that the US media is completely sold out to corporations and, unfortunately, the average American is utterly brainwashed into thinking that captalism = good, socialism = bad. Amazing that people are so mistrusful of the government (an institution which they actually have some control over) yet are as trusting as puppies when it comes to utterly soulless corporations over which they have no control at all. [/quote] Americans generally think socialism = bad (mainly because it is), but capitalism isn’t worshiped in the way you imply. Socialism, as a system, has failed whenever it was tried (they called it communism, but it was socialism). > [@](#): > > Moore is right that the American health care system cannot be fixed unless all profit motives are completely removed. All profit motive? > [@](#): > > Capitalism is an amoral system and an amoral system cannot be entrusted with necessary humanitarian services to the state. Health care should be treated like the military – a purely state run system with no profit motive. Can you define what a “necessary humanitarian service to the state” is? I haven’t seen Moore’s film, but if you want to change the healthcare system in the US, calling for socialized medicine is the not the way to do it. I’m not sure I’d call any healthcare system in the developed world “socialized medicine”-- not even the one if France. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/25 "2007-07-10T14:27:11Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Amazing that people are so mistrusful of the government (an institution which they actually have some control over) yet are as trusting as puppies when it comes to utterly soulless corporations over which they have no control at all. [/quote] Let’s see, if I don’t like the service/products/corporate ethos of my local grocery store/restaurant/phone company, then I can opt out of doing business with them. That’s a lot of control, since I can effectively banish them from my life. Good luck doing that with the government. If I don’t like the fact that the government takes too much in taxes, I can’t refuse to do business with the government, can I? If I don’t like the type of roads the government provides, I surely cannot try and find another road system. If I don’t like that the Post Office loses my first class mail, too bad. The government can come to your house and take you away by gunpoint. The government can take all your property if it wishes. The government can even kill you and get away with no penalty. No corporation can do that. You’ll retort that we have some sort of power over the government because we elect it. And that is true, to a certain extent. But as we all know, a highly energized minority can pressure government to do things to infringe on the rights of others. The government responds to the vocal minority in many instances. Unlike corporations, if we don’t like the way government works, we cannot withhold funds from it. We must submit to it or risk jail or even death. So save me your theory that we have some sort of control over the government and none over corporations. Until I can tell the policeman who shows up at my house with a search warrant that I don’t want what he’s selling, so he’d better get off my property, your idea is completely backwards. > [@](#): > > Moore is right that the American health care system cannot be fixed unless all profit motives are completely removed. Capitalism is an amoral system and an amoral system cannot be entrusted with necessary humanitarian services to the state. Health care should be treated like the military – a purely state run system with no profit motive. So you would like housing and the sale of food, both “humanitarian services,” to be run by the government, too? ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/26 "2007-07-10T14:38:51Z")
[QUOTE=Renob] So you would like housing and the sale of food, both “humanitarian services,” to be run by the government, too? [/QUOTE] Why not? Who was better housed and fed in the '80s, Americans or Russians? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/27 "2007-07-10T14:46:39Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] Looks to me like a tempest in a teapot. Gupta does not appear to have said anything that substantially undermines Moore’s film, nor does he appear to have attacked the film. He simply uttered some commonplaces about how there are no medical utopias and how Moore somewhat exaggerates the contrast between the American system’s problems and other system’s successes in order to make his point. [/quote] After reading the OP’s links, I agree. There were several other folks interviewed besides Gupta-- some of them very sympathetic to Moore and others not so much. I think CNN actually did a pretty good job of covering the subject, based on that link. > [@](#): > > Moore is a canny propagandist (and I say that approvingly. I see no harm in making forthright political propaganda deliberately designed to advertise a cause, as long as we all recognize it for what it is and don’t mistake it for objective journalism), and it makes sense for him to inflate media controversy around his film as much as possible. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us need to join in. Bingo. Look how the right wing media is trashing my film and trying to hide the truth from the American people!! The only solution to this travesty is for every single American to see my film!! A further aside to **Diogenes** : You want to nationalize and federalize the healthcare industry, right? You say Americans are overly fearful of government, and yet you’ve started Pit thread after Pit thread about the failings of that very government, especially under George W. Bush. Can you tell me why I should want my healthcare to be subject to the control of that same George W. Bush? As I said in a recent thread on this subject, I can’t see any clear way to get to a federalized healthcare system in the US. We’re just too big and too diverse. If anything gets thru the Senate, it’ll be so watered down and compromised as to be essentially meaningless. The action to be had is at the state level. The state I live in, CA, is taking things into its own hands. We’re bigger than many industrialized nations in terms of populations and economic output. We don’t need Wash DC telling us what to do. If some smaller states want to pool resources to accomplish something similar, let them do it. But you’re just not going to get traction at the national level. There will be all kinds of posturing and bloviating, but it’ll die the same death that the immigration bill just died of-- too many cooks spoiling the brew. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/28 "2007-07-10T15:19:32Z")
[QUOTE=initech] The YouTube clip that **BrainGlutton** posted happens to end just before the incident in question. Here’s a longer piece: [http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/](http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/) Sorry, no timecode. All I can tell you is that the progress bar is directly below the O in “DOW” when Moore mocks Gupta. As I said, I’m a big fan of Moore. But it takes a lot of intellectual contortion to explain away this delivery. I’ve listened to Michael Moore a lot. I know what enunciation sounds like, and this wasn’t enunciation. It was mockery. [/QUOTE] Nope. Still don’t hear it. That’s just the slight over enunciation I was talking about near the end. I think some people are imagining things. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/29 "2007-07-10T15:20:10Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] A further aside to **Diogenes** : You want to nationalize and federalize the healthcare industry, right? You say Americans are overly fearful of government, and yet you’ve started Pit thread after Pit thread about the failings of that very government, especially under George W. Bush. Can you tell me why I should want my healthcare to be subject to the control of that same George W. Bush? [/QUOTE] That right there is my primary objection to government healthcare. I don’t trust this idiot, nor the past 6 years of Congress, to run a pair of pantyhose. “We don’t want to outlaw abortions… or birth control… or VD treatment… or … We just don’t think **GOD LOVING** Americans should have to pay for it. That’s reasonable, right?” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/30 "2007-07-10T15:34:15Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Well, since you brought this up…: Americans generally think socialism = bad (mainly because it is), but capitalism isn’t worshiped in the way you imply. Socialism, as a system, has failed whenever it was tried (they called it communism, but it was socialism). [/quote] First of all, it doesn’t have to be an absolute one way or the other. Some things should be socialized (and some things already are in the US without any controversy), and some things should not be. Secondly, it’s false that Socialism “has failed whenever it was tried.” It works just fine all over Europe. It works fine in Canada and it works fine in the US. We also know that unchecked, _lassez faire_ capitalism is predatory and destructive and unsustainable in the long term (unless you’re a big fan of child labor and limitless pollution and fingers in your hamburger). The problem with the the Soviet Union was not a socialist economic system _per se_, but that it had a fascist, totalitarian political system. Socialism is not the opposite of democracy, contrary to popular belief. Capitalism in the has actually done more to inhibit democracy in the US than Socialism ever could. Why do you think you can’t sue HMO’s? Why do we all have to take up the ass from drug companies? Why is it that insurance companies don’t really have to cover their clients if they don’t feel like it? Because they pay for those privileges, that’s why. > [@](#): > > All profit motive? Yes. What’s so horrible about that? It’s not like we haven’t removed profit motives from other necessary state services (the military, the postal service, etc.) > [@](#): > > Can you define what a “necessary humanitarian service to the state” is? That’s a self-explanatory, self-defining phrase. > [@](#): > > I haven’t seen Moore’s film, but if you want to change the healthcare system in the US, calling for socialized medicine is the not the way to do it. I’m not sure I’d call any healthcare system in the developed world “socialized medicine”-- not even the one if France. I don’t care what anyone wants to call it as long as we adopt it. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/31 "2007-07-10T15:42:00Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Capitalism in the has actually done more to inhibit democracy in the US than Socialism ever could. Why do you think you can’t sue HMO’s? Why do we all have to take up the ass from drug companies? Why is it that insurance companies don’t really have to cover their clients if they don’t feel like it? Because they pay for those privileges, that’s why. [/quote] Actually, you have it, once again, absolutely backwards. What you are describing is democracy impeding capitalism. The reason we can’t sue in some cases is because politicians impose a law on the market. The reason we have a mess in health insurance is not because there is too little government regulation, but too much. The health insurance industry has the highest amount of regulation of any industry. Furthermore, the government is a huge player in the industry, with its socialized medical programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. Government involvement in health care is the main reason insurance works so poorly, medical care is so expensive, and in general we have an incredibly bad health care system. The answer is not more government interference in the market, but less. > [@](#): > > What’s so horrible about that? It’s not like we haven’t removed profit motives from other necessary state services (the military, the postal service, etc.) Yeah, I want the health care system to operate more like the Post Office, not less. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![initech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/439d5e/32.png) [@initech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/initech)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/32 "2007-07-10T15:47:49Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] For the sake of the argument, let’s say it is mockery. How do you get from there to racism? [/QUOTE] He’s delivering it in a mock Indian accent. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/33 "2007-07-10T16:04:21Z")
I saw this yesterday and it came across as him trying to get himself on Youtube and avoid any substantive debate about his movie or health care. He yells “why don’t you tell the American people what is going on?” and so forth in order to get people riled up and not have to anser any questions. He wants the profit motive out of health care, but they don’t discuss if that will harm innovation or anything, any of the most basic questions in this whole debate, because he won’t stop yelling about the press. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/34 "2007-07-10T16:05:23Z")
[QUOTE=initech] The YouTube clip that **BrainGlutton** posted happens to end just before the incident in question. Here’s a longer piece: [http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/](http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/) Sorry, no timecode. All I can tell you is that the progress bar is directly below the O in “DOW” when Moore mocks Gupta. As I said, I’m a big fan of Moore. But it takes a lot of intellectual contortion to explain away this delivery. I’ve listened to Michael Moore a lot. I know what enunciation sounds like, and this wasn’t enunciation. It was mockery. [/QUOTE] I didn’t see a “DOW”, but I listened to about 2/3 of the audio recording, heard him say “Gupta” about 3 times, and I didn’t hear any mockery at all. I would say that he came across as a raving lunatic, though. Christ almighty what an attention whore that guy is!! I guess it really is a good thing that he went light on his own appearance in his latest film. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/35 "2007-07-10T16:06:17Z")
[QUOTE=Renob] Let’s see, if I don’t like the service/products/corporate ethos of my local grocery store/restaurant/phone company, then I can opt out of doing business with them. [/quote] Actually, that’s becoming less and less true and it’s not true at all of the health care industry. > [@](#): > > That’s a lot of control, since I can effectively banish them from my life. No, you really can’t. I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but the range of consumer choice is really quite narrow and largely illusory and is becoming less powerful every day. It’s a complete non-factor when it comes to health care and phramaceuticals. > [@](#): > > Good luck doing that with the government. You get to decide who’s going to run the government. You don’t get to decide who’s going to run your HMO. > [@](#): > > If I don’t like the fact that the government takes too much in taxes, I can’t refuse to do business with the government, can I? You can vote for someone else. That in itself is more power than anything you’ll ever have over an insurance company. > [@](#): > > If I don’t like the type of roads the government provides, I surely cannot try and find another road system. If I don’t like that the Post Office loses my first class mail, too bad. Funny you mention roads and the postal service because those are examples of socialized industries which the government performs very effectively and cheaply. > [@](#): > > The government can come to your house and take you away by gunpoint. The government can do that regardless of whether or not the country has socialized medicine. You’ve got the most pro-corporate White House imaginable right now and it also happens to be showing historical levels of disregard for civil liberties. > [@](#): > > The government can take all your property if it wishes. The government can even kill you and get away with no penalty. No corporation can do that. Now who’s being naive, Kate? 😉 > [@](#): > > You’ll retort that we have some sort of power over the government because we elect it. And that is true, to a certain extent. But as we all know, a highly energized minority can pressure government to do things to infringe on the rights of others. No, only people who are willing to pay can do that. Minorities with no money can’t do shit. That’s exactly why the profit motive has to be removed from some industries. > [@](#): > > The government responds to the vocal minority in many instances. No it doesn’t. It responds to _money_. A minority with no money gets nowhere, regardless of how vocal it is. > [@](#): > > Unlike corporations, if we don’t like the way government works, we cannot withhold funds from it. We can’t do that with corporations either but at least we can choose who _leads_ the government. > [@](#): > > We must submit to it or risk jail or even death. That’s true of any government withoutthe slightest regard to what kind of health care system it has. To reiterate, the current Adminstration is as pro-corporate as it gets and is also the most brutally repressive, heavy-handed and violative of civil rights that we’ve had in modern history. > [@](#): > > So save me your theory that we have some sort of control over the government and none over corporations. Until I can tell the policeman who shows up at my house with a search warrant that I don’t want what he’s selling, so he’d better get off my property, your idea is completely backwards. Policeman follow laws (in theory). Laws are decided by politcians. You elect the politicians. Ergo, the policeman is only enforcing laws that you want enforced (unless, of course, you have a corporate toady like Bush in the White House). > [@](#): > > So you would like housing and the sale of food, both “humanitarian services,” to be run by the government, too? We already have subsidized housing and food stamps. That’s good enough. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/36 "2007-07-10T16:08:10Z")
[QUOTE=riker1384] I saw this yesterday and it came across as him trying to get himself on Youtube and avoid any substantive debate about his movie or health care. He yells “why don’t you tell the American people what is going on?” and so forth in order to get people riled up and not have to anser any questions. He wants the profit motive out of health care, but they don’t discuss if that will harm innovation or anything, any of the most basic questions in this whole debate, because he won’t stop yelling about the press. [/QUOTE] He answered plenty of questions. He also posted comprehensive rebuttals with cites on his website. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/37 "2007-07-10T16:11:07Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] No, the average American is brainwashed into believing that private enterprise is always beyond reproach while the government is always incompetent and evil. [/quote] We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I could post all kinds of articles where people blast corporations for shitty safety practices, price gouging, poor labor policies and et cetera, but basically there’s no reason to, I simply don’t believe that Americans think government is always incompetent nor do I think Americans believe private enterprise is beyond reproach. In fact, such an absolutist all or nothing statement by you is more or less impossible to substantiate so there’s really no reason for me to counter it any further. > [@](#): > > If by “almost complete,” you mean “none whatsoever.” I agree with you. Tell me, how can the average American affect any control over HMO’s or pharmaceutical prices? Well, in an unregulated market we could simply shop around. Pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t have government-granted monopolies (in the form of patents) and et cetera. If we didn’t like prices or policies of company A, we’d go to company B. As it is, government in its infinite wisdom has extensively regulated the health care field, but that doesn’t remove our control of it, we the people control government. We can change government regulations if we’re serious about doing so. Canada has controlled its pharmaceutical prices through use of its government regulatory agencies. > [@](#): > > You’re extraordinarily uneducated about progressive democracies. You’re proving my point about how Americans are brainwashed. You actually believe the tripe they feed you. Mkay. > [@](#): > > The problem is that Americans have been brainwashed to believe that it _isn’t_. As I said, I don’t think it’s a basic humanitarian service. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/38 "2007-07-10T16:17:10Z")
[QUOTE=Renob] Actually, you have it, once again, absolutely backwards. What you are describing is democracy impeding capitalism. [/quote] No, corporations bying votes is the very definition of capitalism subverting democracy. > [@](#): > > The reason we can’t sue in some cases is because politicians impose a law on the market. The reason is because politicvians are paid to insulate HMO’s from accountability. > [@](#): > > The reason we have a mess in health insurance is not because there is too little government regulation, but too much. If by “too much” you mean “none,” then I agree with you. > [@](#): > > The health insurance industry has the highest amount of regulation of any industry. Where did you hear that, Rush Limbaugh? > [@](#): > > Furthermore, the government is a huge player in the industry, with its socialized medical programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. Government involvement in health care is the main reason insurance works so poorly, medical care is so expensive, and in general we have an incredibly bad health care system. Medicare and Medicaid actually work much better than HMOs. That’s what happens when you remove profit motives. > [@](#): > > The answer is not more government interference in the market, but less. It’s corprate interference which needs to be removed. The government needs to be given total control. > [@](#): > > Yeah, I want the health care system to operate more like the Post Office, not less. :rolleyes: The USPS works extremely well and it works very cheaply. It’s a tired and groundless meme that the the Post Office doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/39 "2007-07-10T16:17:55Z")
I completely agree, **Renob**. I think when it comes to health care our mixed-and-matched system is the worst of both worlds. While I think a free market would work perfectly fine, I think the government being involved heavily in regulation but then not providing the care directly leads to all kinds of ridiculous shenanigans and inefficiencies. Also, true socialism is by its very nature anathema to democracy. There is a difference between implementing socialist ideas and having a socialist country. In a socialist country all the means of production would be owned collectively, which means an essential end of private property rights. Without private property rights, democracy is meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143/40 "2007-07-10T16:23:11Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] The USPS works extremely well and it works very cheaply. It’s a tired and groundless meme that the the Post Office doesn’t work. [/QUOTE] The United States Postal Service works very well, you’ll also note that it is ran very much like a private company. The Postal Service is a unique government entity in that it is government run but they intentionally operate it in the same manner that a private company would operate, except the USPS has a guaranteed monopoly on mail-service (although not parcel delivery or express mail.) It is telling that one of the best run government entities is ran like a company, and is designed to be self-funding by generating profit for itself. Interestingly enough the USPS is not actually a government-owned company in the same vein as Amtrak, although it clearly functions with a corporate structure and has an eye to actually providing a service for a direct fee in order to cover expenses. Also of course it is interesting to note Amtrak which _is_ a government owned company is horrendous. Running things in a corporate style doesn’t guarantee success, especially when the product is passenger rail service. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/michael-moore-tears-cnn-a-new-one/411143.md?page=3)