# Sicko **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2007, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996 "2007-06-30T00:53:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996/41 "2007-07-03T17:12:47Z")
[QUOTE=Flea] Dog and pony show it may be, but it’s a travelling Dog and Pony show. Cuban doctors go all over the world providing routine healthcare for free for indigent populations, and they have some of the best-trained staff in the world. Politics cease to matter when your health is on the line. I can’t blame these folks for going wherever they could to get treated. [/QUOTE] Sorry but no. Cuban doctors do not “go all over the world providing routine healthcare for free”, Cuban doctors are sent by the Cuba government to work overseas. The Cuban government charges hefty fees to those countries for the doctors’ services, in fact that is the whole basis of the Cuban-Venezuelan trade, and then pays miserable wages to the doctors. ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996/42 "2007-07-03T17:14:57Z")
[QUOTE=sunacres] I don’t know about Cuba, but my experiences in other countries are consistent with the scenario presented in the film. [/QUOTE] Trust me when I tell you your experience in Cuba would be markedly different. As a foreigner you will be expected to pay in hard currency for care, and as such you will also have access to much more modern care than the average Cuban. ---
**Author:** ![Flea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d78d45/32.png) [@Flea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flea)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996/43 "2007-07-03T17:39:27Z")
[QUOTE=lalenin] Sorry but no. Cuban doctors do not “go all over the world providing routine healthcare for free”, Cuban doctors are sent by the Cuba government to work overseas. The Cuban government charges hefty fees to those countries for the doctors’ services, in fact that is the whole basis of the Cuban-Venezuelan trade, and then pays miserable wages to the doctors. [/QUOTE] My quote stands. It’s free of charge to the people receiving it. Of course someone has to pay for it, and I never suggested that the countries involved don’t pay for the use of those doctors. They get paid base fees, but their training was free of charge. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about the system, so I will say I’m not arguing the morality of communism here, I’m simply pointing out that this is how their system works, and at the end of the day, it’s cheaper and less complicated to for their end-users to recieve treatment than it is for us. For ‘the greatest nation in the world’, that should be incentive for change, not incentive for inane finger-pointing that doesn’t change the fact that our system is hobbled and limping. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996/44 "2007-07-03T17:57:40Z")
Of course Michael Moore has his own agenda; so does everyone who writes a doctoral thesis (not comparing Moore’s work to doctoral theses; just saying that presenting a biased case is not a criticism but a fact of life). A filmmaker who wants to present the opposing view is free to do so; you guys do live in a free country, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2007, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996/45 "2007-07-03T18:50:25Z")
[QUOTE=Flea] My quote stands. It’s free of charge to the people receiving it. Of course someone has to pay for it, and I never suggested that the countries involved don’t pay for the use of those doctors. They get paid base fees, but their training was free of charge. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about the system, so I will say I’m not arguing the morality of communism here, I’m simply pointing out that this is how their system works, and at the end of the day, it’s cheaper and less complicated to for their end-users to recieve treatment than it is for us. For ‘the greatest nation in the world’, that should be incentive for change, not incentive for inane finger-pointing that doesn’t change the fact that our system is hobbled and limping. [/QUOTE] We’re going to have to disagree that it is cheaper and less complicated for end-users in Cuba to receive treatment than it is for you and me. I have lived both in Cuba and in Canada, and there is just no comparison between the two. I’ll take Canada’s system over Cuba’s any day, and as an added bonus I don’t have to stand in a plaza yelling “Socialism or Death” anymore. And for the record, the training for Cuban doctors is not free either. It is subsidized by the low wages and the forced and unpaid farm labor of all Cuban students during their school years, from grade 7 on. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996/46 "2007-07-06T23:07:42Z")
😃 Heh-heh-heh . . . Moore has [gotten hold of a leaked memo](http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=215) from a Blue Cross executive who went to see _Sicko_ for purposes of deciding how the industry should react to it. > [@](#): > > BlueCross V.P. Fitzpatrick seems downright depressed about the movie he just saw. “You would have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore’s movie,” he writes. “Sicko” leaves audiences feeling “ashamed to be…a capitalist, and part of a ‘me’ society instead of a ‘we’ society.” > > He walks out of the theater only to witness an unusual sight: people – strangers – mingling and talking to each other. “‘I didn’t know they (the insurers) did that!’ was a common exclamation followed by a discussion of the example,” according to Fitzpatrick. > > He then assesses the film’s impact: “[T]he impact on small business decision makers, our members, the community, and our employees could be significant. Ignoring its impact might be a successful strategy only if it flops, but that has not been the history of Moore’s films … If popular, the movie will have a negative impact on our image in this community.” > > The BlueCross memo then suggests a strategy in dealing with “Sicko” and offers the BCBS “talking points” to be used in discounting the film. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sicko/409996.md?page=2)