Lies and half-truths invariably lead to that result. And are the primary path thereto.
Please, list those specific lies & half truths for us, oh well-named one!
(Of course, most critics of Moore tend to speak in generalities. Oh, and they always add that he’s fat.)
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EU countries offer “free” health care. Government provided health care is not free – it is paid for by much higher taxes. The people pay for it – and at a higher rate than private health care. Germany, for example, has a direct tax of 14% that goes for Health Care. This is just bad insurance extorted at the point of a gun.
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many EU countries have options and some even allow opt-out.
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Moor conveniently leaves out that socialized medicine does not travel. Canadians in the US must return to Canada. Most US insurance travels.
These are the easy ones.
Oh and Michael Moore is fat.
As I said, listening to idiots leads to idiocy: liberalism.
Try this one on for size. Moore paints Canada’s health care system as idyllic. However, Canada’s single-payer system has been ruled invalid.
Given Moore’s track record to date, I don’t think he missed, I think he totally ignored it.
According to this source US pays more for healthcare than any other country in the world. Almost twice as much as the second most expensive (Switzerland).
Ten years ago the US paid $4,178 per capita for healthcare. The UK paid $1,461 and Sweden paid $1,746. Germany, from your example, paid $2,427. One of the most expensive ones and still only a bit over half of what the US pays.
Sweden, Germany AND the UK offer healthcare to all their citizens, the US does not. The US has higher infant mortality rates and lower life expectancy than the compared countries.
Judging by this, the US pays (much) more and gets less. Do you concede that or do you offer arguments to support your (previous?) position?
The movie strikes me as having a much more reasonable and mature tone than his other work.
Out of proportion, as usual.
Piffe, and you have a peculiar definition of invalid. Single payer can and does continue in Canada for almost all.
I also read reports that the most one can expect private providers in Canada to grow is to cover up to 10% of the Canadian population, single-payer will not disappear. There is a limit on how much coverage private industry is willing to cover, many diseases and health issues are not profitable enough.
So even with a projected 10% growth of private providers in Canada the fact remains that the majority will keep single payer.
The USA is still paying almost 5% more of the GDP in health care costs than Germany. BTW that missing 5% is money that is not used for development, as private industry in the US has to carry the burden also.
Canada has it now too, so this item of yours was not the whole truth.
Obviously you did not see the movie, Moore does mention a couple of cases.
They demonstrate to all in the board that you are an ignorant in this subject.
And getting personal with insults is not kosher in this forum.
I am still interested in hearing what these lies and half-truths are, and I am still the same person I was…a person who continues to seek facts and consider other views.
I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I have spent the last six months or so researching here and elsewhere about healthcare reform. If you checked my posts over the past few months, you would see that. It’s a complicated issue, and I recognized my need to do extensive research, because I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I do not automatically dismiss information and experiences that do not fit into my world view because I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I do not dismiss others who do not share my world view without genuine consideration as to the points they are making because I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I do not believe any system is free of all complications (nor do I believe that any system of healthcare is actually “free”) because I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I recognize that there is an emotional component to virtually anyone’s view of the healthcare debate, including my own, and that pragmatic concerns need to have priority in decision-making because I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I was open-minded and self-aware enough to know that I didn’t know enough about healthcare options to educate myself because I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I have been persuaded by the facts and arguments I have read over the past few months. When I watched the film, I experienced a paradigm shift that pretty much blew away the little bit of conservative “every-man-for-himself works ok” attitude that I had left (an attitude that I recognized was based, not on facts, but on an unexamined set of beliefs that I had passively taken in over my lifetime.) By the way, I recognized this attitude in myself and challenged my own beliefs to see if they were in line with reality because, guess what?
I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
I come here to fight my own ignorance. I am human, so I am ignorant in many, many areas. But, in my mind, to be ignorant is to ignore, so I spend my time learning things I don’t know and challenging the things I do know. Know why? Well, there are many reasons. It gives me satisfaction to learn. It fills me with wonder to be exposed to ideas I’ve never even thought about. It makes me a better person and it helps me to make better decisions and it reduces my tendency to make inaccurate statements when I discuss issues with my family and friends. But one of the biggest reasons is
I AM NOT AN IDIOT.
One of the horror stories about European-style health care is that there are long waits to get care. Although Moore interviews a few people who say they hadn’t waited long, he cited no statistics that might reassure Americans on this issue. This suggests a gloss-over.
I’d have to re-watch the movie to see if EU health care is repeatedly referred to as “free”, rather than it being emphasized that “you don’t receive a bill”.
No duh it’s paid for with taxes. You make it sound like some shocking revelation. “Soylent Green is peeeeeople!” “National health care is paid for with taaaaxes!”
Hyperbole much?
As is made dramtically clear in the film, many of these countries will indeed treat foreign visitors (any exceptions?). And in cases like this, it really is free.
One of the points that gets emphasized is that people in these countries don’t have to worry. This strikes me as fairly significant.
No, liberals are “elites”, remember?
Without Reform, Health Insurance Premiums Could Double By 2020 | HuffPost Latest News Everybody knows tyhe health care industry needs to be fixed. The repubs ran on it in 2000 and 2004but did nothing while in power. It simply has to be fixed . The sooner the better. But the repubs know if Obama fixes it, they will be in trouble for a long time.
Moore gets a star from me for introducing Tony Benn to a wider audience.
Health care is not free anywhere. In America we pay the most and get the least. We allow over 50 million of our fellow countrymen and many of them are children, go without any coverage.
That waiting time argument is getting old. When I call the doctor for an appointment , I get one in about 3 weeks. When I needed a specialist, they were so busy I had to wait months for an appointment.
I live in Detroit and have Canadians as family members through marriage. NONE of them would change their system for ours. They think we are thugs for mistreating our citizens on such a basic life issue. I have heard them complain about little issues with their system. I never heard them discuss the fear of bankruptcy ,denial of coverage or whether it would be there when they need it. One Canadian friend got a heart transplant. He could have gone broke here or had it denied.
^^^^^^^Yes.
Where are these people dealing with health care that they use ‘waiting time’ as an argument? I’ve never lived anywhere else but the good old USA, but nothing about dealing with American health care causes my jaw to drop when I hear conservatives spout these numbers about how long people wait for appointments in Canada or the UK. Sounds about par for the course. And while I’ve only been to the ER two or three times, I distinctly recall waiting for a minimum three hours for any sort of attention – one of those times at a place that has been consistently rated as one of the country’s best hospitals. I live in a big city, though; maybe privately-run health care is the perfect system in a rural area where there are no people. I just have my own experiences and those of everyone I know to base my opinions on.
When I was working on an assembly line, more than 14% of my compensation went to Health Care. And it wasn’t full dental.
So they’re free after all. Imagine that.
British & Canadian insurance both travel, at least to some degree.
You did not do the research, you just assumed easy answers.
Oh and Rush Limbaugh is fat.
As you said, listening to idiots leads to idiocy: conservatism.
Isn’t this split between the employer and the employee though? Each paying 7% of the employee’s salary? Or has my recollection of the German health care system failed me?
Now I know some people live in a free-market fantasy world where this directly represents money that would be paid to the employee, but that ignores bargaining power situations.
I’ll second that. I’ve had the privilege to hear him speak (at Leveller’s Day IIRC) and like his writings, his public orations are awe inspiring. He’s also a damned good and funny guy, as I found out when I have a chance to sit with him for a couple of hours.
The other old school Leftie who also came across in the same way was Michael Foot. A genuinely passionate man, committed to both socialism and democracy, and seeing the two as inseparable. I’ll never forgive the British media for focusing on his looks rather than his ideas.
But as with Michael Moore, the problem is that they’re wrong and ignore the astounding evidence of it eternally.
This statement of yours is at best a gross simplification of a complex court ruling for a single province, or it is at worst a complete attempt at obfuscation.
For the record, the court ruling did not rule Canada’s single-payer system “invalid”. In fact, we still have a single-payer system! Imagine that! In point of fact, the high court struck down a Quebec law that prohibited people from buying private health insurance to cover procedures already offered by the public system. They must still, however, pay into the public system. So go ahead and buy all the extra insurance you want.
Please don’t compare Michael Moore to Tony Benn and Michael Foot. It looks foolish to do so.
You’ve convinced me, although it seems like you’re using a mortar to attack a cockroach.
But, hey, 187 posts in seven years? Please post more often.