Sicko concludes with Moore speaking in soothing, dulcet tones over mawkish orchestral music. The sotto voce lesson is Rodney King-ish, admonishing Cubans and Americans to just get along, and for the rest of us to take care of our fellow man while, presumably, campaigning for Dennis Kucinich. So after two hours of limp jokes that would make Bruce Vilanch wince and a continent-spanning exploration of socialized medicine, Moore's specific policy prescriptions are impossible to find. Without them, he ends up urging viewers to just let the government run the damn thing.But as P.J. O'Rourke once commented, if Mike thinks health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free.
Only the very rich would conclude that America's health care system operates as it should. The U.S. spends more per capita on health care than any other country but isn't getting its money's worth.
Still, Moore's solution -- a government-run, single-payer system -- would not be an improvement.
In 2005, London's Evening Standard reported that Hammersmith Hospital would slash hundreds of jobs; the hospital, the most debt-ridden in Britain, was hemorrhaging money and desperately needed to cut costs. And while the hospital was "downsizing", Hammersmith's CEO—yes, even the NHS has an executive class—collected a year-end bonus of close to $20,000. Small beer by American standards, but enough to provoke tabloid headlines in Britain.Much like the American hospitals Moore excoriates, Hammersmith Hospital, the Evening Standard reported, faced pressure from administrators to limit the number of patients treated in order to cut spending. In a country where the government promises to winnow down queues to 18 weeks, this isn't an anomalous problem. A recent BBC documentary accused the NHS of using dangerously high doses of radiation on patients "to save time and money."
Frankly, I don't know enough about the issue to proffer a remedy. But I know I don't trust Michael Moore to shoot straight. Nor do I trust the government to fix what's broken.
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