CNN fact checks Sicko: Finds few inaccuracies

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/28/sicko.fact.check/index.html



What I find most striking about Sicko, though, is that the movie is about the personal stories of real people. The people who died as a result of the greed of their insurance companies were real people, not statistics.

The problems that the Canadian, British, French, and even Cuban health care systems have are utterly irrelevant to the point Mr. Moore is making. No matter how many people may or may not have died as a result of a long wait time in the Canadian system, or an incompetent doctor in the British system, or the lack of an MRI machine in the Cuban system, whatever the flaws of the other systems (which are a result of a lack of funding, not an inherent flaw) they don't even compare to the American "system".

Because only in the American system is there a person sitting in a cubicle between the patient and the doctor. As Mr. Moore has said numerous times in many interviews, why does a doctor need to ask permission from an insurance company to treat a patient? It's insanity. Nobody would expect the fire department to bill you or refuse to save you from burning alive until you ponied up the cash.

The American system was designed, from the very beginning (by the greatest president ever, Richard Nixon :sarcasm:), to put more money in the pockets of the corporations and provide less care to the people. Period. It is immoral to the highest degree. At least the other systems, whatever their flaws, are designed with the idea that health care is a human right, and that it ought to be available to everyone and anyone, regardless of their income.

You can point to as many "horror" stories in the other systems as you want. None of them will ever have a doctor receiving a bonus for denying care, or a person in a cubicle being promoted for denying care, or a person having his fingers chopped off and being forced to choose one finger over the other, or a person doing his own stitches, or a mentally unstable person being dropped off on the street, or a person losing their home after going bankrupt due to medical bills. None of them, because they provide their health care for free.

What is worse? A universal system that kills 18,000 people because it is badly run, or a non-system that kills 18,000 people because they can't pay?

It is something to be ashamed of.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1217839&mesg_id=1217839

:eyes:


k&r

Ya gotta love that damn librul media. . .

"Hey! Where are the mistakes I knew were in here?" Kind of like Bush looking for WMD's under the credenza.

Also, wouldn't it be cool if they made as much effort to fact check politicians in Congress and on the stump as they do to fact check, say, a movie? And if they're gonna fact check Moore, why don't they fact check the "conservative Michael Moore"?

"CNN finds Bush to be surprisingly free of any facts"

no, too negative. How about: "Some accuracies found in Presidential speech" instead?

They said Moore stated at the beginning of the documentary that fifty million people are uninsured while the truth is somewhere between forty and forty four million. That is what CNN said but I doubt they are taking into consideration the twelve million illegals that live and work in America. Actually I believe Moore got it right and CNN got it wrong...

uninsured. I think that 18,000 deaths from 41 - 43 million people is significantly worse than using 50 million people.

illegals, give or take a few million, Moore is surprisingly accurate.

Why would that be surprising CNN? All his films have been meticulously fact-checked. He's an honest documentarian, ironically unlike the "News" on CNN.

Why does every review of Sicko (and every MM film) have to be so damn snarky? The rules are completely different for Moore.

something wrong, etc, Moore gets more publicity than he might otherwise. There is an irony there that, I suspect, MM finds humorous at times.

It's that, the US should take what works from all the foreign health care systems and make them a 'melting pot' of success. Where foreign systems get things wrong, the US is not obligated to copy. Why not learn from others' mistakes?

No, those other countries do not have perfect health care. Moore never argued that because that'd be conceding the US couldn't do better (which he refuses to believe). Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, but he's certainly taking the optimist's position on that score. No shame in that.

one would think that the US would be getting better results for its money! As you point out so clearly, it's not about whether the other countries which are outscoring the US (lower infant mortality, longer life expectancy, etc.) have "perfect" systems -- they don't, and as a Canadian, I feel that we have a long way to go before we live up to the promises of universality made by founders like Tommy Douglas. I think that Moore does a good job of investigating why the Americans' health is being affected ... inequality, corporations trading off quality of life for their workers/clients in return for a few getting very rich, and the parasitism being practiced by insurance companies, HMOs, and profit-obsessed special interests masquerading as hospitals, pharmaceutical makers, etc.

(graph of life expectancies vs. health care expenditures -- the US is up there, but not as high as other countries which spend far less)

much less other peoples'.

And you're describing one of the numerous maddening flaws about the man.

CNN is so up on "context"

Moore says "50 million" ... CNN says "Well, the number is really 43.6 million ..." ... if he had said 43.6 million, they would have said "Well, it's 44 million ..."

Of course, Bush says his tax cuts would benefit all Americans ... left points out how few the cuts would really benefit ... "liberal" media pushes Bush's numbers as solid facts ...

MM soft-pedals on most of his docs, and the "librul media" still tries to pound him. :puke:

:kick:

or SHUT UP!

I love how "conservatives" will bash this movie simply because it is a movie made by Michael Moore. Forget the actual content, they just dismiss reality because they can't help but live in a dream world.

The ending of Sicko, where Moore tells us about the idiot who runs the anti Michael Moore site, is a case in point. Here is a guy who almost shut his anti Moore site down because his wife became ill, and even after Moore wrote him an anonymous check, still continued to bash him.

It gets to the point that I start to believe that all conservatives a scum. I hate to say such a thing, but how can one argue with so much evidence?

Michael does point out that the US (which has far more wealth than any of the other countries profiled) does NOT have a higher life expectancy for its citizens. And as you point out, if Moore's critics want to single out individual "horror stories", they are doing exactly what they accused Moore's earlier movies -- and Gore's, for that matter -- of .... relying on anecdotal evidence!

See, it's not so bad!! Quit your whining! And we have the best plastic surgery, too. Do you think you can get breast implants in Cuba?!?!

Next time some Bushie tells you that if people want health care, they should get insurance, remind them that the number of people in this country with NO health insurance is equivalent to the populations of:

OK, CT, IA, MS, KS, AR, UT, NV, NM, OR, WV, NB, ID, ME, NH, HI, RI, MT, SC, DE, ND, SD, AK, VT, and WY combined.

Read that list off in a crowded bar, family gathering, etc. and watch peoples' eyes grow wider and wider as the list keeps going on and on. Not much anyone can say after that.

Pull out a map of the US and color those stated red and see how much of the country essentially has no health care. If any one of those people gets sick or injured, they're screwed, and so is their family. If they go to the emergency room, that's your tax dollars paying for it, at a premium rate. Wouldn't those tax dollars be better spent on preventative measures? Or on providing discounted "single payer" insurance for everyone? Just think of the bargaining power the U.S. government could have with medical providers if it was their only major customer?

Oh yeah, the last congress made that "bargaining" thing illegal with their medicare prescription drug bill, didn't they?

That's all you need to know about "compassionate conservatism" and the "culture of life".

My son was referred to a cardiologist recently and the earliest appointment is in ONE MONTH.

The internist was a bit better, only 2 weeks.

Been to an ER lately? Hope you have several hours to kill.


Don't let the pukes tell you that we don't have to wait. It's a lie. Meanwhile, what we personally pay for health insurance, deductibles and co-pays could finance the mortgage (WITH taxes & insurance) for a $100K summer home, or 3 or 4 car payments (assuming we wanted such).

We would be living pretty easy if it weren't for the health insurance ball and chain pulling us under. Still, we consider ourselves very fortunate we're still able to afford it, unlike 46 million of our fellow Americans.

NATIONAL HEALTH CARE NOW!!!!

Cardiology waits are very long too.

There aren't enough doctors to go around.

Health care provision in this country is managed at the source.

Oh and don't believe the MA and health insurers are not in league with one another.

Moore makes that point perfectly clear.

Jackson Madison Hospital is the busiest, serving 15 counties. The standard wait is 6.5 hours.
A lot of those little rural hospitals in those counties used to be county-owned. One in particular I know of was sold for a ridiculously small amount by people who didn't even have the authority to sell it,and who received kickbacks. Since then it has been sold a few more times.

It used to be a place where you could receive pretty good care by physicians who lived in the community.Now it's only good for minor things or used by people who don't have the recourses to go elsewhere, and staffed by weekend wonders or those who are hired by several counties and split their time between 3 or 4 counties.

a month or more to get in to see a specialist.

How many times have you been told that you aren't PERMITTED to see the specialist? Or you can't CHOOSE the specialist? Or to be in the hospital and find out that insurance wants you OUT, complications or not! I've had all three in my family. All this while our premiums go up, and our deductibles go up. I can't remember spending more than 90 seconds with our family physician in the past 10 years on any visit.

My mother died in March. Twice she was rushed to the emergency room in the middle of the night during that last month. Twice this terrified old woman rotted for HOURS while we waited for a nurse, doctor, aide, human being, to check on her.

Our system is broken. I think we need to face the fact and do something about it.

They can go fuck themselves.

and a doctor, but Moore had corrected them on Larry King. Who is keeping CNN honest? Their sponsors! Kevin Trudeau told it like it was!

...or refuse to save you from burning alive until you ponied up the cash."

That's coming soon if the Privatizers get their way!

and are whatever-percentage accurate. Why do they feel compelled to announce that Michael Moore is mostly correct but they allow right-wing hate spewing idiots to ramble on on a non-stop basis.

Or concerning THEMSLEVES????

Goody! So the people who told me Saddam had WMDs and that Kerry faked his wounds now approve of Moore's facts?

Good to know- but how about focusing on 24/7 disinformation from everywhere else instead of one FACTUAL 2 hour movie?

But how can we ever expect a system to work for people if it's not incentivized to do so? Markets fail in this sector.

At least the other systems have first principles right. Pay to play health care is morally wrong at face value.

People want to know what Democrats stand for. I think they stand for this central principle: people who work hard and play by the rules ought to enjoy some measure of security. They shouldn't have to lose everything they own to pay the doctor, they shouldn't have their retirement savings plundered by people trying to manipulate markets to make a quick buck, they shouldn't have to go $100K in debt for their kids to attend public universities that they did the work to get admitted into, etc.

:evilgrin:

'' Believe it or not, the United States does rank highest in the patient satisfaction category. ''

who the HELL are they polling?
and who conDUCTED the poll?

same people who critiqued Sicko for Anderson Vanderbilt and PBS?

Than we do.

Must always compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

Since only 7 percent of Americans hold passports, how many of them have had any chance to do comparison shopping for health care systems.

should be against Universal Health Care. Period. How one comes into or leaves their life is only one small facet of the time spent in between those two events.

Any candidate who is against UHC is a Corporatist and should be called out on that.