When I used to work at a hospital, there would be Canadians from BC that would come down for surgeries. At first I thought it was strange, but they’d tell me if you can afford it, you go to the States. And the waiting lists in those countries. I don’t know how widespread that attitude is, but it didn’t seem uncommon.

When my wife had to have surgery, sure the portion taht wasn’t covered by insurance was difficult for us, but at least she was able to get top quality and didn’t have to suffer through a long wait.

I wonder if these cancer victims really believe they would get that much better care in France or Cuba?

The truth of the matter is, we are spoiled. We think we all deserve to live to be 100. All of this high-tech medicine is expensive. Some of us will be able to afford it, and some of us won’t. You can’t sit on your fat butt eating doritos all day and get angry at others when you get cancer and no one is too keen on footing your bill.

What bothers me has nothing to do with insurance companies. It has to do with interference. The government or medical boards interfering with treatment options. So people go down to Mexico or Zurich. And I’m not talking about off-the-wall, wacked out treatments, either…

By Jeck on Jun 22, 2007

Moore doesn’t know the pros about smoking: getting a deep, throathy voice that could make you a vlog star, for example

By Davide Tarasconi on Jun 22, 2007

I havn’t seen the movie, but I’m getting tired of hearing “ya we suck but were still the best in the world”.

By Kevin Rae Wood on Jun 22, 2007

Awarding the Palme d’Or to Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 at Cannes in 2004 was a political statement by the organizing committee, not a recognition of the film’s cinematic worth, which was nil.

I haven’t seen Sicko, but I gather from the reviews I’ve read that it’s another “exercise in facile crowd-pleasing”.

As a rabid, slavering lefty, I feel that Moore’s ‘documentary’ work is so sloppy and dishonest that it is counter-productive to the cause of those of us who would like to see the present administration called to account for its incompetence and willful assault on the Constitution.

Cuba’s health care system may be one of the successes of Castro’s regime, but to glorify it out of the context in which it was built is a moral travesty.

Castro’s government remains an authoritarian dictatorship, with a poor human rights record.

All the more reason to repudiate the self-serving egocentrism of Moore’s work, so that we may succeed in neutering the legacy of the corrupt junta that has hijacked our government.

By Vince Williams on Jun 22, 2007

sycko is Boring, yes.
But good healthcare in Europe is still open to everyone not here in the usa, it’s very pricey.
Feldman don’t say euro healtcare is bad 4 american when you don’t know the issue.

By 54321 on Jun 23, 2007

Loren, put this one up on HuffPo. In addition to your Fred Thompson one… this will really win them over.

By Gregg on Jun 23, 2007

The best, most efficient hospital I’ve ever been to was in Thailand - not the US. The cost was 1/10th of what it is in the US.

Our healthcare system sucks and it needs to be addressed. Don’t dismiss Michael Moore because he’s fat - go overseas and experience it for yourself. You’ll see.

By kevin on Jun 24, 2007

It’s not that our healthcare system does not provide better than Costa Rica’s. It’s that it could be much, much better if so many people didn’t have to step on it before it gets to the people who need it most.

I have been my Grandfather’s legal guardian for four years, and I can tell you the first priority of our health care system is serving the shareholders interests.

Oh, and the people that have done most of my Grandfather’s caretaking? — they get their family’s health care administered through emergency rooms, and their children’s schools are the worst (and scariest)we have to offer.

We have great medical care, if you can get it. Do my Grandfather’s group home caretakers have access to it? No, not really (they should move to nyc). Prince Bandar? You bet. It’s a global thing baby.

Maybe mm should start including some t&a, and work with his shirt off.

This name calling thing is not cool, but it’s your gig.

By ChrisD on Jun 26, 2007

Moore is just another American falling on the ‘grass is greener on the other side of the fence’ bandwagon.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the US healthcare system has its faults, and I’m sure some people have suffered from it, yes. BUT please visit other countries and use THEIR healthcare system before criticizing your own, Moore. Try the UK for example.

It’s common to wait 6 month for treatment for cancer in the UK. Yes, it does mean a lot of people die needlessly. Quoting the Gardian “Britain has far lower cancer survival rates than almost all other European countries. A study to be published later this year by the World Health Organisation is expected to show that if cancer treatment in Britain was up to the European average it would save about 10,000 lives a year.”

Of course, waiting times to see something as simple as a doctor is also outrageous. My local doctor in the Docklands (London) would only see my child after a 4 weeks wait, then on the day of the appointment, we had to wait another 5 hours. Yes. Four weeks, then five hours on the day in a room than smells of vomit for a simple doctor’s appointment. I lived in the Philippines 2 years, and the medical system there was actually better than what I experienced in the UK.

Also bizarrely I have yet to see a British doctor in the UK. They all seem to be from foreign countries, go figure, maybe the British gave up on a failed system? Or maybe they work for the private sector. But I digress.

Moving on to MRSA death (infection contracted because of filthy hospital wards). In 1999: 487 deaths. In 2003: 955 deaths. In 2004 : 1700 deaths. In 2005: 2200 deaths. I mean put that in your head, that’s twenty two hundred dead for no other reason than a failed NHS system, incapable of keeping the most basic room and tools clean.

And on a final note, head over to youtube and check out that video where Mr Moore gives his support to a bunch of nutjobs who think the 9/11 attacks where cleverly disguised cruise missiles using holograms and planted explosive charges.

Guys like Moore don’t realize how good they have it in the US of A. Shame.

By Stephan Tual on Jun 28, 2007

Michael Moore is just a jackass, period, full stop. He’s become very rich complaining about other people becoming rich.

By jvon on Jun 28, 2007

Yes michael Moore will wake up tomorrow still fay and ugly but Americans will wake up to 2nd class medical care (ofcause not counting fatcat republicans)American is the worlds only super power will All should have top notch medical care.

By grandpa in florida on Jun 28, 2007

Yes, we should all be above average, too, except it doesn’t work that way.

So where do you go for your healthcare, Grandpa? Been to Cuba lately?

By jvon on Jun 29, 2007

Grandpa, please give up your US residency and give it to me. I’ll exchange it for a brand new French passport. You’ll love it there. Trust me. No tricks. Really.

By Stephan Tual on Jun 29, 2007

Sicko is boring. How many ways can you illustrate that some people can’t pay their medical bills? And how often can you show how different the rest of the world is from us? I walked out before the trip to Cuba. I’m no liberal, but I liked all of Michael Moore’s other films.

By Calvin Kruse on Jun 30, 2007

Moore is a miserable hack. Where a 300 pound man gets off lecturing us on the importance of proper health care, I have no idea. Why is the American health care system overloaded? Gee, I dunno, have another cheeseburger.

I loved when his bodyguard got arrested on gun charges also.

By jvon on Jul 1, 2007

just saw the movie.
ok it’s a documentary and I prefer 100 times the last pirates of the caribeans.
But it tells some unpleasant truth
We are nation of “me” before being a nation of “we”: We the people … fucking hell USA stand up!

Most of efficient health care systems work only when the wealth is redistributed.
The tricky part is how do you prevent excess and don’t fall into communism

By dfg on Jul 2, 2007

Redistributing wealth is not a role to be found anywhere in the Constitution, with good reason. If you want to live that way, move to Europe.

By jvon on Jul 2, 2007

…unless you’re already IN Europe, in which case you are cordially invited to stay there.

By jvon on Jul 2, 2007

Hah.

All the wealth in the U.S. is being ‘redistributed’
to the top 10 per cent of asset holders.

Bush just picked up where Reagan left off in assuring the flow continues to his ‘base’.

By Vince Williams on Jul 2, 2007

Not by the government it isn’t. If you’re annoyed by business owners getting rich, go start one. Lots of people like to rant about “corporations” also — I am majority owner in two. Nothing mysterious about it, you can set one up in about an hour.

By jvon on Jul 2, 2007

I own a business.

The U.S. government, under the Bush/Cheney junta, has been selling off (at fire sale prices), giving away, or leasing at laughably low rates the property and use rights that belong to ALL U.S. citizens.

Even as greater wealth in this country is being created, it is being increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer people, not more.

Reagan, who was already visibly in his dotage, raised the race-coded false spectre of the Cadillac-driving welfare mother, at the very time the Executive was enabling the looting of the national treasury and raids on the public commons by big corporate polluters.

The Bush family are, and have been servants of multi-national corporations (that have no allegiance to ANY nation) since Prescott Bush was a banker for Hitler and the Nazi Party of Germany.

By Vince Williams on Jul 3, 2007

Jvon,
of course wealth redistribution does not need to appear in the constitution.

don’t get me wrong
-Democratic
-Republic
-Separation of power
-Human rights
-Christianity
that’s the base of our western world.

But usually, the poorer people gets the less they have the same rights and the same opportunities.

Unless we assume that “poor” or “unsuccessful” people are just being pulled over by natural selection or enslaved like it was under European monarchies.

Actually Alexis de Tocqueville already foreseen this as “tyranny of the majority”.

in the end it’s all about the power and how to keep it since immemorial times.

By dfg on Jul 4, 2007

I can’t belive it… soy u have to pay to go to the hospital when u get ill??? the richest country in the world?? ROFL, i heard that the issue was bad in USA, but not that much! The poor dies the rich lives… surely america is the land of freedom! I better stay home (we have in spain one of the best medical sistems in the world… and yeah, we all get the same treatment, no matter the size of your wallet). I readed a couple of comments in the line that the illness was deserved… you are scaring people! The most fun is that you say you want a small “goverment” and you have the largest army int he world!! Of course, it’s not the state! (neither the FBI, CIA…) Maybe you could begin reducing that, and increasing your living-quality.

By Xavier on Sep 9, 2007

Increasing our living quality, eh? I’ve known a few Spaniards, they only seem to migrate in one direction. Seen a lot of Americans moving there? No? Didn’t think so.

Poor people don’t pay when they go to the hospital, which is part of the reason it’s so freaking expensive. Now go worry about your own country’s collapsing economy and stop trying to give us advice on how to run ours.

By jvon on Sep 9, 2007

Jvon is never one to let the facts stand in the way of making a ‘point’.

Maybe he’s been in a coma. I’ve been to Spain a few times, so I know a little about it.

Spain’s economy has been booming for the last ten years.

It’s economic growth rate is still at 40%, hardly a “collapse”– it beats the 2.5% average of the rest of the EU.

It looks as if the housing market bubble is about to burst there, and August showed a sharp downswing in employment.

A correction is overdue in an economy that has been fueled by a construction boom that’s been drawing workers from all over Europe and developing countries.

Maybe Jvon thinks he’s Paladin– he likes to shoot from the hip.

By Vince Williams on Sep 10, 2007

Correction:

It’s economic growth rate is still at 4%.

By Vince Williams on Sep 10, 2007