Who’s Sicko?

I missed this Wall Street Journal article from the other day. It raises more great points about Sicko, but also the lack of qualty health care in the places more praises in his film.

Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore’s claim that ERs don’t overcrowd in Canada. A Canadian government study recently found that only about half of patients are treated in a timely manner, as defined by local medical and hospital associations. “The research merely confirms anecdotal reports of interminable waits,” reported a national newspaper. While people in rural areas seem to fare better, Toronto patients receive care in four hours on average; one in 10 patients waits more than a dozen hours.

This problem hit close to home last year: A relative, living in Winnipeg, nearly died of a strangulated bowel while lying on a stretcher for five hours, writhing in pain. To get the needed ultrasound, he was sent by ambulance to another hospital.

In Britain, the Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients wait more than a year for surgery. Around the time Mr. Moore was putting the finishing touches on his documentary, a hospital in Sutton Coldfield announced its new money-saving linen policy: Housekeeping will no longer change the bed sheets between patients, just turn them over. France’s system failed so spectacularly in the summer heat of 2003 that 13,000 people died, largely of dehydration. Hospitals stopped answering the phones and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves.

With such problems, it’s not surprising that people are looking for alternatives. Private clinics--some operating in a “gray zone” of the law--are now opening in Canada at a rate of about one per week.

I keep hearing all kinds of horror stories from friends in Canada about the system there. And England’s National Health Service has only gotten worse since I lived there in the early 80s. It was already bad then. Yet Moore praises it in his film.

I think Moore raises some good points about the problems with insurance companies and so on, in America. But is solutions and alternative examples are mostly a lot worse than the things he criticizes here.

Solutions are needed. Just not his. 

Government needs to get the boot. Way too much interference in the private sector. Health insurance should be like auto insurance in that you buy the policy you prefer and it follows you where ever you work. Competition will lower costs.

Posted by  on  06/30  at  06:18 PM
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