The Anti-Sicko
I had the opportunity to watch a free screening of Michael Moore’s Sicko a week ago and have been pondering the impact of its message ever since. Many of my friends (late 20’s early 30’s) seem to agree with the message that the nanny state needs to take care of everyone. I wont say our system is perfect, but the last thing I want is to do exercises in front of the telescreen every morning. Better yet, I don’t want the government to control my personal choices due to their possible burden on the social system (IE: banning smoking, drinking, body modification, “risky” behavior, sexual promiscuity, etc).
Several questions, that I think would be responsible to ask, that were not addressed in Sicko were:
I think this 45 million metric is not a valid reasoning for mandating socialized healthcare. Just think if the unemployment rate included those not seeking work, or those whom cannot work due to disability.
Moore poorly demonstrates this by showing what I consider to be a wealthy French family that has a nice car and an expensive apartment. Oh yeah, and a nice sand collection to boot.
You know that this is necessary in a system where the government is in control of the number of patients a doctor can see or operate upon in a month/year. Medicare/Walter Reed anyone?
Moore takes liberties in demonstrating how cheap some medicines are in Cuba. In the film I believe an inhaler a woman uses costs 5 cents as opposed to some larger fee in the US. My question is, will we really be given that much of a break? Is the Cuban price due to humanitarian aid, or because of their economy?
With no co-pays and free health care for all, how jammed up will the system be when instituted? How long will it take for me to get an appointment? How much fraud and abuse can we expect? How many illegals can we expect to serve?
Also, an observation was made apparent to me by a friend concerning free market healthcare. Health insurance and the cost of care seems to go up yearly for Americans for most health services. However, with Medicare/Medicaid and the insurance companies dominating the entire industry, the system isn’t subject to market forces. However, you can see that those elective procedures that are not covered by insurance are going down in price for the consumer year over year. You can see this phenomenon with lasik surgery, plastic surgery, breast augmentation, and many others. This segment of the medical industry actually has to compete for consumer dollars and it is working to the customer’s advantage, as opposed to insurance and government that places caps on prices and services rendered, thus eliminating competition.
I imagine that socialized health care would continue to keep costs up, or cause fewer doctors to enter the workforce.
Searching for a response to the message that Sicko conveyed, I found Stuart Browning’s site, Free Market Cure. Browning has several short videos on his site, some of which answer the questions I list above. Browning’s approach is somewhat conservative, and somewhat libertarian. However it is much more refreshing than the socialist message in Moore’s movies.
This one is one of my favorites:
on July 8th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
[...] Posted by Squeaky Wheel at July 8th, 2007 Check out The Lone Libertarian’s post from today. [...]
on July 8th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Quote: “I imagine that socialized healthcare would continue to keep costs up, or cause fewer doctors to enter the workforce.”
Seems to me there is plenty of information available that can answer this question. The effect on cost is already known: less (two thirds to three quarters of US spending per capita) money to cover more of the population. As for fewer doctors, well, what’s the experience of other countries from Norway to Singapore?
Interesting… The Singapore government’s web site says 80% of physicians are in private practice, 80% of hospitals are government-run. It also says, “[o]ur hospitals and healthcare system will never withhold help to a Singaporean because of financial limitations.” This comes from one of the most intensely capitalistic nations on earth.
The problem is not nanny-statism or potential for exploding demand, but rather the chaotic American system of health care finance, if it can be called a “system” at all, that produces massive bureaucratic overhead and wildly uneven outcomes.
It’s silly to say that government-financed health care, or even public-private mandatory universal schemes like Germany’s, will result in “rationing” of care, when the commercial American system already imposes rationing on all but the very rich.
Reform of health care finance, which is what “Sicko” is calling for, would serve two purposes: get rid of the commercial forces gaming the system for their own profit, and open the door for reforms in health care delivery. The latter point includes preventive care, which the current system provides little incentive to emphasize, though it gives tremendous bang for the buck where it ought to count, in the quality and length of people’s lives.