I was just alerted to this alarming piece in the Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal. Excerpts:
"Consider, for instance, Mr. Moore's claim [in Sicko] 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. ...
"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. ...
"Canadian doctors, once quiet on the issue of private health care, elected Brian Day as president of their national association. Dr. Day is a leading critic of Canadian medicare; he opened a private surgery hospital and then challenged the government to shut it down. 'This is a country,' Dr. Day said by way of explanation, 'in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.' ..."
Alarming, yes, but since the WSJ Opinion Journal is to editorials what FOX is to news, I'm not surprised they'd trot out a free-market apologist (who, unsurprisingly, has a free-market apologia to sell). It's telling that they're slamming the film before its wide release.
The story of his relative's death is sad and terrible, but we lose about 18,000 uninsured Americans every year (that's a 2002-vintage stat) and I don't see the WSJ using their deaths to argue that our health care system is broken.
At any rate, the writer isn't suggesting any ways to fix our system or even acknowledging the problems with it. The whole thing boils down to the tired old conservative Eeyoresque mindset that nothing works perfectly so we shouldn't even try to change what we've got.
Note that the good doctor is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, which held a lot of sway with Mayor Guiliani and which keeps its corporate funding under wraps. (Its Capital Research Center lists Bristol-Myers Squibb and Cigna as donors.)
It's worth reading the wiki on MI if you're not familiar with them. The place is a Petri dish of far-right thought.
That's all music to my ears. Thank you!
Glad you liked the piece - I thought it was insightful. While I like my day job just fine, like many other creative types I'm given more than just pause by the thought of wading into the wilds of self-funded health insurance.
I have always wondered about the impact of the US health care system on entrepreneurialism. I suspect it is a major brake on people starting new businesses. And the impact on the economy must be huge because small and medium sized business are responsible for a disproportionate share of job creation.
It amazes me that a country that supposedly values that entrepreneurial spirit, health care policy so disadvantages folks in that small and medium sector.
And the reasons Canadian and British emergency rooms are crowded (and they sometimes are) are not to do with who pays. One contributor to this has been the free-market push to reduce any slack in the system so there isn't enough spare capacity in hospitals (think beds to move folks into) to deal with rush periods. there are other issues, too, but privatization won't solve the underlying problems. And the readers of the Washington Post (or the ones they care about) are most likely the sort of folks who can afford to pay their way to the front of the line. They don't care about average wait times, they care about whether they can get treated quickly regardless of medical necessity.
Absolutely. It would be such a boon to business too, not just creative people.
Don't forget how many of us would ditch the day jobs we hate and take a lower paying job in the public service/nonprofit sectors. I, for one, would jump at the chance.
I would also jump at the chance, Constance. And in doing so I would surely eliminate the stress of being in a job I dislike day in and day out and in turn need less medical care!
single-payer health care: YAY!
Now can I ask a really important question: how are the chickens?? 
Not just shackled to shitty draining day jobs, but think how many are trapped in miserable soul-killing marriages just for the sake of keeping their health insurance. American society would literally fall apart if the people were set free by national health care!
RM: I'm here on the recommendation of More Cowbell, and am totally digging on this blog already.
Just yesterday, I went to see a play with my friend Jerry-the-struggling-actor, who lives life without insurance at the age of 42. I might have followed the same path, but I too was afraid to make paltry sums of money with no safety net.
Altho', after having seen Sicko, perhaps an insurance policy isn't the safety net it once seemed to be ...
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