CITIZEN ALERT v1.229SiCKO REVIEW

I went and saw SiCKO yesterday with my friend Scott. I think its Michael Moore's most accessible film to date. The Bush bashing is kept to a minimum and he actually clobbers Hillary Clinton as much as he clobbers Nixon whom he places the blame on starting the for-profit HMO "movement". Some could argue though that the for-profit HMOs developed later in the 80s out of Nixons HMO Act as a sort of "mutation", but you guys can argue that.

He mainly attacks health care in America as this ideal of discompassion toward our fellow man. That's really the over all theme in SiCKO is that we are here to take care of one another. It's a motto I personally relish myself in my own life. You can see it on my personal MySpace page - "EVERYONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYONE ELSE". I like to keep things simple. Apply that to anything you run across in your every day routine and see how your affected by it.

Overall I liked SiCKO, it showed other countries' health care systems as they should be - an after thought. It was THE ONE LESS THING I'm always hoping for. ONE LESS THING to worry about. Can we have just ONE LESS THING to occupy our time so we can concentrate on other things? Health care seems a perfect choice. People in the UK, Canada, France, Cuba - it's the ONE LESS THING they have to be bothered with and they think it quite odd that we still have to worry about it.

As the SiCKO box office revenue grows, more and more anti-Moore, anti-socialized medicine blogs and interviews you are likely to see. Let me dispel one for you right now. You're probably eventually going to have someone send this to you or run across it on the internet, a short film by Stuart Browning telling you how much Canada sucks:

This was posted on moorewatch.com - an anti-moore site - and it is to counter all those crazy Canadians that Michael Moore interviews in SiCKO. Now, I know that Moore is by nature going to slant things in his favor, but don't think that the other side will not slant things in theirs with their own agenda. But in the film above you'll notice they present ONE case and it's not even a correctly constructed argument. They are comparing a health care system to someone laying down cash on the table. No one gets what they want more than someone who plunks down cash for something, so I think you are comparing apples and oranges on that one.

Now, let's look at their agenda. Go and Google Stuart Browning and you will find he is a film maker and an advocate of free market health care. His partner in promoting free market healthcare is physician David Gratzer. Then, Google David Gratzer, and you will find that one of his buddies is none other than Milton FREAKING Friedman. If the neo cons every replaced God with anyone sometime down the road it would be Milton FREAKING Friedman. Milt wrote the foreword to Gratzer's book The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care. Nice title. It was put out by Encounter Books. Google that. This took me all of 60 seconds to find out all this by the way. Google Encounter and you find:

Encounter Books is an American conservative book publisher. It is an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc.

Encounter Books publishes serious non-fiction books, with a scholarly leaning, in the areas of history, religion, biography, education, public policy, current affairs, social sciences, and politics.

Ah, the Conservative infrastructure is alive and well. See what I mean? Everyone slants.

Now, back to the short film; here's a comment left by a CANADIAN on the moorewatch.com site after viewing the short film.

As a Canadian I have to comment on this one…

First my disclaimer: I love assault rifles and am pro-death penalty, and very much a supporter of Canada’s war effort in Afghanistan. Technically that makes me a right-leaning Canadian.

But I just HAVE to point out that the dreadful little film on Youtube about that unfortunate man is FAR from the norm in the Canadian health care system. It uses the same careful omission of a few critical details that Moore uses in his films.

It is extreme case of a person who slipped through the cracks in our system. They show up every few years and make headlines across the country. For a week or so after people rally for privatized health care, then the fervor fades away as the details of the case unfold.

The majority of these cases are the result of misdiagnoses by the attending physician. Malpractice happens everywhere, since doctors are human. That is why people get second opinions.

A doctor in Canada, particularly a specialist, has the the power to order an immediate MRI or CT scan if they truly believe there is something to be discovered. People with trivial issues can be bumped on a moments notice. READ THE REST HERE

More on SiCKO tomorrow...