Sicko

Would you take health care advice from this man?

Pumping away on the elliptical machine at Equinox, I had the choice of fourteen televisions, every third one tuned into The View. While watching ESPN, I noticed a portly sloppy guy walk on The View set and engulf Liz Hasselbeck. Michael Moore was there to plug his new movie, Sicko.

Moore's major point is that the health care system in America is “broken.”

From a film review by James Christopher at the Cannes Film Festival:

“Moore plays the small humble man in this villainous conspiracy against the public. He feels the aches and pains of the wronged, and lambasts company directors and government officials. He travels to London to show off the beauty and brilliance of the British National Health Service. He films empty waiting rooms and happy, care-free health workers.

What he hasn’t done is lie in a corridor all night at the Royal Free watching his severed toe disintegrate in a plastic cup of melted ice. I have. I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember in NHS hospitals vainly waiting for stitches or praying for the arrival of a midwife. There are no such traumas in Moore’s rose-tinted vision of our glorious NHS.”

Coincidentally, the LA Times ran a long article last Sunday titled “Care in need of a cure” that managed to bash the US medical profession while simultaneously promoting Moore’s movie. The story behind the article was a report by the Commonwealth Fund ranking the United States sixth out of six industrialized nations on “measures of safe and coordinated health care” while spending the most per person on that care. The US trailed, in order, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Canada while spending $6102 per person compared to an average of $2735 for the others.

Examples of our poor showing include the fact that the US life expectancy is 77.2 years compared to the average of 77.8 years (and Japan’s 81.8 years). The US also has higher average potential years of life lost due to diabetes (0.10 year compared to 0.04 year). These dramatic results are blamed squarely on the sad state of US healthcare, while the real causes (largely obesity - see Michael Moore) are discounted.

Fortunately, the article is balanced by other facts about the US healthcare system: We have the best breast cancer treatment and survival rates; the best preventive measures like Pap tests, mammograms and colonoscopies; the best treatment of heart attacks and drug-resistant tuberculosis; the premier medical research institutions; and America leads the world in the development of new drugs. The article admits that wealthy people from around the world come to the US for treatment of major diseases.

All that sounds pretty darn good. With all those firsts how did we wind up last? The key to that conundrum comes in the article’s twenty-fourth paragraph: “Probably the area in which the US uniquely falters by comparison with developed nations is in assuring that anyone who is sick can receive care.”

The thirty-first paragraph reveals the causal and the cure. Somewhere between 46 and 50 million Americans do not have health insurance. That means, of course, that between 250 and 254 million Americans do have private health insurance and are receiving top notch care. The question is what to do about the rest and the conclusion is obvious: give them health insurance at public expense.

Let’s use the lower number of uninsured for a calculation of how much that would cost at the average expenditure of $6102 per American. The result is $281 Billion – each and every year. That is the Democratic solution. It is not surprising when one remembers that the Dem’s presidential candidate John Edwards proposed that the US educate 100 million children in the third world. All Democratic social programs cost in the $100’s of billions.

Now what about all those who are uninsured? Who are they? One very large group must be the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. They broke into our country and now use our services, including hospital emergency rooms. If the Democrats have their way, these will be joined by another 50-100 million family members if the absurd immigration bill passes. Another substantial group, probably several million, are homeless bums. Most will not even accept public housing if it comes with any conditions and wouldn’t go to a doctor if you paid them to do so. Perhaps the largest group is unmarried women with several children. Again it is act of faith that the large percent who are addicts are going to take themselves or their children to the doctor.

So what would I do about this issue? My compassionate conservative plan would rely on individual responsibility, low cost insurance and clinics. First, illegal immigrants who are allowed to stay would be required to purchase minimal health insurance policies that would cover catastrophic care and doctor’s visits in clinics. They would not be allowed to use the emergency rooms for non-emergencies.

The immigration bill must not be passed if it allows family members of illegals to come here ahead of immigrants who are standing in line. The bill should favor those immigrants who are able to pay for their health insurance. It should especially recruit doctors who would be encouraged via accelerated citizenship to practice in clinics for the poor. (The US has 20% fewer doctors per capita than the other industrialized nations.)

The homeless should be incarcerated (some) or institutionalized (most). Unmarried mothers on welfare should be allowed (encouraged) to take themselves and their children to the clinics at no cost.

This is a plan that deals with the problem while maintaining the excellent heath care system for the large majority of American who pay their own way. And don’t buy the blather that our health care is too expensive (although the excessive amount going to personal injury lawyers should be reduced by tort reform). When you need a heart bypass operation and your insurance pays for it, you will agree it’s a bargain at twice the price.