Michael Moore, Healthcare and Lies

The Times of London picks apart the Michael Moore mockumentary Sicko for his complete white-washing of the British healthcare system. A taste:

Sicko, like all Moore’s films, is about an important and emotive subject – healthcare. He contrasts the harsh and exclusive system in the US with the European ideal of universal socialised medicine, equal and free for all, and tries to demonstrate that one is wrong and the other is right. So far, so good; there are cases to be made.

Unfortunately Sicko is a dishonest film. That is not only my opinion. It is the opinion of Professor Lord Robert Winston, the consultant and advocate of the NHS. When asked on BBC Radio 4 whether he recognised the NHS as portrayed in this film, Winston replied: “No, I didn’t. Most of it was filmed at my hospital [the Hammersmith in west London], which is a very good hospital but doesn’t represent what the NHS is like.”

The entire essay picks Moore's film apart piece by lying piece.

Interestingly, some additional info also came out today concerning just how screwed up the NHS is:

Record numbers of Britons are travelling abroad for medical treatment to escape the NHS - with 70,000 patients expected to fly out this year.

And by the end of the decade 200,000 "health tourists" will fly as far as Malaysa (sic) and South Africa for major surgery to avoid long waiting lists and the rising threat of superbugs, according to a new report.

This is a vision of the future that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards want to see. A system of healthcare in which lesser-educated doctors will be imported and the standard of care will fall dramatically. Those who were contemplating medical school will instead become lawyers, engineers and researchers.

The Democrats as a whole and John Edwards in particular have played the class card non-stop throughout the campaign. If Edwards really wants to see the difference between haves and have-nots, wait until he sees what will happen if a universal healthcare plan ever comes to fruition. Those with the means will continue to see the best doctors at the best hospitals while those who do not will receive substandard care, if they receieve any care at all.

Edwards' plan would bankrupt the nation and result in an additional tax on business thereby acting as a drain on business creation and expansion and result in a massive hit on the economic actvitiy that keeps this nation humming.

Our current system is not perfect and needs adjustments such as radical tort reform (many states are acting on this crucial issue as we speak) and better patient options for reduced cost. However, even the poorest among us receive the best healthcare the world has to offer from highly-trained doctors and nurses who receive excellent pay for what they do. In one fell swoop, that will all go away and the dream of morons like Michael moore will be exposed as a nightmare for the rest of us.