War profiteer and filmmaker Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 911 $260M worlwide gross) visited the State Capitol with a message of health care socialism yesterday. Here is one of his more 
ridiculous (of many) quotes: "’There is no room for the concept of profits when taking care of people when they are sick," Moore told a crowd of nearly a thousand nurses who swarmed the west steps of the Capitol.
I wonder if there could be anyone dumber than this guy. The profit motive in health care drives all innovation, all advancement, all efficiency and all progress in the industry. Socialist countries with single payer health care produce no advanced medical technology of their own, no new pharmaceutical drugs, and massive rationing and wait times. Nobody from the United States goes to Canada for advanced treatments.
The single largest cost drivers in our private health system are illegal immigration and government run health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Hospitals and practitioners lose money on every government paid for patient they see. Those costs are negotiated into the contracts these providers have with private carriers such as Blue Cross. End of story.
If there was real interested in getting spiraling heath costs under control we would privatize all government health programs and start securing our borders. Since our political leaders are not going to do this, the problem of high costs, CAUSED by the government, will continue.
Someone needs to make a new movie: Michael Moore, Dumbo.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
By the headline, I thought you were talking about Dick Cheney and Haliburton.
You ought to see the film before you criticize it. Because if you did, you’d find several Americans that not only went to Canada for treatment — they MOVED there permanently so they could sustain their lives and families.
Since every other civilized nation in the world has single payer health care, your notion that nations like Germany, France, and Switzerland aren’t producing new drugs or new treatments — when they are headquarters for some of the largest drug companies and medical treatment innovators in the world — is nothing short of stunning.
The movie should have a profound impact on the public and the legislative process. Which reminds me: the Field Poll shows even a majority of Republicans favor comprehensive health care reform along the lines of what the Democrats in the legislature are proposing.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Steve,
Socialized medicine doesn’t work. The ratio of people coming to this country for advanced treatment against those leaving the country for treatment has got to be at least a zillion to one. If you don’t have profit in healthcare, there is no future. Even the socialist countries are using technology born here. Get a clue dude. Every worked anywhere where capitalism was practiced?
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Health care reform and access yes. Socialized medicine no.Same mistake that Marx made when he proposed his “Utopia”. When there is no motivation for success and innovation there will be none. We are not ants or bees and will never work like these collectives.We are human beings as such we have indvidual drive. Remember the individual Steve. Oh that’s right resistence is futile and we will be assimilated. Not as long as we have free will given by God. Oops forgot you guys don’t like God either.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Medicare, Medi-cal = government medical programs that work
Private insurance = disaster.
If our system is so great, how come that no other major world power is copying it?
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Unfunded liability in Medicare $13 trillion. Its called bankruptcy.
Other world powers? I didn’t know there were any other world powers. HMMMMMM. England? No. France (soon they will be under their new management), Germany (desperately trying to emulate us).
This is the greatest country in the world. The only people who want to emulate Old Europe and Canada are leftists like Steve Maviglio.
We have created more wealth and a better way of life than anywhere on Earth. Fixing healthcare will be acheived when we limit government’s role, and start enforcing our borders.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
No country is trying to emulate our health care “system.” Get a passport and open your mind.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Michael, to your original point, that no research is done outside of America, I suppose all one could really say is that you are ill-informed. Mr. Maviglio pointed out how wrong you really are, but here are some specific names: AstraZeneca of Sweden, Novartis of Switzerland, GlaxoSmithKline from the UK and Bayer from Germany.
Furthermore, very little research is actually done by the corporations. Approximately 15% of R&D money for drugs/devices comes from private corporations. The rest comes from government sources of one kind or another.
It slowly becomes abundantly clear that you actually have no real concept of what you are talking about at all. You just resort to name callings and made-up facts. Zillion-to-1 huh? Wow, that’s not a real number, but ok. Any actual data to make that point or did that just emerge from your mind completely free of the encumbrances of reality. But, I suppose it won’t be your family that suffers due to the profit taking of insurance companies, right? You’re immune from that, because the insurance companies will be nice to you because you support their profit-taking, right? Right?
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Brian,
Mr. Moore made this statement:
“There is no room for the concept of profits when taking care of people when they are sick”
All the companies you reference are for profit entities. They do not exist in a single payer system. They would not survive a government run healthcare. That is my point, and you helped me make it again. I did not say that private companies operating in Europe do not do research, I said that single payer systems produce absolutely nothing in the way of innovation and productivity, and to that end, I am still absolutely correct.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Steve,
I have a passport.
There are far more people coming to America for healthcare than are leaving to get better care somewhere else. We have the best and most advanced system in the world, the greatest teaching facilities, and superior technology. If I get sick, I will not be going anywhere for treatment but right here.
The problems we have in our system now are caused by government involvement, and further involvement is not the solution.
I cannot think of one problem the government has solved. It consistently delivers less for more year over year. In this era of technology and productivity, private enterprise can reduce costs, increase profits and solve problems. Government cannot now, nor has it ever, solved a problem and then folded up the bureaucracy.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Mr. Maviglio’s ignorance is stunning. Medi-Cal and Medicare “work” so well that many hospitals in So. California have closed their doors in the last ten years.
England’s elites receive their medical care from private practitioners in private offices, at private clinics and in private hospitals. When healthcare is rationed, patients can die before its their turn for treatment.
BTW,when Castro was gravely ill, he didn’t rely on Cuban doctors, but imported some from Spain. Mother Teresa opted to come to the U.S. for treatment at least once.
As for Switzerland, its absurd to compare that tiny, landlocked and neutral country to the U.S. Of course, in Switzerland every head of household is REQUIRED to own a firearm.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Hospitals haven’t closed because Medi-Cal and Medicare aren’t working. Reimbursement rates haven’t been increased since guess who — Republicans — refused to allow increases in the rates of reimbursement. No need to comment on your ignorance, Amy, because it speaks for itself. Try sticking to the issues instead of personal attacks on someone’s intelligence that disagrees with your view of the world. I never argued that America’s health care isn’t the best in the world. It is. But when more than six million people in our state have zero access to it, tell me how that helps them?
June 14th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Steve,
It doesn’t sell. All 6 million of those people have access to health care. The problem is, they aren’t paying for it. Spend a couple of Saturday nights here in Fresno down at the trauma center (as I have) and you will see. $22 billion sent back to Mexico in 18 months – but the people sending that money back can’t buy insurance? Instead, the unreimbursed care for those 6 million, who all get care, plus inadequate government reimbursements for those on government funded plans = disaster. We don’t need more government to fix it.