Tell me more about the accuracy of Michael Moore's movie Sicko. Did I miss something?

Question

I did a search and saw tons of questions/answers about Michael Moore's movie Sicko. In many cases, people just attack Michael Moore himself or his previous movies. They don't analyze the facts in Sicko. Some say the movie is classified as entertainment. Who cares how it is classified by some institutions or individuals, which are most likely biased? If they have seen inaccuracies in the movie, what are these inaccuracies? Let's focus on the facts that Sicko mentions or fails to mention! Some say that in Canada, France, etc. taxpayers must pay the bill for health care, as if the movie did not consider this fact! It did and nevertheless concluded that they had a much better health care system. It is almost as if people answered the questions without having seen the movie!

This is a challenge to those who might know some inaccuracies or omissions in the movie. I want to read critics on the accuracy of the movie, but for god's sake, analyze the facts and make sure you've seen the movie.

To Allen in the hills : You should read this http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=410201 . Here is an excerpt : ..., it is far from obvious that technological change should be regarded
as a clear factor explaining the higher US spending levels when examined under an international perspective. Based on the limited evidence on the existing stock of technology across countries provided by the OECD (1998), it is evident from table 2 that, while the US enjoys higher capacity in some high technology facilities (for example, 16 magnetic resonance imaging equipment and 26.9 scanners units per million population) than most other countries, in other instances of medical advances the US has lower capacity. Indeed, the US number of lithrotriptors per million population in 1990 (not in table 2) does not seem high (1.5) when compared to Sweden (1.2), Germany (1.3 in 1991), Japan (2.5) or Italy (3.7 in 1991), nor does the US number of units of radiation treatment equipment per ...

To devilsadvocatexxxx : I am sorry to hear about your situation. In your country (UK), you have the option to go for the private. I understand that it may not help because there is simply not enough donor organs, but this is not the fault of the health system. It is the same thing in the USA: approximately 19 transplant candidates die each day in the USA while waiting to receive a donor organ.

To David W : As I mentioned to alleninthehills, the US is not doing better than other countries to provide medical technologies. They have more MRI, but less of many other technologies.

Answer 1

Anyone who saw the movie and just looks around at everyday America knows it was a pretty accurate picture of the nasty mess corporate greedy thinking has created in America.

Most people who hate Moore never even bother to watch the films, and will usually rather proudly admit to this, as if being ignorant of that which you fear is a patriotic quality... That says it all

Answer 2

CNN did not apologize stating they were wrong and he was right. Quite the contrary they indicated that Moore is sensationalizing by using any flippant weak source to support his desire to create a money making film.

Do we need a better health care system of course.

Do we want to mimic other nations? Nope They have to wait to receive their health care. Like taking a ticket, and they have no choice, they can not go to some other source for care.

We are the third largest populated country in the world, which means we can not mimic a much smaller nation's health care system such as Canada whose population is small in comparison.

Answer 3

There is proof all the advanced countries with socialized medicine are doing better than the US. Just pick this link to a graph of United Nations Data http://bp2.blogger.com/_3K9pXj9nEFY/RpMNIYPgjqI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/XVqFthn3HOc/s1600-h/healthlifechart3.jpg

From it you can see that all the countries with lower child mortality and longer life spans are all the usual suspects as far as socialized societies.

This is UN data and so not the most current but if you run the data over time you can see that while Cuba was way back it is moving up very fast.

The relative size of the dots is the relative numbers of doctors per person, so you see Moore was not exaggerating about Cuba there.

Most of the countries ahead of the US are also moving away pretty fast as well, and a few behind us are catching up.

Some like Costa Rica were way back 50 years ago, but moving ahead very fast. In 1990 they had a CIA /World Bank installed government that went to a free enterprise system for health care and life expectancy took an immediate hit you can see in the graph.

Likewise China abandoned universal health care in 1987 and though incomes rose, steady progress in health care slowed dramatically.

http://tools.google.com/gapminder/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2001$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=SH.DYN.MORT;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=SP.DYN.LE00.IN;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=20;iid=SH.MED.PHYS.ZS;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=1004;iid=SP.POP.DPND;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=2.9;dataMax=500$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=24;dataMax=82$map_s;sma=4.55;smi=2.25$inds=
The tool is here if you want to look at the data every which way and see what is happening for yourself

I did not need to see the film to know what he was talking about, as I have a long list of my own horror stories. I did see the film however and thought he had rather understated the case.

The Google Gapminder tool shows a much larger and starker picture. Michael Moore did not visit Norway, Iceland, Japan, Sweden, or even Germany all of whom have better stats than those he did visit.

Gapminder also tells many other tales, like what country had a life expectancy of 25, but that is for other questions.

David W- It is very true that somebody pays the bills no matter what, but there are two points to point out.
#1 the need for billions of dollars in profits has to come from somewhere, and dozens of bureaucracies are more expensive than just one, particularly if they are not spending their attention on denying care.

#2 While you pay taxes to an insurance company or to a government is is still a big expense, in the government case it is more fair, and you will NEVER have to die or ruin your life because you get sick.

#3(bonus) Other countries like Thailand have better and cheaper medicine than the US and many folk from around the world go there instead of the US now. (including my sister from the US)

But because it is like the US, in that only folk with money are treated Thailand has an even worse record by far than the US, so just having the doctors and equipment is not enough.

Answer 4

Very simply, you and the moron claim that all these other nation have a better system, then answer this, why do the ones who can afford to do so, leave their homelands and come here for treatment. And if that does not do it for you, do you really like the ideal of the government, any government deciding if you are "worthy" of the treatment, based on your age, education, and condition. If you parents, needed a oxygen tank but it was determined that the cost could be better spent on some other person who was younger, would you sit by and watch them die? would you?

Answer 5

I don't think there is any question the movie is reasonably accurate. As for how Canada, France, and other countries are able to provide such a better health care system, I figure the main difference is that they spend a lot less on defense. If you are an American citizen, you are living in a country that feels it has to be the World's watchdog, and the health care system is part of the price you pay.

* * * * *

Heh, interesting how everyone supporting the movie has picked up some negative votes here, but there are no posts yet trying to debunk the accuracy of the movie. Hey guys doling out the negative votes, wherever you are: You don't agree, obviously -- so where's your rebuttal?

Answer 6

1

Answer 7

Those who questioned the movie (Sicko) are those who constantly bury their heads in the sand to anything, rather than think for themselves.

Answer 8

The whole problem is that the movies shows how people in those countries don't have to pay for anything. But we all know that no matter what there is always a price to pay- aIf you encourage a medical system which is not able to place large amounts of money into research and development then over time that medical system will feel the effects- all countries mention have better health care in some cases but not in all, in the US we have over all one of the best health care sysetems in the world compared to those with forms of soicialized medicine.

Answer 9

You guys are great!!! I have some quicksand I would like to sell you !! Gee this is fun!!!

Answer 10

the movie is highly accurate for those who want to believe in it, as a 76 year old who does not quallify anymore for a heart transplant in the UK (TO OLD TO WASTE MONEY ON), I take the american system anytime.