Sicko and Sense

I went to see Sicko tonight. Right wing claims that Michael Moore has highlighted only the positives in other health care systems and only the negatives in the US health care system ring distinctly hollow.

I enjoy good health and as a student, I have access to subsidized health care at my university. But as a student, I will likely rack up $100,000 in student loan debt by the time I finish my PhD. Moore also points to free education in France.

Meanwhile, heroes of 9/11, who worked in the toxic rubble of the World Trade Center, in Moore’s film, wind up in, of all places, Cuba, to receive care denied them in the U.S. A lot of people in a lot of places have longer life expectancies than in the U.S. Cuba is one of those places, and that hospital looked far nicer than anything I’ve seen here.

While hospitals in the U.S. dump the indigent on skid row, and insurance companies raise the denial of claims to a high art, Moore shows free, universal health care, elsewhere.

What are we doing? And how does it make any sense?

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