So Michael Moore brought his latest film to Washington on June 20 for a well-publicized preview. “SiCKO” seemed to push most other serious health policy discussions off the agenda for the week, even while key congressional committees were voting on more than a dozen important health care bills on prescription drug safety and health spending.
Heaven forbid that we would wind up making policy by propaganda, because that is exactly what would happen if anyone were to base any serious health reform proposals on Moore’s film.
First, he makes the ridiculous assertion that Cuba’s government-run, single-payer health care system is far superior to the United States. Give me a break! Cuban doctors even botched surgery on Fidel Castro, and a Spanish surgeon had to be called in to try to repair the damage.
In a film scene reminiscent of the Keystone Cops, Cuban doctors dash around to care for several American patients (9/11 rescue workers) that Moore has brought over on a fishing boat he commandeered. The care they get is purported to be representative of the care that anyone in the socialized health care system in Cuba gets. Credible? You tell me.
Moore has also been doing the TV interview circuit, and one question he was asked seemed to get to the heart of his incongruity. An interviewer for FoxNews asked why he would be calling for a health care system run by government when he is so opposed to government in the first place.
“Good question,” Moore responds. He then uses the opportunity to slam the Bush administration, saying that government used to do things right before the current administration took over.
Exactly when was it that we had that perfect government?
Today, it is overwhelmed just trying to issue passports. Could any government run an infinitely more complex health care system for 300 million Americans?
The Cato Institute held a forum on Capitol Hill to show clips of “SiCKO” as well as clips from several other films that tell the other side of the story. One of the presenters was filmmaker Stuart Browning of the Motion Picture Institute. He has produced a series of films at www.freemarketcure.com using interviews with patients to show the limits, restrictions on access, and rationing of care in single-payer health care systems, especially Canada.
Another film is in production to answer Moore. Called “Sick and Sicker,” it is being filmed in Canada right now by producer Logan Darrow Clements. He has interviewed a number of us from the free-market policy community to talk about the value of a free-market health care system that values people and progress.
One of Moore’s core arguments in “SiCKO” is that profit in the health sector is evil. It is a view also shared by the chairs of many congressional committees and several presidential candidates.
But everywhere, profit is the reward that we give to the innovators, entrepreneurs and risk-takers in our economy for offering something new or better. And the marketplace is where the conversation takes place between buyers and sellers to see if what they are offering has value and, if so, at what price.
That’s the genius of our economy and how progress works. But a government-run system stops this conversation in its tracks and replaces it with price controls, centralized decision-making, and government micromanagement.
Single-payer advocates argue that we since we are such a rich country, that wouldn’t happen here – that there is enough money for everyone to have all of the health care they need for the money we spend now.
But we do have centralized micromanagement of decisions and price controls in our own government-run health care systems — Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA, for example. Government makes decisions about what will be covered, under what circumstances and for whom, and how much doctors and hospitals will be paid for their services. And government seldom gets it right – overpaying for some and underpaying for others, but also inducing huge demand for over-consumption of health care.
Earth to Michael Moore and crowd: The U.S. health sector doesn’t need more government control and regulation, but less.
In a system governed by free-market principles, people won’t be asked to make decisions about their medical treatment when they are on a gurney in an emergency room. But they would make decisions about the kind of insurance coverage they want to protect them if that happens, and would gain more control over their routine and non-emergency care.
You do have to admit, however, that Moore is a master of publicity. He has created so much hype for his film, first premiering it before the liberal entertainment world at the Cannes Film Festival. After a preview showing in Washington, he opened it in just one theater in New York – so the cameras could show long lines of people waiting to see the film, suggesting to all of the rest of us that this is a must-see movie.
Don’t believe it.
Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute in Alexandria, Va., a nonprofit research organization focused on free-market ideas for health reform.
