We are all familiar with the Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko”. Moore is a great supporter of “universal” Medicare. He believes that there is nothing better: in universal Medicare’s la-la land, all is “free” and fine and dandy. The Canadian model works so “well” that he made a propaganda movie about it. There is no coin with just one face. Universal Medicare systems are just as bankrupt and expensive as the American system is, and just as corrupt and dysfunctional. Once again, leftist Moore presents us with a big lure, attributing all the faults and costs and failures to the American private system. “Just go public”, he says, “and all will be better and cost nothing”! For a socialist, in fact, the state is an omniscient, wise and omnipresent Santa Claus that prints money by magic. A socialist ideologue is chronically afflicted by economic schizophrenia.
Bullshit to that. This video, “A Short Course In Brain Surgery”, gives us a few examples of how “wonderful” the Canadian “universal” Medicare really is.
As both systems are rotten, malfunctioning, expensive and nearly bankrupt, the fact is that both sides of the argument tragically miss the target as usual. Public or private makes no difference. If we get off the delusional pot of political and ideological agendas and postures and stop fooling ourselves, reality becomes clearer. We at FORCES certainly do not presume to have all the solutions; but we can certainly see the causes, and most of them are this:
The “pornographic” cost of drugs produced by Big Pharma is basically the same in both systems. There are drugs that cost several thoudands dollars a dose, and are more common than you think. Whether you pay through your taxes or through a private insurance, it changes little or nothing. So, the first problem is the greed of Big Pharma – but BP is untouchable in both systems.
The political power of the pharmaceutical multinationals exerts itself through lobbying the state in universal systems, through private and state lobbying in private systems and through the corruption of the ministries of health in both. Also in both systems doctors are corrupted galore by BP. Once again, the problem is the uncontrolled power of BP, not the type of system.
The obsession with health and “prevention”, relentlessly pushed by irresponsible media, junk science purveyors, health advocacy groups, medical establishment, antitobacco, anti-fat and anti-alcohol, combined with the drumming propaganda for new drugs and the creation of “new diseases” such as ADD, fuels hypochondriacs and whiners, increases the frequency of unnecessary medical check-ups and the consumption of drugs. The "health conscious" Therapeutic State bears a large amount of responsibility for the pitiful conditions of health care – public or private.
In many countries, many hospitals are profit-driven, and charge “through the nose” the Medicare system. Private or public, the system pays exorbitant hospital fees.
In many countries, being a doctor means earning enormous figures — a licence to print money. Even in public and non-profit hospitals, doctors often get lavish pay cheques. Doctor fees are a great contributor to the bankruptcy of health care systems, and the wages are uncontrolled and unregulated, and apply equally to private and public Medicare systems.
The public has its share of responsibility also.
The “right to health” is an absurd expectation drilled into the heads of people by unscrupulous politicians of past and current times, let alone being pushed at the world level by gangster international groups such as the World Health Organization and, of course, its pharmaceutical partners. According to this “right”, there is no ceiling to the cost of therapies a patient can receive, because “health is supreme” and trumps all rights and economics. That means that if 50,000 dollars a day or more are to be spent to keep 95 years old grandpa alive for another year, that is his “right” – thus lawsuits to perdition hell are bestowed if the “right” is not respected. The “right to health” applies equally to public and private systems.
An aging population of spoiled baby boomers that have ridiculous expectations of eternal health and life, beauty and fitness is about to cash in for both medical care and pensions. That also equally applies to private or public Medicare systems.
Those are just some of the problems. Conning Americans into a public Medicare system will not change those realities, and inevitably and quickly the newly acquired American public system will become as rotten, bankrupt and corrupt as the current one, because the base problems are not and will not be addressed to protect the big special interests of a few powerful groups.
Much easier to blame the victims: it is no coincidence that the gangsters of the public health institutions use smoke screens such as drinking, smoking and eating to diffuse the real causes of the financial collapse of public health. Applied epidemiology once again?… You betcha.
Happy viewing.
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