[Lingster]

Normally I'm strictly opposed to piracy, but this made me laugh my ass off:

Michael Moore's 'Sicko' Leaked Onto Web

If socialized medicine is da bomb, then socialized media distribution must also be a wonderful thing, right?

(And when his health fails, we'll see whether Michael Moore rushes to Canada or Cuba to enjoy the benefits of government-sponsored medicine, or if he heads to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN or another high-end U.S. hospital.  My guess is that he'll head for Cedars-Sinai as fast as his chubby little legs will carry him.)

[foureyes]

Actually, he may well go to Cuba. They have a really first class hospital that is only available to foreigners and Party highups. That's the "Socialized Medicine" that Moore saw when he made "Sicko".

[fedx2k6]

You rarely hear the term  "Today scientists in canada have discovered…".  Socialized anything is alot like a kid's soccer game where they don't keep score and there's no winner or loser.  Nothing gets accomplished but you feel better about yourself for being mediocre.

Why does a site about beautiful fit women continuously bring out the libertarian in me?  Damn you lingster 🙂

[The Muffin man]

Michael Moore is like the lefts own Bill O'Reilly.

I was gonna say Ann Coulter, but I don't see Moore wondering why calling someone a fag is offensive.

[Holiday]

Whoa. Other countries have better healthcare services and this should praise socialism? Who says America can't have something like that and still be capitalist? I'd prefer tax dollars be used to improve healthcare than be directed on the war machine.

[Lingster]

Whoa. Other countries have better healthcare services and this should praise socialism? Who says America can't have something like that and still be capitalist? I'd prefer tax dollars be used to improve healthcare than be directed on the war machine.

Medical litigation and malpractice insurance are significant costs in the U.S. medical system.  Small practice doctors often have to spend 1/3 or more of their income just on insurance.  A ceiling on lawsuit rewards would reduce costs significantly.

Unfortunately, most congressmen are lawyers, so don't hold your breath.

Also, Americans have confused the concept of "insurance" with "purchasing plans".  Insurance is something you purchase to mitigate risk.  But using health "insurance" to cover a regular expense means that it's not insurance anymore – it's just a purchasing plan. 

Finally, no person or country can ever spend enough money on health insurance, because even though death is inevitable, people will spend everything they can get their hands on to avoid it.  One thing most socialized medicine systems do is cut people off at a certain point prior to death – they get minimal treatment thereafter because their death is imminent.  In the U.S., we pile money down the hole for as long as someone's breathing – which is fine when the sick person or his family is paying for it, but not so fine when it's being paid for by my insurance company, because it affects my rates, or the government. 

Still, socialized medicine systems have huge problems with scarcity, because if you give something away for less than it's worth, people will want more of it than you can provide.  Al, the guy who wrote the Dr. Hooters saga back in the 90s, died a year ago today in Britain.  He was sick for two weeks but could not get a bed in a UK hospital – they were full up and wouldn't admit him until he was on death's door.  And then he died: http://forum.bearchive.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=478936&an=0&page=0#Post478936

People are creatures of the market – you can't remove market considerations from any human calculus.

[JimmyDimples]

Just gleaned this from the Drudge Report:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/1762.html

According to that clip, Moore doesn't have a problem with the downloading as long as whoever is doing it isn't making a buck off it. 

Not sure what to make of it personally… but since I don't watch his flicks anyway, for me the matter is moot.

[TC2]

At the same time though our system still needs a hell of a lot improvement.  Health is not something we should put a price on, if someone needs an operation they shouldn't need to be 60,000 that they can afford.  Insurance companies keep on denying claims so that the insurance company could make a profit, because if they accept a claim then they lose cash.

That's where the system becomes flawed, we pay for insurance and yet those companies still can deny us of our coverage where as in other countries if you get into a serious accident they will fix you up for free.  Though there are problems with that system, ours isn't much better and in some cases it turns out to be much worse; mainly when it involves the insurance company.

[Lingster]

…Health is not something we should put a price on…

Anything desirable has a value.  You can't make it not have one.  In the 20th century, 100 million citizens of communist states died because so-called intellectuals couldn't wrap their brains around a simple fact: a thing's value is what a person is willing to pay for it.

[Lingster]

Just gleaned this from the Drudge Report:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/1762.html

According to that clip, Moore doesn't have a problem with the downloading as long as whoever is doing it isn't making a buck off it. 

Not sure what to make of it personally… but since I don't watch his flicks anyway, for me the matter is moot.

For Michael Moore to encourage people to download the movie represents a total betrayal of the investors who paid to make and distribute the film.  Of course, betrayal is his specialty and his investors should have known better. 

[Author]

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