The American Spectator

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Moore Medicine

6.25.07 @ 12:01AM

WE'RE NUMBER 37
Re: David Hogberg's Sicko of the Week:

Where to begin? Talk about your target-rich environment. Kudos to Mr. Hogberg for limiting his comments to anything less than 10,000 words. Now that's willpower!

Mr. Moore should be pleased with healthcare in the U.S. if he wants profit taken out of the equation. Over 80% of hospitals in the U.S. are not-for-profit and with an average patient care margin of -2.8% are clearly losing money by caring for sick people. Mission accomplished for Mr. Moore. And maybe a brilliant mind such as his should begin looking for cures for things such as obesity. After all, we spend billions of dollars and thousands of our best and brightest scientists are working hard to find cures. Or so they say. Bunch of slackers really need Mr. Moore's astute leadership to get cracking on that cure for cancer. Come on, Mike! Help us out. We're dyin' here! Maybe the government could spend more money on healthcare research. Oh, wait, didn't some president double the research money his first year in office? Hmm, his name escapes me....it wasn't Bruno...oh, it was Bushy McChimphitler. Or maybe I could just whip out my tricorder and zap all the Lyme disease in the world. What a maroon.

And lastly, insurance companies do not keep you from getting medical care. They may not pay for it, but they don't deny your doctor from doing anything. Plus, Mr. Moore may want to check out "60 Minutes" and their report within the last 2 years on insurance companies saving their patients thousands and thousands of dollars in doctors and hospital fees. Don't worry, TAS readers, 60 Minutes presented the story as hospitals trying to take advantage of poor people. On the other hand, the government can deny you from getting medical care. But I'm surprised that Mr. Moore would be for that since he's probably in the target group that would be second in line for rationing, the first being smokers. Eh, he probably didn't think that through. Wouldn't be the first time.
-- Andrew Macfadyen, M.D.
Omaha, Nebraska

In response to your blog: The only reason anyone should get healthcare in our wealthy country is if they are sick. No one should be denied healthcare who needs it. That is the way it works in the 36 industrialized and advanced nations of the world. Unfortunately, our country is not among those countries highly rated for their healthcare practices. We are number 37, just ahead of Slovenia in the World Health Organization ranking of healthcare systems. We are also far behind these countries in the "best countries in which to do business" rated by the World Trade Organization.

But I'm so excited by your blog. I've been waiting to see who would come to the rescue of the insurance companies. Yours is the first defense of the private insurance companies and their hundreds of billions of dollars in profits that I have seen in all of the press. I think it is interesting for all of us since the private health insurance companies provide no healthcare. They just take our money, use almost a third of it for wasteful bureaucracy and profits, marketing and lobbying -- and deny or delay payment to patients, the easiest way to increase their mammoth profits.

You say, "Profit is what drives producers to provide goods and services at a lower price while also improving quality." Not in the United States! Here the profit motive drives the health industry to spend more money for less goods and services. We spend about twice as much and we get less than people do in the countries that have healthcare systems that are not controlled by the profit-driven companies.

You say, "Profit also acts as a "signal" to producers, letting them know where to invest their resources." Yes, I guess that is true since they have had a feeding frenzy on Viagra and many other high-profit drugs while millions go without the less-expensive drugs they really need. Profits are soaring while hundreds of ads for the healthcare industry clutter our nightly television programming and healthcare is lagging nationwide.

You say, "Products and services that people find more useful tend to yield higher profits, incentivizing producers to put more resources into them." This is true, and it is patently unhelpful in the provision of healthcare to the American people. It also eliminates most preventive and primary care, an increase in highly trained nurses and doctors in our communities and in our hospitals, neighborhood clinics, and doctor/patient choice of care, but it probably includes higher priced private rooms in hospitals, more expensive equipment and more expensive drugs.

You say, "Without profits, doctors and other providers won't know which services patients find most useful, pharmaceutical companies won't know which drugs are most effective, and insurance companies won't know which insurance products are most desired." PLEASE! Give us credit. We know what we want -- healthcare for everybody, no denials, no premiums, no co-pays and no deductibles. We want to make healthcare decisions with our doctors -- our choice of doctors, not have them driven by profit-making companies. Almost 50 million of us have no healthcare coverage at all and another 50 million people are denied care, denied prescription drugs, are precariously covered, don't know how much co-pays, deductibles and denials they are facing if they do get sick, and are losing their homes, their lives and their dignity through ever-increasing bankruptcies.

Sorry you didn't see the film, SiCKO. Try again.
-- Marilyn Clement
National Coordinator
Healthcare-NOW

Michael Moore wants the government to run health insurance? Clearly, he's never had experience with government-run programs. Nor has he had much interaction with bureaucracies. Nor has he much grasp on excesses in existing government-run healthcare systems.

He appears ignorant about the state of pharmas today, especially vaccine makers. Through leftist Hillary R. Clinton's incompetence when she was co-president, Vaccines for Children was born. Noble in idea, it drove vaccines manufacturers out of the marketplace because through forced discounted prices. it took the capitalist incentive away from making competitive drugs. Even the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine pointed its finger at HRC for vaccine shortages because of the program.

Doesn't this guy have anything better to do than give even more support to politicians, especially those of the leftist and liberal and progressive ilk, that seem to be all-too-willing to give us all a yet another near-lethal injection of some new government program?
-- C. Kenna Amos
Princeton, West Virginia

Yes, you may dismiss this letter, because I'm an independent who has never voted Republican (actually I voted for Dole, so that Clinton wouldn't win in a landslide).

Letter to the Editor

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