The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

In an article about his next Fauxumentary, "Sicko", Michael Moore states, "I'd like to show you some things you don't know. So stay tuned for where this movie has led me. I think you might enjoy it."

Um, I don't know, but I can venture a pretty good guess as to where his Fauxumentary had "led" him based on another comment in the article:

On his website, Mr. Moore offered a snapshot of what the documentary entails. "Back in February, I asked if people would send me letters describing their experiences with our health-care system, and I received over 19,000 of them," he wrote. "To read about the misery people are put through on a daily basis by our profit-based system was both moving and revolting. We've spent the better part of this year shooting our next movie, 'Sicko.' As we've done with our other films, we don't discuss them while we are making them. If people ask, we tell them 'Sicko' is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth."

Moore makes a mistake so typical of those on the left, confusing health care with health insurance. 45 million (actually much lower than that) people lack health insurance. But they have access to health care. There are free clinics, people can pay health care professionals directly, and emergency rooms are required to give anyone who shows up treatment.

Furthermore, the problem with our health care system isn't that it is profit based. It's the third-party payer system, which I've written about elsewhere. What Moore will almost surely omit from his Fauxumentary is the non-profit based often result in a near guarantee that you will be denied access to health care. For example, in Britain the National Health Service rations care in such a way that over 700,000 people end up on waiting lists for surgery, 61,000 people have surgeries cancelled, and children with heart defects can wait up to two years to see a specialist.

I'm not worried that Moore's Fauxumentary will lead people to things they don't know. I'm far more worried that it will lead them to things that just ain't so.

topics:
Health Care