Aspies For Freedom

It's a great movie and it's having enormous impact.

Haven't seen that show. It sounds interesting, and I hope it comes out at least on video here.

I just watched it.  

It has some good points but really some facts are omitted.  All systems have problems.  But the Americans could really do better for themselves.  The insurance companies are run for profit and a public health system is run for the benefit of the people.

He failed to note some longer waiting times for surgery in Canada plus some communities do not have enough doctors or hospital beds.  In general though, most people get what they need in Canada.  

Britain has a two tier system.  The wealthy get what they need faster and pay for it.

A two tier system is illegal in Canada but you still hear about it happening  -- such as athletes getting MRI's more quickly and other people having to wait.  There is also a problem with doctors abusing the car insurance and injured worker's insurance because they will get paid more from them than the government insurance.  

Americans should be ashamed of their country for having no health care system.

Also if you did not notice.   There was a list of "pre-existing conditions" that would disqualify people from getting health insurance from most companies in the United States.  On the list I clearly saw "Asperger's syndrome" and autism.

I just find the whole American system a mess.  

I found it extremely disturbing that when I talked to some American friends  -- they told me that the insurance companies and hospitals will do all kinds of tricks.  Such as hospitals overcharging people because they are out of state.  Insurance companies automatically denying treatments for people.  

The number of people not insured is terrible.  I was told that some people will insure their children but not themselves.  If they do get sick, they will not see a doctor unless they are practically dying.  People running "benefits" to raise funds for children's operations.  A friend of mine has a physical disability so she gets Medicare.  She lives in the NYC area and she can not find a doctor who will take her Medicare.  

So what Canadians, Britons and the French all pay taxes to fund their health system, the roads, etc.  They all use the health care system where as some people might never use the roads.  Americans pay taxes to fund their military and they are not getting much choice in how that money is being used.  Americans must be stupid.

This is true; we saw it, too.

The list is a compilation of pre-existing conditions from several insurance companies. Not all insurers prohibit all of the listed conditions.

I am perfectly willing to pay higher taxes for a medical system that will take care of everybody. I resent paying taxes to support an illegal, unnecessary war and to support tax breaks for the super-rich.

I don't know if we're stupid... but we certainly seem to be rather ignorant when it comes to our health!

As a side note, I haven't seen Sicko yet, can't wait till it comes out on DVD so I can add it to my collection.

As an addition to my normal old american stupidity... I had been under the apparently false impression that socialist and government-run health plans were bad. Such as the whole brittish teeth thing (the Austin Powers movie). Or that they keep people dependent on "the system". Which doesn't really do much for my brain right now.

My children have been on medicaid until this month (they are five and three now) I haven't been covered since the first year of my marriage, except for when medicaid covers you for when you are pregnant. Its probably the closest thing to a socialist system and my kids always got the best care... save one blood-sucking dentist office, but I will spare you the details. Poor husband hasn't been covered for five years.

Luckily we haven't had any major medical problems... now we're covered but we loose 20% of my husbands salary every month to pay for it. More beans and rice anyone?  :sarcasm:

Kylo, have you actually seen the movie? All of your messages focus on two points: 1) the Canadian system can have long delays, and 2) it's not "free".

1) the delays you report are similar to the horror stories at my HMO, so if Canada is no faster in every case, it's at least no worse. In either system, sometimes you get services pretty quickly and other times, it's miserably slow.

2) The "it's not free" talking point has been the corporatist red-herring of choice on this film. It's completely bogus. Moore makes it very clear that the Canadian program (and the French, and the British...) are paid for with tax money. That's exactly the sort of thing taxes are for.

Highways are also paid for with tax money, but the use of them is free to everybody. They don't refuse you access to the highway because you can't pay some corporation $20 for every mile you drive, and they don't put up a roadblock because your car has a pre-existing tire misalignment, and they don't confiscate your car if you can't pay a bridge toll.

Kyle, that's not what you've done at all. Nor has anyone else, although the Moore-haters have tried desperately to do so.

Kyle, the scene in the waiting room was not filmed on a Hollywoodsound stage. I'm sure it's not the busiest waiting room in Canada and I'm sure it's not the least busy. But it's not fictional. The people he talked to there were not paid to lie. I have gone to the hospital in my city and waited thirty minutes and on another day I've gone and waited 11 hours, vomiting and convulsing.

Link to study, please.

Skates over? Did you want a twenty minute segment showing people fillling out their tax forms? The fact that healthcare is supported by taxes is not in any way denied or avoided -- it is said explicitly more than once. In no way did the movie suggest that universal health care is paid for by magical golden coins that rained down from the sky. His point -- very clearly -- is that tax money should support health care.

We pay taxes in America, too, Kyle. Canadian taxes pay for health care. We pay taxes to wage illegal wars, kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and to divert billions of dollars of tax-payers' money into corrupt corporations like Mr. Cheney' Haliburton and Bush crony's Enron.  I like Canada's way better.

Miss the point much? That scene -- and he was reporting it -- happens all the time, and not because people saw it in a Michael Moore movie. The rather obvious point is that when Americans are systematically ****** over by our government's inhumane collusion with BigPharmo, they have to resort to other means. The woman was not going to Canada to rob banks.

I do wish they had focussed more on older people going to Canada for their drugs, since that's more typical. http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/prescriptio...evolt.html

Because of America's horrible medical system, we now have the phenomenon of "medical tourism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism

And I have a hundred. IF Moore said "Every Canadian thinks their system is perfect and no one has ever had problems" then you would have a point. But he didn't and you don't. No medical system will be without horror stories and complaints because even in the best system, we're dealing with life and death issues and happy endings can't be guaranteed. Moore didn't say an entire nation was "fully satisfied" with their system, that's a straw man you set up. But please link to the reports that Canadians want to emulate the American system or that thousands of Canadians are traveling to Costa Rica and India to get their medical care. That's what's happening in the US.

You think it's not horrible? Moore barely touched the tip of the iceberg on that one. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries...usat_x.htm

This complaint is just silly, Kyle. Absolutely not worthy of you. If you are not aware of the illnesses and deaths of 9/11 workers, do some reading. If you can look at the people in the film and say their illnesses are nothing, no wonder you like the US health care system.

I have a friend who broke her back and was paralyzed from the waist down. She was very poor (a struggling writer) when the accident happened and the health care system here offered mis-diagnosis, botched surgery, no physical rehab and a quick "*** you." She went to Cuba and had surgery to correct the bad surgery, eight months of care and rehabilitation and is now able to walk with braces and one crutch.

So what? I did that at "Crash."

And yet neither you nor any other Moore-hater can back up their purely emotional, irrational hatred. Why is that?

That makes no sense, sounds nasty and mean-spirited, and I suspect you're quoting your mother. What on earth does it mean?

That is, of course, an utterly unsupportable bit of non-proof consistant with the rest of your charges.

It was not Moore who went public with it, it was the Moore-Hating guy who announced it on his blog, long before the movie. Nice try, but it brings your grand total to zero.

You and your family clearly have intense bitterness about the Canadian medical system. You have not been able to connect that rage in any rational, meaningful way to Moore's film.

Kyle, every point you made in post #22 was refuted, and you made no rebuttal in post #24. Any debate judge would thank you for your participation and send you on your way.

All you really say is that "He twists things to make it look the way he wants it to" whereas you would like him to twist things to look the way you (and your mother, of course) want them to look. You have provided no evidence and facts to back up your points, but instead seem to think that it was Moore's job to go find things to support your view. If your view were accurate and supportable, why haven't you supported it?

The anti-Moore pit bulls tried hard to prove the movie false and, like you, they failed. But I have to admit, none of them came up with anything as creative and silly as "the French house was insufficiently typical."

How am I taking it personal? The "taking it personal" aspect of this is that you have been ranting against this movie since long before you even saw it. Now you've given it your best shot and come up with nothing better than "the room was too small" and "the house wasn't typical"? You're taking it incredibly personally.

Being a "fan" really has nothing to do with it. I've seen three of his movies once each. I'm not really the type to be a "fan" of anybody. (Okay, Meryl Streep, but that's different.)

You're very angry about this movie and it has nothing to do with the size of a waiting room. This is an emotional, and perhaps ideological,  reaction which  -- as your complaints about it demonstrate -- has no factual, rational basis.

That's absurd. Moore conspired to pull off The Great Lie "Let's show a smaller than average waiting room -- but we'll call it 'average!' -- that will fool these foolish Americans! Then they will be my puppets!"

"But, Master," says one of his left-over puppets from Roger & Me, "Are you sure that not-precisely-average  waiting room will be enough to pull off your insideous master plan?"

"Hmm," Moore ponders, "perhaps you're right. Perhaps we should add a scene that takes place in a French home that is not absolutely typical! Yes, that should do it! As you know Americans are totally obsessed with the crucial element of French apartment typicality! Yes! Once we make them think an atypical French apaertment is typical, WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD!!"

That's how Moore's fiendish agenda is to be realized? Wow. I have to admit, I never realized it was about the size of rooms.

And by the way, just what is the fiendish agenda? What is he trying to dupe innocent Americans into doing with his intricate manipulation of their perceptions of French apartments?

What details? Your details? it's a two hour film. It's not a comprehensive history of the Canadian Tax Code, a statistical analysis of French apartments, or a hit piece on Kyle's Mum's Stupid Nurse. All films leave out details. There is not a movie called The Entire History of the Universe and Everything that Happened in It -- unedited and in real time (grab some popcorn -- its running time is 14.5 billion years, plus trailers for "Daddy Day Camp.")

Well, that's a huge leap into tin-hat "Free Republic" territory, Kyle. Are we to assume they were just a pack of liars disguised as little old ladies? After all, a man who would intentionally distort the typicality of a French apartment is capable all manner of heinous duplicity.

And it has been attacked by the exact same bunch of Right-Wing corporatist nut-jobs that are attacking "Sicko."

Right-Wing Talking Point Alert! Tell me about that agenda, Kyle. (Agendas are sooo scary, don't you think? Never trust a person with an agenda!)  And then give me a list of documentaries without "an agenda." Maybe we could google "Michael Moore" + agenda -- I'll bet it will pull up every deranged right-wing loony site on the WWW.

Didn't you say some stupid nurse tried to give her too much blood or something? I don't want to go back and check. Something like that.

"If your huge defense of him stems from his massive support of LGBT rights than please say so"

I wasn't aware that he was "massively" supportive of LGBT rights. Not everything a gay person does is about being gay. I washed my car this afternoon, and it really wasn't part of my "gay agenda." It just needed to be washed.

My defense of the movie stems from my belief that the monstrous mess that is American corporate health "care" is a disgrace and a shameful violation of any ethical sense of basic human rights.

Regardless of what you think of Michael Moore, check out "This Divided State" -- documentary about the controversy surrounding M.M's visit to Utah university. It's very interesting.