Hi all (Hell of a salute after more than 2 years away from the forum :-)
For those (everyone :-) who don't remember me, I'm an immortalist from France who travels a lot.
I've watched SICKO, and I happen to have lived in France most of my life, but also several years in the UK and, recently, several weeks in the US (where I worked with a person taking a LOT of medications).
SICKO is dead on as far as France and the UK are concerned. There's no misrepresentation I could spot. I will simply give you two examples :
1/ Although I'm an engineer (and fairly well paid) my mom is unemployed. As such, France grants her the "CMU" : Universal Medical Coverage. Works as the name implies. Whatever medicine she needs, however much of it she needs, she can grab it at any pharmacy for free, without having to give even a cent or fill any paperwork (we french all have a smart-card to hold medical information and insurance information. Smart-cards were invented in France, BTW). Considering she has pretty severe asthma, without the CMU she would have died when I was a little kid. She had lots of close calls where her salvation came only from free hospitals, efficient government-run emergency services and free medicine (which she's taken her entire life).
And yes, people with CMU coverage also get to go to the doctor for free, anytime. There's even a lot of abuse where for instance lonely women go to the doctor and pretend to be sick just to have someone touch them. I couldn't make this up.
2/ When I was a student in the UK, one of our friends had meningitis (and lated died of it). Me and other frenchies ran to the nearest hospital and asked for the proper vaccine (or whatever medication, it was a long time ago so I don't remember clearly what was in the shot).
What I DO remember is that we only had to wait 20 minutes, simply gave our FRENCH ID papers and we were taken care of without there ever being any mention of money.
Of course there is a downside to all this. France and the UK attract a LOT of illegal immigration, with a lot of immigrants faking their papers to benefit from things like CMU coverage. It means our health system is in a huge, permanent debt.
Other downside is, it actually ain't "free" healthcare : as the movie points out, we pay a lot of taxes (most French people give 1 or 2 months of pay a year as direct taxes, and then there's the 20%-ish Value Added Tax on everything you buy. Same goes for the UK). But it beats having to choose which of our amputated fingers to discard !
On the other hand, the French social security debt over the last 25 years is roughly 1% of what George W. Bush has had the US spend in Iraq over the last 6 years.
Think it's worth it ? You bet your arse !!!
Not having to worry about illness and accidents is a wonderful thing. I can imagine living without free healthcare, but I'd really hate it.
Oh, and SICKO also doesn't cover an important aspect of European healthcare : the approval process for new drugs. There isn't a single drug in France that has as many horrible side-effects as, say, Nasonex, for treating such a small thing as a running nose.
The "French Nasonex" is cheap and simple and effective : sea water in a squeeze bottle. Shove it up your nose, press, you're guaranteed to immediately sneeze out whatever is causing your allergy. And you'll get no side effect at all. You could make it in your own kitchen but it's so cheap... what would be the point ? I have allergies during summer and that's all I've ever used.
Drug approval in France is a daunting task for pharmaceutical companies. You don't see a new medication very often for things like sore throat or common cold. In fact I'm still using the same syrups and pills today that I did when I was a kid. And they are cheap and with no side effect other than they make you a little sleepy.
In addition to that, the French government is actively pushing for the use of "generic" medication : when a patented medication falls into the public domain, it gets manufactured as an unbranded medication which is EVEN CHEAPER (with just a less sexy packaging). The goal is to reduce the debt of our social security.
All in all, free healthcare in France, as depicted in SICKO, works. It's been working since before I was born (some 30 years ago). And I probably don't need to add that it doesn't make us communists. Brain-damaged Frenchmen can still decide to go get treated in the US (or anywhere they please) and use weird untested medication. They simply won't get reimbursed for it.
SICKO is the first Michael Moore movie I've ever seen, and it has made me want to watch the rest (which I will, as soon as time allows).
Based on the accuracy of the parts I've experienced myself, I'd have to think the whole movie is accurate. And it's common knowledge Cuba has great healthcare. And it gets me thinking that our own agenda here (immortality) would be served if the US setup a free healthcare system. Let's consider it a starting point.
Or maybe the US government is saying there's a thing the French can do that Americans can't ? (I mean, besides talking dirty and making delicious wine ? :-)
Personally, I think free healthcare is one of the core duties resting on a government's shoulders, along with defending the nation and its inhabitants. In fact, it's part of that defense : the enemy is just illness instead of a foreign country. As such, it shocks me that the US government, which seems so eager to protect its people against any and everything (drug, terror... yeah sure whatever) would not wage a war on illness. It seems like dereliction of duty to me.
In France 200 years ago we used to cure that with decapitation :-) and that cure was already free of charge
Nefastor