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Libertarian Response to Michael Moore's SiCKO


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#1 Live Forever

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Posted 09 September 2007 - 11:19 PM


As discussed on the thread on SiCKO, this Friday, September 14 at 10 pm ET (in the US), John Stossel will be doing a special episode of 20/20 with all of the libertarian responses to Michael Moore's movie SiCKO. Michael Moore was interviewed for it, and will be appearing on the episode as well.

More information here: http://abcnews.go.co...=3568278&page=1

Could be very interesting. I am looking forward to it.

Edit: Here it is on YouTube:

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


Part 4:


Part 5:


Part 6:

Edited by Live Forever, 12 October 2007 - 09:35 PM.


#2 mitkat

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Posted 09 September 2007 - 11:27 PM

I'll be watching, I'm interested to hear what they'll come up with.

#3 Live Forever

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Posted 14 September 2007 - 09:40 PM

Video is going to be on tv tonight. I am looking forward to it. Hopefully it is available online somewhere afterwards. (if so I will try to link to it here)

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#4 lucid

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Posted 15 September 2007 - 04:52 AM

Saw it. Was pretty substantial. I think it certainly detailed how a free market handles health care more efficiently than a universal healthcare system. He doesn't answer the hard questions like: 'What happens to those without health insurance and cancer...'

#5 Aegist

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Posted 15 September 2007 - 07:04 AM

They should try easier hard questions then. That's a really hard question! :)

#6 lucid

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Posted 15 September 2007 - 07:32 AM

I would also like to add how funny I thought it was every time Stossel took a shot at Moore's fatness. He did it several times. haha

#7 xispes

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Posted 15 September 2007 - 07:49 AM

I bet he has a good medical insurance.

That question may be hard, but the answer is simple, suffer and die.

Good Health!

#8 Live Forever

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Posted 15 September 2007 - 02:45 PM

I would also like to add how funny I thought it was every time Stossel took a shot at Moore's fatness. He did it several times. haha

lol, that was one of the first things I thought of when I saw Moore was doing a movie on healthcare awhile back.

#9 veritasbh

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Posted 16 September 2007 - 12:40 AM

not sure how to embed video here... (part 5 is particulary slow, but rest seem normal)

http://www.searchles...nnels/show/1285

Edited by veritasbh, 16 September 2007 - 01:22 AM.


#10 Live Forever

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Posted 18 September 2007 - 06:59 AM

Added to the first post the program as it appears on YouTube. :))

#11 nefastor

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Posted 23 September 2007 - 01:46 AM

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

#12 kent23

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Posted 23 September 2007 - 02:09 AM

Nefastor, does the French government's support for medical research match its support for healthcare? How many other French immortalists or transhumanists do you know, and have you considered organizing them? What would the average person in France think about curing aging? And can you imagine a "War on Aging" ever being pursued by the French government? The longevity dividend would compensate for France's healthcare debt..

#13 nefastor

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Posted 23 September 2007 - 12:32 PM

Nefastor, does the French government's support for medical research match its support for healthcare? How many other French immortalists or transhumanists do you know, and have you considered organizing them? What would the average person in France think about curing aging? And can you imagine a "War on Aging" ever being pursued by the French government? The longevity dividend would compensate for France's healthcare debt..


A lot of interesting questions !

For one thing, you should know France doesn't have an equivalent to the US NIH : in France, hospitals are ALL government run (private hospitals are called "clinics"). Large hospitals in France are actually part of (or acting as) universities, and are integrated with a medical school. French med schools attract so many students only the best 10% (roughly) are actually allowed to study past the first year. I attended and failed first year because my grade average was below 80%. That alone should give you an idea of the level of excellence in these schools. For instance I was taught quantum physics and quark spin just so I'd understand how MRI scanners work. The teacher came from the French equivalent to the DoE or NIS.

Basic medical studies in France take 5 years, plus 3 years of internship, usually in the hospital part of the school. The school's faculty are also the department heads of the hospital, and/or researchers. As such, whatever is taught in the schools is the absolute state of the medical arts.

These large facilities are where most of the French government-run medical research takes place. Scientists there work for a salary and do not need to spend much time looking for funding, so they are more free to experiment with controversial stuff. Speaking of which, because religion has no place in French politics, there is no ban on stem cell research here.

So, to answer your question, the French government doesn't "support" medical research : it actually funds and runs pretty much all of it. For the most part, privately-funded research is concentrated in the pharmaceutical companies like Boiron (and the French branches of US companies like Pfizer). This is something no one even thinks about, in France : it's a fact of life, like air and gravity. At election times, there may be a discussion of how much of the budget a candidate will allocated to health. On occasion, there will be a news announcement that new medical technology has been developed and is being deployed, and the list of hospitals where it will be available first, so people who need it know where to find it.

I remember the latest announcement was for a special real-time MRI scanner that can detect and map brain activity. It's used in Alzheimer research. Last week our current President took part in a debate and discussed his own views on Alzheimer research and the progress we're making.

Considering President Sarkozy is quite the warrior, you might call his attitude on the subject a "war on aging" (or at least its effects), although no one here would call it that ("war on" is a purely American thing ;-)

All in all, France takes prides in increasing the life expectancy of its citizen but there's no dedicated "war plan" for aging, and no one ever brings up the topic of immortality.

This brings me to another of your questions : I don't subscribe to the concept of longevity dividend. France, like I said, has increasing life expectancy. That translate in retired people enjoying their pensions a LOT longer than they used to. This, in turn, is starting to cause a serious deficit.

It's a total problem, really : on one end, CEO's and directors lay off tons of French people to open factories in, say, China (I believe you're familiar with the problem). I myself have once been replaced by a pair of Indian engineer (I was working for Texas Instruments, back then).

The problem comes from the fact that in France, for each employee, the employers pay about as much to the government in social taxes as the salary he gives the employee. And salaries in France are rather high (often higher than in the US, in my profession). When a job is moved to another country, government income decreases but it must still pay for the healthcare and pension of its senior citizen, the number of which constantly increases.

You can see the vicious circle, here :
- Less and less money comes in
- More and more money comes out
- Lives are longer but the legal age for retirement is still the same (roughly 60)
- And of course everyone wants a bigger pension, because the Euro has caused a tremendous increase in the cost of EVERYTHING, including food.

That's one of the biggest challenges my country faces today, perhaps THE biggest, and is being argued and debated over daily in every media. Luckily our new President is willing to do something about it.

As such, I think immortality will cause trouble, at least at the beginning : civilization will have to adapt to it. It may mean a number of things, such as colonizing space and terminating the concept of "money". But that's for another (excruciatingly long) post (sorry, that's my style ;-)

To end this novel ;) I'll just add that I don't know any French immortalists, mostly for a lack of searching. Usually I'm also way too busy to organize anything in that area. But I'm sure there are many of us, if only because French people don't particularly like to die. Relatively few here believe in the Rapture, Heaven and Hell, but we do believe in enjoying life.

Nefastor

#14 kent23

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Posted 23 September 2007 - 09:54 PM

I like your novels.

So, do you think the French biomedical research establishment will embrace SENS?

#15 Shannon Vyff

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Posted 24 September 2007 - 04:00 AM

Nefastor--thanks--I still want to move to France ;)

My kids could get their college paid for. I'm not looking forward to the massive bill it will be to put each of my children through college.... (even with having them pay part, and what I pay being contingent upon their grades)

#16 nefastor

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Posted 24 September 2007 - 08:35 AM

I like your novels.

So, do you think the French biomedical research establishment will embrace SENS?


Thank you [lol]

I think our current research efforts in Alzheimer's can be seen as SENS. I don't have time right now to develop on that, but later I will (if anyone's interested). As for "embracing" SENS... I don't think anyone does research he doesn't "embrace". Research takes too much dedication, it's not a job you can do half-arsed or bored.

Nefastor--thanks--I still want to move to France ;) 

My kids could get their college paid for.  I'm not looking forward to the massive bill it will be to put each of my children through college.... (even with having them pay part, and what I pay being contingent upon their grades)



Indeed, I've never paid tuition fees in my life, and I have three engineering degrees from top universities in Europe. I can't fathom why education isn't as affordable in the USA. It's always weird to me how a country can declare itself "the best in the world" and lack so many essential things, like free health, government-run utilities, free education...

At any rate, you're welcome. I've worked with a lot of American engineers in France, and they don't want to go back home. They give way too many reasons for that, I couldn't possibly list them all, but you probably get the idea by now.

Not that France doesn't have its own problems. For instance it's nigh-impossible to start a business, while in the USA it's dead easy. Also, the Euro is the biggest scam of the century. But all in all I prefer free education and healthcare to having more money in the bank.

Nefastor

#17 mike250

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Posted 24 September 2007 - 02:58 PM

A lot of interesting questions !

For one thing, you should know France doesn't have an equivalent to the US NIH : in France, hospitals are ALL government run (private hospitals are called "clinics"). Large hospitals in France are actually part of (or acting as) universities, and are integrated with a medical school. French med schools attract so many students only the best 10% (roughly) are actually allowed to study past the first year. I attended and failed first year because my grade average was below 80%. That alone should give you an idea of the level of excellence in these schools. For instance I was taught quantum physics and quark spin just so I'd understand how MRI scanners work. The teacher came from the French equivalent to the DoE or NIS.

Basic medical studies in France take 5 years, plus 3 years of internship, usually in the hospital part of the school. The school's faculty are also the department heads of the hospital, and/or researchers. As such, whatever is taught in the schools is the absolute state of the medical arts.

These large facilities are where most of the French government-run medical research takes place. Scientists there work for a salary and do not need to spend much time looking for funding, so they are more free to experiment with controversial stuff. Speaking of which, because religion has no place in French politics, there is no ban on stem cell research here.

So, to answer your question, the French government doesn't "support" medical research : it actually funds and runs pretty much all of it. For the most part, privately-funded research is concentrated in the pharmaceutical companies like Boiron (and the French branches of US companies like Pfizer). This is something no one even thinks about, in France : it's a fact of life, like air and gravity. At election times, there may be a discussion of how much of the budget a candidate will allocated to health. On occasion, there will be a news announcement that new medical technology has been developed and is being deployed, and the list of hospitals where it will be available first, so people who need it know where to find it.

I remember the latest announcement was for a special real-time MRI scanner that can detect and map brain activity. It's used in Alzheimer research. Last week our current President took part in a debate and discussed his own views on Alzheimer research and the progress we're making.

Considering President Sarkozy is quite the warrior, you might call his attitude on the subject a "war on aging" (or at least its effects), although no one here would call it that ("war on" is a purely American thing ;-)

All in all, France takes prides in increasing the life expectancy of its citizen but there's no dedicated "war plan" for aging, and no one ever brings up the topic of immortality.

This brings me to another of your questions : I don't subscribe to the concept of longevity dividend. France, like I said, has increasing life expectancy. That translate in retired people enjoying their pensions a LOT longer than they used to. This, in turn, is starting to cause a serious deficit.

It's a total problem, really : on one end, CEO's and directors lay off tons of French people to open factories in, say, China (I believe you're familiar with the problem). I myself have once been replaced by a pair of Indian engineer (I was working for Texas Instruments, back then).

The problem comes from the fact that in France, for each employee, the employers pay about as much to the government in social taxes as the salary he gives the employee. And salaries in France are rather high (often higher than in the US, in my profession). When a job is moved to another country, government income decreases but it must still pay for the healthcare and pension of its senior citizen, the number of which constantly increases.

You can see the vicious circle, here :
- Less and less money comes in
- More and more money comes out
- Lives are longer but the legal age for retirement is still the same (roughly 60)
- And of course everyone wants a bigger pension, because the Euro has caused a tremendous increase in the cost of EVERYTHING, including food.

That's one of the biggest challenges my country faces today, perhaps THE biggest, and is being argued and debated over daily in every media. Luckily our new President is willing to do something about it.

As such, I think immortality will cause trouble, at least at the beginning : civilization will have to adapt to it. It may mean a number of things, such as colonizing space and terminating the concept of "money". But that's for another (excruciatingly long) post (sorry, that's my style ;-)

To end this novel  ;) I'll just add that I don't know any French immortalists, mostly for a lack of searching. Usually I'm also way too busy to organize anything in that area. But I'm sure there are many of us, if only because French people don't particularly like to die. Relatively few here believe in the Rapture, Heaven and Hell, but we do believe in enjoying life.

Nefastor


80% [:o]

and here I thought, I was smart. [glasses]

#18 nefastor

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Posted 25 September 2007 - 02:39 PM

80%  [:o]

and here I thought, I was smart.  [glasses]


LOL

The thing is, there's too many doctors in France, because the studies are basically free AND it's a well-paid job (man, you saw the movie and I can tell you Moore didn't choose an exceptionally rich French doctor. Fairly average, I'd say).

Also, the democratic principles of my country means anyone who graduates from high school can attend any college to study whatever he wants.

But because of that, France needed to limit the number of doctors, so there is a "numerus closus", each year : each school can only allow a finite number of students into second year, which makes the first year a big competition.

It's so competitive the exams are actually answered on anonymous punch-cards and scores are determined by machine, to the hundredth of a point (like, say, 81.72%) and the results are not open to any form of debate. And it doesn't matter if you were sick at some point during the year. I remember a girl who actually got ran over and came to school was a whole leg in a cast. She got into second year, by the way. That's what I call willpower.

The year I went to med school, we were 2,000 in first year, and there was only room for 200 in second year. I scored in the low 70%'s which made me 400th out of 2,000. But I was only here to study neurology and the nervous system, so I didn't erupt in tears like many (especially the girl who was ranked 201st)

Oh, by the way : you can only attend first year twice in your life. They actually stamp the back of your high school diploma so you won't try again in different schools.

And that's just for your basic medical doctors. I can't even imagine the selection process for heart surgeons (which is another 6 years of study once you're a doctor)

Nefastor

#19 Mind

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Posted 10 October 2007 - 09:05 PM

Just another interesting Stossel commentary on insurance and choice

Wing_girl, just have your kids learn online. If I had to go back to college right now....I wouldn't. The expense has climbed so high that there is no way anyone can expect to get a return on their investment in any reasonable period of time. Why be saddled with the debt? All of the information is out there, for anyone who has the desire to learn. University lectures and text books can be found online.

#20 dannov

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Posted 11 October 2007 - 07:09 PM

Mind is right. I spent 5 years at RIT (minus a trimester that was when I did one of my co-ops), and I have a good deal of loans to pay back. Fortunately, my education yielded me a job that pays my health benefits and current MS degree in full (includes texts and taxes).

After reading our French friend's post, I'm still a staunch supporter of laissez-faire in every respect. Stay away from my earnings and don't take a dime...stay away from my choice in health-care--I'll eat healthy and use herbal supplement knowledge to stay healthy and combat any illnesses that arise. If I want health insurance, I'll buy my own.

People in America are generally slobs, and are the main causes of their own illnesses. It is not my responsibility to pay for some slob's med bills after he blew all of his cash on McD's, booze, and cigs for the past 20 years. It's not that I'm lacking compassion, it's just that I firmly believe that people need to own up to responsibility and accept the consequences or potential consequences of actions that they may or may not take.

Sure, you can draw parallels to Bush's War, and I agree--that money could be better spent elsewhere (removal of some 38-million immigrants committing illegal crimes and not paying taxes and erecting a wall on the border is a good start). Bush is a madman and the few left that agree with him have "Ugly American Syndrome" and are big fans of mass media kool-aid peppered with all sorts of tasty lies.

I'm never been on antibiotics, never broke a bone, and I've been to ER just once from a dogbite (my own dog, my fault) in 5th grade. Fact of the matter is, if you don't take unnecessary risks in your life and value what you have and treat it with respect, good things will follow for your health.

Healthcare wouldn't be an issue if we had more money to invest in it from a lack of income tax.

#21 Futurist1000

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Posted 12 October 2007 - 06:12 PM

Its funny in one part of Moore's movie, he had a guy who was French but had been living in the states for like 10 years. The man got cancer, and then he went back to France to get "free" healthcare, even though he hadn't been a taxpaying citizen in France for years. Would most French approve of being the healthcare stop for everyone in the world at the taxpayer's expense? I can understand that freebies are always appealing, but it seems like somebody has to foot the bill. The government can't make money magically appear, it requires the hard work of people within the country. So someone ends up being the loser in a wealth redistribution.

By the way, how good are the conditions for the immigrants in France? I wonder how good is their healthcare and living conditions? I kind of suspect their conditions are much worse than the native French.

Wing_girl, just have your kids learn online. If I had to go back to college right now....I wouldn't. The expense has climbed so high that there is no way anyone can expect to get a return on their investment in any reasonable period of time

That is true in some sense. Education has become overrated in many ways. However some companies do expect a college degree for certain positions no matter what your background expertise is. Though, i've probably learned more things online about many subjects than I ever did in college.




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