“What Michael Moore left on the cutting room floor”
Posted on June 27th, 2007 by Jackie Danicki
Our friend Dr Helen Evans, a veteran senior nurse in Britain’s National Health Service, had a very good op-ed piece in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune. (I ran around Cincinnati looking for a hard copy, but could only find Sunday’s edition of the Tribune.)
I guess I’m just stunned that even the most dishonest propagandist - which Michael Moore certainly is - would be cheeky enough to claim that “everything is free” on the NHS. What a shameless liar. I really hope none of my American friends are gullible enough to believe a word he says.
Filed under: Life
For the liberals among us, Moore seemed like a wonderful dream when he first appeared on the scene with Roger and Me. Now, I think a lot of liberals (me included) are wishing he’d just go away because his pantomime does more to galvanize the right than anything else, and it won’t have to look too hard for inconsistencies and excessive editorializing at the expense of, oh, truth, accuracy, journalistic integrity, and other important stuff like that.
I wouldn’t call someone (Moore) who calls for the politicization and nationalization of every area of life a ‘liberal’, which is why I am always sad when a friend who fancies themselves ‘liberal’ buys into Moore’s rubbish.
Then again, today’s ‘liberals’ are just authoritarians with warm fuzzies…
Can you talk about some of the stuff you do have to pay for with the NHS?
Amy, we have to pay for it ALL. That’s the point!
Actually, I’d like to scratch my earlier point … because I watched the movie this weekend. I hope it generates reasonable debate and not just knee-jerk responses from people unwilling to consider new ways to resolve old problems. Just because the NHS doesn’t work doesn’t mean we have to stick with our own non-working system, in which our health is put in the hands of government-connected, profit-based, big business.
I don’t understand why the problems of Canada’s and the UK’s socialized medical systems can’t be used to help teach us how to do it better. Surely if anyone could get socialized medicine to actually work, it would be the United States, with (supposedly) the brightest and best and most well intentioned minds in the world?
The pretty obvious point is that socialized medicine can never “work,” unless you have a very warped definition of “work”. The problems with the US system have nothing to do with profit and everything to do with government regulation.
Maybe you should actually take a deep breath and watch Sicko if you really believe that assertion.
As Moore claims, each HMO employs MDs in an advisory role, who have the authority to deny insurance claims, often without even seeing them … and that the more claims they deny, the more they are paid by the HMO, and that payment of a claim is actually considered a loss to the company … this isn’t new information. HMOs incentivize denials. This is well documented enough that I’m not sure anyone is still denying the practice are they?
Chris, how is your last comment a refutation of mine? This is a problem created by government regulation, of an atmosphere where the rewards for underhandedness are clearly larger than by playing straight, an atmosphere ceated and fostered by state regulation.
But while we’re on the topic of HMOs and socialized medicine, you might find this study interesting:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1764713.stm
You seem quite strongly committed to the idea that criticism of the US system is a vote for the NHS, and vice versa. I’m not sure I’ve ever forwarded that viewpoint. I think both systems excel at providing poor medical care for millions of people. Sure, they fail in different ways: the NHS fails because it is a poorly run and inefficient government program; the US system fails because it allows the craven instincts of profit-driven CEOs driven by self interest to play a role in the process. They both so completely fail in such completely different ways. Vive la difference!
No, Chris, I just offered a link related to the blog post I wrote and the following discussion.
Also, it’d be nice if you could try to back up your assertion about why the US system is flawed with some facts. I keep pointing out how the regulatory atmosphere and government’s rewards for being shifty and underhand are the issue, and you retort - against all logic - that it is profit-driven CEOs who are at fault. We’ll just go in circles unless you can substantiate your claims with facts.
Sigh. It’s getting very boring, Chris, to have to keep reminding you to play the ball, not the man. Either that or stop wasting your time trying to make whingey comments.
Just post the report I sent you, which was presented to the House of Representatives … and contains what you asked for. You asked for substantiation. There it is.
Here’s a peer-reviewed study about profitability and the health care system from the American Journal of Medicine.
(American Journal of Medicine: 2004 Nov 1;117(9):629-35).
Title: Reimbursement denial and reversal by health plans at a university hospital.
Authors: Greenberg JD, Hoover DR, Sharma R, Noveck H, Bueno M, Carson JL.
PURPOSE: Denial and downgrading of reimbursement for hospital days are two strategies utilized by health plans to maintain profitability. The goal of this study was to describe patterns of discounted reimbursement at a university hospital. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study of consecutive per diem patients hospitalized in 1999. We defined a discounted day as a day fully denied or downgraded and a reversal day as a day reimbursed at a higher level after appeal. The study outcomes included the probability of a discounted day and the probability of a discounted day to be later reversed. Covariance logistic regression was used to compare these outcomes by plan and physician specialty after adjusting for age, sex, race, length of stay, and diagnosis. Correlations with plan characteristics were analyzed. RESULTS: Of 59,265 hospital days, 6074 days (10.2%) were initially denied or downgraded. On appeal, 1755 discounted days (28.9%) were reversed. The percentage of days discounted per plan ranged from 1.2% to 18.8% (P
An abstract of a study from the Wisconsin Medical Journal:
WMJ. 2007 Feb;106(1):9-11.
Title: What a fair and rational health system would look like.
Authors: Barrett B, Stiles M.
The costs and consequences of America’s fragmented and profit-driven health system have reached unsustainable levels. Far too much is spent on redundant bureaucracy, and on medical interventions that are either unproven or have been shown to be ineffective, while millions of people lack coverage for basic cost-effective health care. The current level of corporate influence on research, education, and dissemination of scholarly work is unacceptable. It is high time that we design and deliver government-mandated health insurance that makes evidence-based cost-effective health care universally accessible. All comparable nations achieve better outcomes with fewer resources using this model. We can too.
Go on … post ‘em. I dare you.