Moore’s Sicko Offers No Cure for U.S. Health Care 2007-20 by Paul Guppy, Vice President for Research

There he goes again. Michael Moore health care results in rationing, price controls, earlier this year released Sicko, a new waiting lists and low-quality care. “documentary” movie about American health care. I put the word in quotation marks For example, the Canadian courts because documentary films usually present recently ruled in favor of patient George facts. Zeliotis, who lived in pain for a year while waiting for a hip operation under Canada’s But for Moore, a film is called a socialized “health care for all” system. The documentary not because it is based on fact – justices found that Canadians had suffered and his films actually contain serious errors – but even died while waiting for care. because he does not use professional actors, meaning he does not have to pay the people In Britain, waiting lists for routine care who appear on camera. Apparently, the only are so long that one of the most popular person who gets paid for appearing in a products sold in drug stores are do-it-yourself Michael Moore film is...Michael Moore. In dental kits. Sicko, Moore attacks for-profit health care and calls for adoption of a socialized, state- Socialized health systems are managed health care system. chronically plagued by rationing, shortages, labor strikes and disputes over doctors’ pay. Yet Moore is not adverse to securing The poor quality of socialized medicine helps handsome profits in his own field. Disney explain why so many foreigners travel to the Corporation paid Moore a dazzling $21 United State to receive medical care. million for the distribution rights to his film Fahrenheit 911. This is in addition to $30 The most disturbing part of the film is million he earned from his assault on legal gun Moore’s callous manipulation of relief ownership, Bowling for Columbine, and the workers who are potentially suffering long- generous royalties he received from his 2001 term health effects from working at Ground book, Stupid White Men. Zero in New York. Moore takes them to Cuba, where they appear to receive excellent The story in Sicko revolves around a care at Havana’s showcase hospital. Moore pre-set narrative. What ails American health seems unaware that it is he who is being care, according to Moore, is not over- manipulated by the repressive Cuban regulation and lack of consumer choice, but government, which no doubt saw a priceless greedy, hard-hearted insurance executives. opportunity to get its propaganda message in Any point that might support this story line, front of American movie audiences. no matter how obscure, weak or off-topic, is included in the film, and any information that Another problem with government-run might lead the audience to a different health care is it would scare investment away conclusion is excluded. from medical research. If you had $1 million and could invest it in any industry you wanted, Moore presents Canada, France and would you choose one where all the important Cuba as models for Americans to admire and business decisions are made by government emulate. But as citizens in these and other officials? Moore’s ideas for socialized countries are painfully learning, socialized medicine would be about as successful as rent control, with the same results: shortages, poor the first government policy in years that is investment and declining quality. actually reducing the number of uninsured. Best of all, HSAs are 100% voluntary. Unlike Moore is right that most Americans socialized medicine, HSAs allow personal are frustrated with third-party health care, in health decisions that are not forced on people which an employer, an insurance company or by an impersonal, top-down system. a government agency controls what and how much care you receive. HSA holders are people who are in charge of their own health care. They do not The solution is not, as Moore would need approval from insurance executives, state have it, putting a single, massive third-payer bureaucrats, or Michael Moore, to make their in charge. What is needed in health care is own decisions about health care. more of what allows Michael Moore to so comfortably profit in his own profession: free The irony is that just as Americans are enterprise, innovation, competition and making progress with health care reforms that consumer choice. work – based on competitive markets and consumer choice – Michael Moore wants to Markets are not about profits, they are take us in exactly the opposite direction. about information. Markets connect suppliers with customers by using price mechanisms. There is one thing we can be sure of, Price signals tell suppliers what consumers however. If we do someday adopt socialized want, and tell consumers the value of what medicine, you will not find Moore languishing they are receiving. Profits are the result of on any government waiting list. The rich correctly understood price signals. If a always find a way to get care, regardless of supplier understands what people value and what system they think should apply to provides it, he will make money. If not, he everyone else. will go broke. The key is to use prices and profits as guides to think sympathetically So before we adopt socialized about others and meet their needs. medicine, we should try this experiment first. The federal government would guarantee In 2003, President George Bush took a equal access to movies for all Americans by major step toward free-market health care by creating a U.S. Department of Entertainment signing legislation creating individual Health Services. This agency would to tell movie Savings Accounts (HSAs). Tax-free HSAs, makers like Moore what films to make, when along with low-cost catastrophic insurance, and where they can be shown, what the ticket allow Americans to own their health benefits, price is, and what profit, if any, is allowed. build savings from year to year and, at retirement, use the money to buy supplemental After he has lived under government Medicare coverage or long-term care control of his industry for a few years, then we insurance. will ask Moore if he wants to do the same to our health care. Today some eight million Americans are covered by HSAs. These affordable Washington Policy Center is an, independent, accounts are not just for the healthy and nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and education wealthy. About half of people covered by organization. Contact us at (206) 937-9691 or HSAs are over 40, and 27% of new enrollees at www.washingtonpolicy.org. Nothing here previously had no coverage. should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any legislation before Yes, as hard as it may be for Moore to any legislative body. admit, President Bush, with Congress, created