Front Page: CNN's response to Michael Moore
 

There has been a bunch of Michael Moore controversy lately... He really kind of twisted things in "Sicko" to suit his own demands. Acting like health care in Canada is free and there are no waiting lists is a big load of bullshit. Canadians pay ridiculous amounts of tax, so the health care system is far from being free, since a lot of those tax dollars go to support the social healthcare... and waiting lists? Don't even get me started.. I waited over 5 months to see a specialist over a medical emergency, and I am very much not alone....

I wish more people and companies would stand up to this fucker. I hold him in as much contempt as Al Gore. Fuck them both.

Woah.. looks like this is starting to get heated.... do i see a defamation of character suit coming... lmfao

CNN whipped his ass.

I am actually getting kind of sick of moore...while I appreciate his quest and he is shedding nice light on serious issues that need attention...I think he is actuing like a 8th grader in a after school fist fight

We need Moore and CNN to both register on GFY and start bickering here so we can all comment through out.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

You are missing the forest for the trees..

When he says "it's free" he means you don't have to come out of your pocket to pay for services.. Yes you have to pay taxes. However if you add what people in the US pay for taxes, then add in medical insurance.. add in extra costs to auto insurance to cover medical bill.. Add in co pay for medication and then add in the insurance premium deductibles.

Well you add all that up, and we pay one hell of a lot more in total, than you do with high taxes. So compared to the US system your's even with higher taxes is much cheaper for the average person.

BTW.. comparing wait times between US and Canada is apples and oranges.. Sure Canada might have longer wait times for some things.. However In Canada every person is covered and can go to the doctor.

In the US there are millions of people with out health insurance.. So that takes millions of people out of the line. You add free heath care for every tax payer in the US and there would be much longer lines that what you have in Canada.

That whole part of the argument, is total BS and as I say is apples to oranges.

Most people in Canada have seperate health insurance as well because what is covered by the government is very limited.. and I know a lot of Canadians who go to the US and other countries to pay for surgeries etc because if they had to sit on the waiting lists in Canada, they would already be dead. As for longer lines than what we have in Canada, NO WAY. I tore my rotator cuff and couldn't even get an ultrasound for a MONTH... I could have driven to Buffalo, paid $500 and had it the same day. Things up there are bad and getting worse as far as health care, and anyone who says differently hasn't experienced the health care system up there. Not to mention all the other crap that we do end up paying for... "free" is really relative.

No. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican or anything of that sort. I'm just tired of his do as I say not as I do rhetoric.

I'm not a Moore fan - The 9/11 film was full of crap.......

The gay one could be interesting - you serious about that BA?

The diffrence between you having health insurance and getting free treatment.. Well you can likely get the treatment even if you don't have the insurance.. In the US you just don't get the treatment.


You totally missed what I said about wait times .. read it again.

In Canada everyone is covered. In the US not everyone is covered. In fact it's something like 45.8 million people that are not covered with any health insurance in the US.

So as I said before.. Add those 45.8 million people into the lines in the US much less the millions of people that get turned down for treatment via their insurance companies in the US..

Well you add all those people to the line, and you would very likely have much longer wait times in the US.

What he said.

Think of the fun he will have with that Phelps wanker.... :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

He must be able to dig some dirt up on him

Michael Moore has always played fast and loose with the facts.

CNN makes *1* mistake, and Moore throws a hissy fit.

Fuck that left wing lying fat tub of shit!

WHat was the "crap"you mention in the 9/11 film?

?????

System is not perfect, but it works ..

My dad ( ambulance , heart surgery, 2 weeks hospitalisation , after care, etc ...) is still alive ...

Non-urgent care: yes, you wait .... I just got a checkup apointment for September ... but it is not ugent.
Or I can go to a private clinic, pay 150$ ...

Actually, it's not covered if you don't have insurance, many of the treatments, the government can deny the request and you get the bill in the mail.. and you'd be surprised just what they won't cover.. It's pretty sick, actually. It's very much like an HMO type situation, except it's run by the government, not some company, so there's even less chance of fighting with them. Paying ridiculous amounts of taxes, add to that $250+ a month for extra medical insurance who are just as assholish about covering things as the government health care system is is definitely a nightmare... And it's province to province, not all provinces are "free". Albertans still pay for their health care coverage, every three months... it's definitely not cheap, either.. and they are still taxed to death. It's a very uneven system and with more and more immigrants coming into the country every day, it's a larger and larger burden altogether.

As far as wait times, if you look at the facts, Canada does have longer wait times... It's stated on CNN and Moore's site as factual statistics... I think the most terrible time of my life was watching my husband be incredibly ill for over a year with what they figured was cancer, but it still took almost 9 months JUST for him to see a specialist in order to get the road STARTED for diagnosis... It's now almost two years later and they are STILL not done the process, and it will be another 5 months before he can see the specialist again, and with no options to go to another specialist or do anything but sit on his heels and wait...

Even urgent care is getting terrible. A lot of people I know who have had very serious health issues have been waiting longer and longer... especially in places like Ontario where there are population booms and doctor shortages.. the doctors are all heading south of the border because the pay is higher. In the small town we used to live in up north, there was a TWO YEAR waiting list for a GENERAL PRACTITIONER, let alone a specialist... the only option for most of those people was an overcrowded emergency room and nobody who gave a shit about their care/needs.

Plus, and I say this as someone who thinks the world is better off with people like Michael Moore running around than it is without, he really does have to stir things up with the media if he wants Sicko to earn even a shread of the box office receipts that Fahrenheit did.
In Farhrenheit, he had the backing of the democratic party--encouraging constituents to check it out, encouraging independents to check it out. Sicko can't work that way. It makes both parties look impotent.

I didn't take notes - I just remember thinking "that's a load of shit' or 'that directly contradicts what he said a few mins ago'.

And no, I'm not going to watch the bloody film again just to prove my point. :upsidedow

Well the difference again is you have 2 chances to get the coverage. First is by govt second is by insurance if you have it. In the US the govt won't do shit for us and our HMO's will turn down anything they can.

If you need your appendix removed in your country it will happen regardless of if you have insurance or not. In the US if you have no insurance and it's not an emergency did it doesn't happen. BTW if it is an emergency and they do the operation, you still pay for it, because you get billed.

In Canada if you pay for that operation yourself, it's about $5k.. In the US the same operation will cost you around $20k. So tell me where you would rather be if you have no insurance?

I don't know how else I can word it.. Yes I understand Canada has longer wait times "right now" than what the US "currently" has.

However you are ignoring what I'm saying about in the US not everyone is currently covered with health insurance. If you add in all those millions of people that are not "currently covered with health insurance. Well the wait time in the US would be much longer than there are today.

Not to mention, if you add in all the people that are covered but get turned down by their HMO's. Honestly I think the 45 million number on people in the US not having any sort of coverage is very conservative.

I think he claimed that Saddam had WMD ..... :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Fuck Moore for lying.:thumbsup

It's all fucked up no matter where you go. I must say I'm glad I didn't have to pay for my c-sections in the US, you are right there, but for those who think the coverage in Canada is better, like I say they haven't had to deal with it. It might be paid for, but if you die waiting for the treatment that's needed, it doesn't do much good either way. :)

this is teh serious bidness

I love everyone is tired of MM when there is right wing bullshit is on 2000 hours a week. We have paid health insurance my wife and I, she needed to see a specialist this was February she didn't actually see him til August. My Dad has cancer,they told him its fast spreading and one doctor couldnt see him for at least two weeks and the other probably not until Oct. These were specialists he had to see, we are lucky that my mom works in a hospital for a very high ranking doctor who pulled all kinds of favors to get him in quickly. The avg person with insurance and no connections would be waiting.
We used to go to a diner in downtown atlanta, it was owned by indians that were Canadian citizens and any time something medical was needed they went back home for it. Two things that come to mind the father went for a by pass and the son went for knee surgery.
My dad had a heart attack in the uk on business got excellent care.
My insurance goes up every year I keep raising my deductible to lower costs.Eventually I will be paying 1000 a month with a 10,000 deductible it keeps going the way it is and I dont get sick thank god.

I like Michael Moore, he brings attention to important issues that most people would never know of otherwise.

cnn just shot itself in the foot once again..

instead of admitting its mistakes it continues to make idiotic statements.

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One of Gupta's overall critiques of the film is that Moore leaves viewers with an impression, as he does on his Web site, that universal health care comes without cost. In fact,
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cmon now ,what an idiotic statement.. this shopws how jaded cnn are..

NOBODy believes universal healthcare is free . NOBODY.. certainly not cnn viewers ,as if they have the brain capacity to turn on a television they likely know nothing is free, certainly not government funded healthcare..


but moore brought alot of this upon himself by misrepresenting his own facts to make his argument seem more valid..

he has done it intentionally in all his films.. its hard to take someone seriously when they misrepresent facts to bolster their own argument..

the sad fact is that if he stayed on topic most americans would agree with him , but the ovie would only be 5 minutes long..

its very simple math..

healthy americans work longer and pay more taxes , we want more money thus keeping people alive and healthy is going to be a benefit for the whole country. its that simple. call it universal healthcare or whatever you want ..but thats what it boils down too.

if you read CNN's article closely, you'll see that they don't 'refute' Moore's points AT ALL. Where MM points out that their expert has a clear conflict of interest, CNN 'refutes' him by basically saying 'No he doesn't', with no explanation of why not when the facts of the matter point out that he CLEARLY does have an agenda, and a specific for profit, pro conservative agenda. He points out that they took an irrelevant number regarding elective health care, they say 'we think it's helpful' without telling why even though MM makes it very clear that it's totally irrelevant.

Smoke and mirrors from CNN, but I'm guessing that'll be good enough for pimpsticky and his ilk.

You're a sheep. You just point out one of the many, many ways they try to make it seem like MM 'misrepresents' the facts when he doesn't, then you go on to say it's his fault for misrepresenting the facts.

Pure sheepism.

ROWR! Everyone is so touchy lol.

Yep good point.. wait times for specialist are already fairly long here in the US in many cases. Hell last time I made a doctor appointment via my old HMO. I had to wait a month and a half then went for the appointment to find out the HMO had my info screwed up.

So the doc couldn't see me because the HMO wouldn't pay them (even though it was the HMO's fault) So I had to make a new appointment which was another month wait.

I finally see the doctor, the doc prescribes me two medications (I get psoriasis sometimes) went to get the prescriptions fill and the HMO wouldn't cover the more expensive one. Turned me down flat.

Another nice one, for me to buy the medicine myself here in the US for a 60g tube of the ointment is $160.00. In Canada the EXACT same medicane for a 120g tube is $57.00. So if I was in Canada even if I paid for it myself, I could get twice as much for less than half the price.

It's total BS I think we should all just bomb all the insurance company offices Timothy Mcveigh style. Then maybe they would get the picture.

You have a lot more faith in the intelligence of the average American, Joe Six Pack and Susie Winecooler who see that movie will take the numerous quips of "free health care" as meaning it's actually free. The American public is stupid, you should know this by now

No it isn't, that's a lie. I've never paid money to a doctor for anything that was ever wrong with me. I've been hospitalized many times. If I've needed emergency surgery (like my appendix) it was done the same day I went in with the pains, at a BUSY hospital.

And other countries? Where else do we go for emergency health care? lol. :D

I doubt we let very many people die waiting for necessary emergency surgery. Would you go as far as to say that the doctors purposely schedule surgeries a week late, to ensure they have more days off? heh


So it was so important to you, that you COULD have driven an hour, but didn't.. Huh? Doesn't this just mean we have the best of both worlds here? We have the free care, and the privatized card in Buffalo. What could be better? Are you mad that you can go to Buffalo and pay for it faster? I really don't get your argument here.

I think Canada's problems come from over-treating people myself. Too many people with "free" healthcare forget that their government is being billed hundreds of dollars for every visit, test, checkup, exam etc they go for. I bet the numbers of doctor visits that result in no treatment other than the good feeling that comes from having a doctor tell you you're okay, is staggering here.

Canada's system is great if you're poor. Everyone else gets fucked. I personally don't care about the social sponges and am happier in a system where I pay for what I want.