Fact-checking ‘Sicko’

July 2, 2007

It’s not often major news outlets fact-check documentaries, but Michael Moore’s not just another documentary filmmaker, and healthcare is not just another public policy. So, I suppose it’s not a big surprise that CNN would give “Sicko” some close scrutiny.

As it turns out, the network gives the movie a clean bill of health.

Moore says that the U.S. spends more of its gross domestic product on health care than any other country.

Again, that’s true. The United States spends more than 15 percent of its GDP on health care — no other nation even comes close to that number. France spends about 11 percent, and Canadians spend 10 percent.

Like Moore, we also found that more money does not equal better care. Both the French and Canadian systems rank in the Top 10 of the world’s best health-care systems, according to the World Health Organization. The United States comes in at No. 37. The rankings are based on general health of the population, access, patient satisfaction and how the care’s paid for.

Indeed, CNN’s analysis found no substantive flaws or inaccuracies in Moore’s film at all. The most negative part of the critique noted that Moore focused his attention on private insurance companies, and omitted government-funded health-care systems such as Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Veterans Affairs health-care systems. (The point of the movie was about flaws in the U.S. system — Moore didn’t talk about government programs because they’re effective.)

The stumbling block with CNN’s report came in the conclusion: “As Americans continue to spend $2 trillion a year on health care, everyone agrees on one point: Things need to change, and it will take more than a movie to figure out how to get there.”

Perhaps, but as Matt Yglesias noted, CNN’s own fact-checking piece clearly shows the way by pointing to the same deficiencies in the U.S. system that Moore identified in “Sicko.”

[I]t’s not that hard to figure out. France and Canada both have two difference systems of health care delivery both of which are cheaper than the US system and both of which are more effective. What’s more, these aren’t obscure countries. Lots of people have heard of France. Lots of people have heard of Canada. How hard is it for them to just write the words “Michael Moore is right; American health care would be improved if we adopted French methods instead”? Their articles supports the claim 100 percent.

I guess that would be a little too much to ask.

One of the primary causes of our health care mess is blind right-wing ideology that assumes that “government is the problem.” Here is a video of our “sad-sack president” telling us that Congress needs to give us affordable health care “without inviting the Federal Government to run the health care system.”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11283.html

In other words, Bush wants Congress to fix the problem without doing the one thing that has been proven to work in other countries – like Canada and France.

Unfortunately, many others spout this same ideological nonsense, because it’s the party line of the health insurance interests and others who want things to stay just like they are.

  • No. One of the MSM’s largest advertisers is the healthcare industry. They’re fighting to protect ad revenue for the exact same reason that they don’t do investigative reports on WalMart or Fastfood or the automobile industry. You can tell what industries are screwing Americans the most by how much they advertise on the 24 hour news nets.

  • “You can tell what industries are screwing Americans the most by how much they advertise on the 24 hour news nets.”

    Then come election season, I guess the all pols fall into that category as well!

  • I like how the headline has to say “more context needed”. As if there would ever be enough context to satisfy the “health care” industry or the anti-government radicals (please do not call them “conservatives”).

    These radicals would rather jab a sharp stick in their eye than admit that Michael Moore or the French are right about anything. And then they’ll go to the ER and wait in line, bitching about the system.

    Seriously, the “health insurance” industry will fight nationalized solutions to the death, so yeah, it probably will take more than a Michael Moore movie to solve the problem.

  • “These radicals would rather jab a sharp stick in their eye than admit that Michael Moore or the French are right about anything. And then they’ll go to the ER and wait in line, bitching about the system.”

    No, Racerx–these radicals all have good health insurance paid for by the government or business. So that jab is well cared for. Or to use another analogy, they are already in the lifeboat so why be concerned that the ship is sinking?

  • I have comments on Steve’s cross-post on Washington Monthly / Political Animal that are worth reading.

  • Frak, I see your point, but I was talking more about the millions of working-class radicals who keep voting for the Republicans (who then proceed to screw them over) not the rich radicals who run the show.

    There’s a lot more poor Republican radicals than rich ones.

  • I saw a critique on CNN, they seemed to spend most of their time pointing out that Canada’s system sucks too rather than analyzing Sicko (basically accusing Moore of exagerrating how good other systems are without ever actually saying it). It had a very negative tone without actually saying anything negative about the movie, very weird to watch.

  • The first thing that has to be done is the insurance industry needs to be nationalized and the executives of all insurance companies need to be arrested, tried and imprisoned for their crimes against the people of this country, and not just for health care, but for every other thing they do. Anyone who has had an insurance claim on anything in the ten years of Republican “market reform” and “tort reform” knows I’m right.

  • I’ve herad people repeating the clean bill of health thing for the movie, but I know that I found it disconcerting that the numbers they quoted and the numbers Moore quoted were still very different. They were demonstrating a gap, and the gap still existed, so CNN did give it a pass, but I know I’d like to know more. It seems unlikely that Moore’s numbers were made up out of whole cloth, but if they weren’t I’d like to know more about where Moore and CNN each got their numbers.

    It’s just disturbing if you can’t really rely on the guy on the left to be giving you the kind of info you can confidently quote.

  • Regarding the above point about Cnadian health care problems. Yes the canadian system does have problems (long waiting lists for some types of treatments). But I’ve never been asked for my credit card at the hospital when I needed emergency treatment (that happened to me in S.F. while on vacation). The canadian system needs work but for most folks it works.

  • Fact checking the CNN fact checkers

    Claim: “everyone agrees on one point: Things need to change, and it will take more than a movie to figure out how to get there”

    Fact: These are actually two points. Everyone does agree that things need to change. On the second point, the only thing everyone agrees on, is that CNN fact checkers are fricking idiots.

  • Now if only CNN would fact check Bush administration spokespeople, or even their own employees like Glenn Beck. It’s only the “dangerous” liberals that need the overight it seems.

  • My husband is from Canada and all his family and friends still live there. (We reside in the US) It is amazing how many people here say how great the canadian system is when EVERYONE I know there hates it. Our health system with all it’s flaws is so much superior. My sister in law, in canada, was forced to spend her entire families 2 weeks income on dental care. Meanwhile, 55+% of her income goes to the government in taxes to “help” pay for this. There are more MRI machines in all of my city 270.000 people than in all of Canada. Many of my friends have say they wait for 2 +hours EVERY time they go to any doctor regardless of speciality. My mother-in-law spends $300 per month on ONE medication that their “socialized medicine” refuses to cover. We have had friends who had to wait 1+years to have a critical surgery. I could go on and on. My husband is so much happier with our healthcare here, and we spend MUCH less on insurance/healthcare than we would there. I am a registered nurse here in the US, and I have met several canadian nurses and physicians that now work here, in the US, because the healthcare system in canada is in such a mess and people immigrate there just to suck the system dry while not getting jobs themselves. I guess to sum it up…just be careful what you wish for…it could get MUCH worse.

  • Actually, Ronda’s comments _support_ the need for publicly-funded health care. Her sister-in-law had to pay two weeks income for dental care because dentistry is covered through private insurance — it is NOT part of our publicly-funded medical system. Same for her mother-in-law’s medications — they should be covered through private insurance — meds are not part of our publicly-funded medical system. So, the things that Ronda thinks of as weaknesses in Canada’s system are actually the things that are most like those in the US. Canada’s system covers general practitioner physician visits, specialist visits, and all hospital care. Some people do have to wait for surgery (and there are currently government initiatives to deal with wait times), but, unlike the US, no one is ever permanently denied the care they need. Oh, and I know formerly-American physicians who now live and work in Canada because they prefer not to have to run their treatment decisions past some non-MD insurance bloke in a far-away city, and they can always be sure they will get paid. World Health Organization statistics demonstrate Canada has better health outcomes than the US at a lower per capita cost. Americans would be a lot better off if they stopped sending 30% of their health care dollars to line the pockets of insurance companies. Don’t believe all the propaganda that our system is in trouble — the vast majority of Canadians wouldn’t trade our system for yours. In fact, Tommy Douglas, the father of Canada’s medical system, was recently voted ‘The Greatest Canadian’ of all time.

  • Just like Chaz said, Ronda’s SIL is paying for the stuff outside the system. If the meds she needed cost $300 in Canada…how much would they have cost in the US? Likely much, much more.
    Because my employer is not paying directly for my primary health insurance, they can afford to give us very generous dental and drug plans.
    I had cancer in 1998. Never waited to see a doctor and never paid a dime out of my pocket. I had surgery, treatment and was back to normal in four months. I never paid for a thing out of pocket (private insurance even refunded parking costs) and signed two pieces of paper for the whole deal.
    Canadians live longer than Americans on average and most people I know, while not satisfied 100% with our system, would never trade it for the US system.
    If privatization is such a good idea, then all current systems should be private…including education, police and military. How would it all look then?

  • I’m a Canadian living in the US and I traded the Canadian system for the US system and I would do it in a heart beat again. Who cares what medication costs when you can’t find a doctor to prescribe it. That’s the raw bare truth of socialized medicine. It works in a perfect world where everyone adds their share to the collective pot. But it’s not a perfect world and not everyone contributes. Add to that the wonderful track record the government has at running ANY program and it’s a recipe for disaster. What Chaz won’t tell you is that in Ontario a “Healthcare User Fee” has been instituted. So now on top of 50+% taxes to fund the universal healthcare, you get to pay a $900 per year user fee in order to get the healthcare. And by the way if you don’t have the $900, you don’t get the healthcare. And after all that money has been paid to fund the system, the government is closing hospitals everyday because they can’t afford to keep them open. That’s the real truth about universal healthcare that Mr. Moore, Mr. Obama, Mrs Clinton, Chaz and the mainstream media won’t tell you. It’s sound great on paper…but it doesn’t work!

    BTW Chaz…Tommy Douglas was voted the greatest canadian by watchers of the government funded broadcaster CBC. I mean Don Cherry was in the top 10 for God sake.

  • If Phil is paying over 50% in taxes, he’s in the highest-earning income bracket. Phil implies that taxes fund only health care, which of course is ridiculous — think roads, schools, universities, law enforcement, and all the other things governments provide. Some provinces do charge monthly fees — an additional way of collecting taxes — but this is NOT a user fee, it’s an insurance premium. And monthly premiums are waived for lots of people living in poverty or who have disabilities. Closing hospitals every day??? Again, ridiculous. The government legally cannot deny service to any citizen of Canada. Statistics clearly show that we get better health care for less cost per capita. 24 of the 25 top industrialized countries have universal health care. It’s a disgrace that the US isn’t one of them. We just wouldn’t tolerate a situation where 20% of our population didn’t have access to care. Health care is a human right, not a consumer commodity.

  • Firstly I’m not ashamed to being in the highest tax bracket. I’m not a bad (rich) person because I work hard and earn a good living. I didn’t imply that taxes fund only healthcare but healthcare is supposed to be included. That’s what your hero Tommy Douglas intended. Call it a user fee or an insurance premium, its still a tax. I thought we paid for “free” healthcare in our income tax? If you go to the hospital without an Health card you will be assessed, stablized and sent home. Any american hospital has to legally do the same.
    If you want to talk statistics..here we go. Studies by the Commonwealth Fund found that 24% of Canadians waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room, vs. 12% in the U.S.; 57% waited 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, vs. 23% in the U.S. Waiting times for major surgery have been longer in Canada, and Canada has been slower to adopt expensive technology and medicines. Consequently, Canada has had higher mortality rates for some conditions, such as heart attacks. Based on 2003 data from the Canadian Community Health Survey, an estimated 1.2 million Canadians do not have a regular doctor because they “cannot find” one. In a 2003 survey of hospital administrators conducted in Canada, the U.S., and three other countries, 21% of Canadian hospital administrators, but less than 1% of American administrators, said that it would take over three weeks to do a biopsy for possible breast cancer on a 50-year-old woman; 50% of Canadian administrators versus none of their American counterparts said that it would take over six months for a 65-year-old to undergo a routine hip replacement surgery.
    In the U.S., the federal government does not guarantee universal health care to all its citizens, but certain publicly funded health care programs help to provide for the elderly, disabled, the poor, and children.The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act also ensures public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. Healthcare coverage and heathcare access in Canada are two different things. Every Canadian has coverage but what good is it if you can’t get access.

    I know there are problems with both systems, but I would rather die trying to pay for healthcare services I received rather that die waiting for them.

  • There are statistics, and then there are statistics.

    First, the Commonwealth Fund is a private American foundation. The brief bios of the the twelve Directors (posted on the website) indicate that at least four are involved with major US healthcare insurers, and two with investment management funds. Another is employed with a consulting company specializing in researching “market potential” in healthcare services. It would seem that the Commonwealth Fund is hardly an unbiased organization when it comes to healthcare research.

    Second, the methodology used in the 2004 study where Phil draws his statistics is questionable: hospital administrators are asked about their opinions. This is not the same as measuring actual performance of the system. Hospital administrators in Canada and the US have different relationships with their funders, and they may be using different mental ‘benchmarks’ when they respond to questions about the performance of their system.

    Even if we ignore these two critical limitations of the CF research — that it’s not unbiased, and it’s looking for answers in the wrong place — Phil neglects to mention that on some indicators Canadian administrators give more positive responses. As examples, Canadian administrators are more satisfied with the system than Americans are, and they are more likely than American administrators to believe that citizens deserve to receive various types of information about the quality of their health care system.

    Finally, as Michael Moore points out, if we denied service to 20 or 25% of our population, as the US does, we could reduce our wait times considerably. Wait times are an acknowledged weakness in our system. However, wait times are not an inherent limitation of publicly-funded healthcare — the areas where wait lists exist are exactly those areas that are being impacted by our aging population and technological advances. Governments across Canada now have funding to address wait lists while maintaining universal access to care.

  • I was hoping that Chaz would trash the statistics from the Commonwealth Fund because I listened to Michael Moore on CNN with Wolfe Blitzer and with Larry King and in both interviews he used statistics from the Commonwealth Fund to back up his point of view. Chaz can’t have it both ways.
    Chaz says that hospital administrators opinions don’t count then uses the opinion of hospital administrators to make his very next point.
    I’m not here to say that the American system is perfect and doesn’t need to be changed drastically. My point is that universal healthcare isn’t the answer. Medicare in the US is a prime example of how the government would run publicly funded healthcare. Giving the government control of ANY program is a death sentence for the program. That’s been proven time and time again. I think that if Tommy Douglas were alive to see the condition of his prized program, he would be horrified.

  • I have constructed a final response to Phil four times, and every time when I submit it, it disappears into the stratosphere. Am I to conclude that my postings have been deemed incompatible with the goals of this website?

  • What do you mean I “can’t have it both ways”? I’m not trying to have it both ways. I’m pointing out that CF research might be biased, given that it comes from a private organization that clearly is interested in a “market approach” to health care, that it uses weak methodology, and that you cherry-picked answers to support your point of view while ignoring those that do not.
    If US Medicare is a prime example of how government would run publicly-funded health care, perhaps you need a new government.
    Tommy Douglas would be proud that Canadians have created a health care system with universal coverage, that has survived for 40 years, shows no signs of demise, and has been able to withstand onslaughts of negative propaganda from the right wing.

  • The US needs new government…that we can agree on. But I don’t understand how you can say that the Canadian system shows no sign of demise and that the problems are just negative propaganda from the right wing. What you think is propaganda is truth to those who have been failed by the universal “catch all” system. Why is the government being sued over wait times if it’s just propaganda?
    In Kingston Ontario (Kingston General Hospital) the average wait time for initial treatment for lung cancer is 58 days. That’s a death sentence for most lung cancer patients. How is that better that the american system, when the 85% who have coverage can get treatment the same day as the diagnosis? Like I’ve been trying to get across to you…universal healthcare coverage means nothing if I die waiting for treatment. That is what Mr. Chretien, Mr. Martin and all other liberals who wave the universal healthcare flag don’t get.
    Here are a few more for you…
    Hip replacement surgery 464 days.
    MRI 28 days (108 days is the provincial average)
    Heart Bypass Surgery 43 days
    Breast Cancer 25 days

    And you don’t see a problem?????

  • The federal and provincial governments agree there is a need to address wait times. Wait times have occurred in areas where there has been change in population demographics (e.g., an aging population, which increases the need for joint replacements) and in areas with new technologies. If you want accurate information about wait times, and what is being done to address them, you should check out http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/pubs/system-regime/2006-wait-attente/index_e.html

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