The Road to Efficiency...
Michael Moore's new documentary romanticizes the enslavement of physicians and other health-care providers by the state. Here's his defense in Time Magazine:
TIME: Of the declared presidential candidates, down to the Dennis Kucinich level, say, who do you think has the best health-care plan? Including Kucinich? We could include him.If you ask me, Moore isn't radical enough. By his ironclad logic, every sector of the economy could be managed better and more efficiently by the government (of course, you couldn't have elections, since that would create an unacceptable risk of Republicans and other "right wingers" from obtaining office and sabotaging the system.)Michael Moore: Then Kucinich, but he doesn’t go far enough. He supports what he’s calling a single- payer nonprofit plan, but from my read, it would still allow [private] entities to control things, as opposed to the government. What’s wrong with the government? The right wing and the G.O.P. have done a wonderful job brainwashing people that government doesn’t work, and then, as Al Franken says, they get elected and proceed to prove the point. [Laughs.]
TIME: So you think Washington could handle a program this big?
Michael Moore: Ask anyone on Social Security if their check comes on time every month. Like clockwork. And it comes through the so-called dilapidated U.S. mail. My dad’s check literally will come on the same day every month. The government has been quite good and efficient at creating a number of systems. If I tell people the administrative costs for a private health plan —advertising, p.r., executive pay —are 20% and ask them what Medicare’s administrative costs are, they’ll guess 50%, 60%. The fact is, for Medicare/ Medicaid, it’s 3%. The last figure I read for Canada’s [government] system is 1.7%.
Comments (31)
The fetish for "guaranteed" health, income, etc. can only result in a cartel, as nobody forced to deliver said guarantees will do it for free. They will inevitably want protection and priveleges for this "guarantee".
And leftists think cartels are bad right?
Published: May 21, 2007 4:39 PM
Ask anyone on Social Security if their check comes on time every month. Like clockwork.
*burning with anger*
Yes, and the fact that they won't switch it to direct deposit costs the taxpayers and local businesses hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Published: May 21, 2007 4:56 PM
I thought you could get it direct deposited.
At any rate, doling out pre-approved monthly checks is hardly the same as running an entire nation's healthcare industry.
Published: May 21, 2007 5:09 PM
The administrative cost fallacy.
Published: May 21, 2007 5:32 PM
I am not a fan of Moore for a number of reasons. His policy recommendations are too big government, and he did not tackle the main issues in F-911. Bush is not a bumbling idiot who was too dumb to stop the 9/11 attacks; he helped cause them. Moore is too much of a wussy to admit this publicly because he feels it might alienate his mainstream Democratic base. He is more comfortable doing photo ops with the race-baiter Jesse Jackson than tackling the real problems with the system.
That said, it is screwed up how he is being targeted for his trip to Cuba. These trade sanctions are an embarrassment. They should go after Tom Delay too for smoking Cuban Cohibas.
Published: May 21, 2007 6:00 PM
Translation: Michael Moore is incapable of critical thought when the state is buying him off.
Published: May 21, 2007 6:32 PM
I Michael Moore was only a 'soft' liberal. With this interview we can definitely say he's a radical communist, probably even more radical than present day Marxists.
Published: May 21, 2007 6:37 PM
Sooperdave beat me to my point about admin costs estimated for SSN being bogus. For example, SSN has a collection agency called the IRS that does not go into their 'admin costs' yet definitely cost the taxpayers money. Mnay other costs of SSN doing business are similarly spread around other agencies and conveniently left out when costs are estimated.
Published: May 21, 2007 7:26 PM
Michael Moore is a dangerous moron.
Published: May 21, 2007 8:04 PM
CNN: Ron Paul brilliantly and articulately answers his critics:
http://www.digg.com/2008_us_elections/CNN_Ron_Paul_answers_his_critics_brilliantly_I_might_add
Published: May 21, 2007 10:04 PM
Does Michael Moore actually seriously believe that government health care wouldn't be a complete disaster? Let's assume that government programs could work (which, we know is false). Wouldn't they still be a bad idea because eventually a "right-winger" would be elected who would "underfund" the health care system?
If you think government does a bad job of doing nonessential things like waging wars, wait until you see how awful it is with something essential to life like health care. Michael Moore would create a nightmare if he got his way.
Instead of expanding the government's role in health care, we need to eliminate the government's role in health care. Michael Moore and the left are wrong on health care and a threat to the lives of each and every person living in the United States of America, no matter how well-intentioned they might be.
Published: May 21, 2007 10:12 PM
Time to update that old saying- "You are what you eat." If we change it to "You are what you get stuck into!", then we've described Moore perfectly- he became rich by getting stuck into the rich! That must be the new way to get rich!
Published: May 22, 2007 12:45 AM
Michael Moore: "What’s wrong with the government?"
uhhh.... ok..
Maybe it's the fact that it's a protection racket, a swindle for the ruling class against everybody else, a cancer on humanity that is based on institutionalized violence, violent territorial conquest, grand-scale brainwashing and intellectual slavery, and a parasite that's suffocating the productive class?
They do wear nice hats though..
Published: May 22, 2007 4:37 AM
"By his ironclad logic, every sector of the economy could be managed better and more efficiently by the government "
I understand why this is not the case, however I'm always at pain to explain it to my lefty friends in a simple 5 min argument that they can understand.
Any links, articles, books about why healthcare socialism is bad?
I live in Europe, so I'll be extremely thankfull for any materials on this (thinking of speaking of contemplating privatising healthcare is blasphemy here).
Published: May 22, 2007 4:39 AM
Re: flix - materials
-> http://www.mises.org/multimedia/mp3/MU2005/mu05-Block3.mp3
Published: May 22, 2007 5:16 AM
What’s wrong with the government?
It can't calculate.
Published: May 22, 2007 5:24 AM
The idea that Social Security's efficiency should be measured by how much money passes through its coffers is so stupid that it's offensive. Social Security "retirement" is a pass-through, cash-transfer system. It costs the same amount of money to process a billion dollars as a trillion.
Plus, Michael Moore's accounting method is what landed the Enron guys in jail -- failing to account for all kinds of debits that you would rather not report. Social Security doesn't pay for its own collections (IRS), its own lawyers (DOJ), its own accountants (GAO) or its own building maintenance (GSA). Private hospitals and doctors have to include all of these costs in their bottom line.
So, after you conveniently ignore all of the real costs of doing business over at the Social Security office, what are their real administrative costs? Taking cash from A and paying it to B? That could be done with a modest clerical staff, a few servers and a couple of IT guys. Even when you use Michael Moore's Magical Accounting Method, the fact that Social Security's administrative costs are as high as they are is yet another monument to obscene government waste.
Published: May 22, 2007 8:12 AM
I thought you could get it direct deposited.
That's my point -- recipients refuse to make the switch, costing the rest of us lots of money.
Published: May 22, 2007 8:21 AM
The Dept. of Health and Human Services has data for public, private, and overall health care spending levels since 1960.
Adjusted for inflation, total health care spending has increased 10-fold since 1960, while public health care spending has increased 19-fold in the same period. Private spending increased 7-fold.
As the GOVERNMENT-PROVIDED numbers clearly show, public health care spending is an absolute waste; and I analyzed combined public spending (fed, state, and local); isolating Federal numbers show an even greater waste. Adjusted for inflation, federal spending on health care has gone up 32-fold since 1960.
Published: May 22, 2007 9:10 AM
Every additional dollar of public spending replaces only 60 cents in private costs; The other 40 cents is completely wasted.
Published: May 22, 2007 9:30 AM
Austrian economics seems to be all about allocation of resources, and that the market allocates best. Now given that under a market approach or a socialist approach there may be some variance as to how much is allocated to the subcategory of "human resources" called health care, but not likely very much (in the first few dacades). So if it is close to a finite given, then the question who gets care and who doesn't? Under a market approach those with means, from prior transactions and allocations, would have the means, and those who without would not have gotten as much from their previous transactions. Unless, of course, those with means decide to give unconditionally to pay for others.
Now under a socialist system, and again assuming a relatively finite amount of spending put toward healthcare, there will still be those who do not get care, those who will sit for hours in a hallway waiting for treatment, those who will wait years in extreme pain waiting for their hip replacement, it all simply will not be "means" driven. A nice, warm egalitarian form of misery.
I think Moore must have some sense of this, but he doesn't care because he knows he has more than enough to circumvent whatever system is put into place. He won't have to wait in line for hyperbaric treatments when his inevitable diabetes sets in and has ulcerative feet, or his dialysis treatment. Meanwhile the rest of us will have our means stripped away and put squarely into the rationed health care lottery.
I guess at the end of the day, again giving some allowance for a slightly bigger, slightly smaller pie (of course before the inevitable economic crash), all socialism does is spread the misery out just enough so that the "underclass" feels that someone is doing something for them so that they don't reach for the pitchforks and torches, while conning the middle class that they're still working and building equity for themselves, also getting a load from the State as well. But soon the bite on the middle class is going to have to be much deeper and the reality of rationing will hit.
As I see it any system will work for a while. But one exists in an economic reality, and a continuum, while the other tries to work outside of economic constraints, uses ruses to make people think that they can get something for nothing, and inevitably will run dry of resources easily gotten. Then there must either be a return to market based systems or a hardline Statist mechanisms of camps or gulags, with the chosen untermensch tossed in. Who will it be this time? I vote for flabby, unshaven, baseball hat wearing loudmouths.
Published: May 22, 2007 9:32 AM
In one of the 1992 Presidential debates, then Governor Bill Clinton, admitted that the elderly paid a higher precentage of their income to health care now (1992) then when before Medicare was passed.
And that was somehow a rationale for MORE government involvement in health care, according to him!
Published: May 22, 2007 9:37 AM
In one of the 1992 Presidential debates, then Governor Bill Clinton, admitted that the elderly paid a higher precentage of their income to health care now (1992) then when before Medicare was passed.
And that was somehow a rationale for MORE government involvement in health care, according to him!
Published: May 22, 2007 9:37 AM
In one of the 1992 Presidential debates, then Governor Bill Clinton, admitted that the elderly paid a higher precentage of their income to health care now (1992) then when before Medicare was passed.
And that was somehow a rationale for MORE government involvement in health care, according to him!
Published: May 22, 2007 9:38 AM
Sorry for the multi-post. The Internet connection here got flaky.
Published: May 22, 2007 9:47 AM
Moore goes on to say that the only problem with the Canadian system is that it's underfunded. Isn't that always the problem? Are there any socialized services, medical or otherwise out there that are properly funded and not begging like dogs for more money? And if a system serving 30 million people is underfunded how much funding would be required for a system serving 300+ million?
Published: May 22, 2007 9:51 AM
I think we need to destroy the myth of a difference between a third-party payer system and a single payer system.
In both systems, the consumer does not pay for his own services, increasing costs and reducing quality; it does not matter whether the third-party payer is your employer or the government.
Under our current system, it is a partial third-party payer system; some people do buy their own medical care, but it is a small fraction.
US Health care could be dramatically improved by shifting the $150 billion-dollar tax credit given to employers to taxpayers via a tax credit. The tax credit would work out to $1,000 - $1,500 per taxpayer. That would make the $700 billion in private health insurance made every year tax-free. This would be on top of the tax deduction already in place for medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of AGI.
Making this simple shift would greatly increase the ratio of consumer-driven health care to third party payer care in the United States, driving down costs and driving up quality.
Along these lines, I would also advocate distributing the Department of Education's budget to the parents of children NOT in public school (home-schooled + private school), which is about 6 1/2 million students. With a $70 billion-dollar budget, every child not in public school would recieve a $10,700 tax credit. Soon, every American parent would chase this tax credit, emptying out the public schools. As the number of non-public school students went up, the average tax credit would go down.
This would deal a serious blow to government-ran education, and if the states joined in, public education would cease to exist.
Published: May 22, 2007 10:34 AM
Mr Moore shaves and dresses up sometimes - for example at the recent film festival in France. The unshaven "working Joe is a baseball cap" thing is a pose. Rather like the one day spent working in a auto factory allows this millionaire to pose as "working class" person.
However, the central problem is that the cause of American health care being expensive is not dealt with.
This cause comes in two parts - subsidies and regulations.
Subsidies.
Medicare and Medicaid together cost 5 billion Dollars when they started (back in 1965), they now cost hundreds of billions of Dollars. These subsidies (and the "free" E.R. rooms and so on) push up costs in private health care, just as the government subsidies for higher education push up higher education costs.
Regulations.
For many decades people like the late Milton Friedman explained the harm that things like the F.D.A. and doctor licensing do. Far from "protecting the consumer" it is the consumer that is hit by these regulations (hit by more expensive and LOWER quality care). The vast web of regulations (Federal, State and local) on insurance companies, H.M.O. also have terrible effects.
However, mainstream "right of centre" folk in the United States will neither attack the subsidies or the regulations.
So when the left attacks and says "American health care is expensive" there is no real response from (for example)mainstream Republican party politicians.
So the most absurd lies (and they are lies - it is "civil comment" to say a lie is a lie) get accepted.
For example, Mr Moore knows quite well that medical care in Cuba is a joke (drugs and care are not really available for ordinary people - unless bribes are paid, and even if they are paid it is a great mistake to rely on it), but he produces his propaganda film and, because people are so horrified by the cost of American medical care, it is accepted as fact that Cuba offers a better deal.
For example, the "right wing" Fox News website ran a favourable review of Mr Moore's film.
Published: May 22, 2007 11:50 AM
Paul,
You are exactly right. In the absence of a valid critique of our system, people on the left (understandably, though wrongheadely) come to the conclusion that our health care system is screwed up because of market failure.
Published: May 23, 2007 8:44 PM
I know comments here are supposed to be intelligent but Moore is a moron. I don't know that his point should even be debated except that people will take what he says as gospel truth. It's much easier for the masses to buy into "free" than into less easily understood, well established economic principles. So moore has just injected one more stupid idea into mainstream life that must be dispelled at all costs.
THANK YOU, MICHAEL MOORE, YOU JACKASS!
Published: May 24, 2007 1:42 AM
Moores admiration for Canadas health care system
has no basis in reality.It is ruinously expensive and brought us to the brink of bankruptcy in the
90s.The most popular procedure, hip replacement,
invloves a 2 year wait.Moores films are fun to watch tho, the same way old soviet propaganda films are.
Published: May 27, 2007 3:56 PM