As Mon Pere has noted, the gaseous mass known as Michael Moore has deployed another one of his fact-free forays into public policy debate, this time on health care.
I have a vein in my forehead that is already throbbing from the huge volume of stark raving verbal idiocy that this event will trigger.
As a libertarian minded business owner who was crippled for life by the inevitable incompetence of the Canadian socialist health system, you can probably guess my slant on the issue. I would, however, like to make one request of people discussing the future of health care in this country:
If you do not understand economics, please, for the love of God, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
You either understand economics or you do not. If you do not, then you have no business discussing adult matters.
Know that government interference always results in higher prices and shortages. It is not a matter of opinion, it is as much a physical reality as gravity or evolution. If your proposed solution involves government interference and promises lower prices or greater availability, you have just proven yourself to be an idiot who has no understanding of how the world works.
Thank you, that is all.
Emeril | 24-Jun-07 at 2:07 pm | Permalink
Doesn’t Moore’s movie use “medical tourism” to take a group of people to Cuba? I assume they paid for it (unless it was given for free for propaganda purposes). Doesn’t that prove that “capitalist health care” is okay?
Of course, Cuba uses its health care system for revenue generation from foreigners. Regular Cubans (who get “free health care”) don’t get that kind of quality treatment.
Ed Hering | 24-Jun-07 at 10:15 pm | Permalink
please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!! STFU!!!
Could not (and would not) have said it better myself. People who don’t understand basic economics shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Ed Hering | 24-Jun-07 at 10:29 pm | Permalink
http://www.mises.org/books/onelesson.pdf
Read the chapter on public works! (Page 32)
And thanks to PDB for the wikipedia link, which contains that link. This is a fascinating read.
Andrew Weitzman | 25-Jun-07 at 8:48 am | Permalink
There is a new documentary called “Manufacturing Dissent” coming out, about Micheal Moore and some of the…er…problematic aspects of his work. Like him getting granted an extensive interview with the “Roger” he pursued through his first documentary.
The wonderful thing about this film is the fact that it isn’t a “Fox News Rethuglican hatchet job”. It is made by two leftist types who were going to make a sympathetic portrait of Moore. Then they actually dug into his nature and freaked.
Denny | 25-Jun-07 at 2:20 pm | Permalink
As P.J. O’Rourke once said: If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see how much it costs when it’s free.
Kurt P | 25-Jun-07 at 8:23 pm | Permalink
One of the reasons that healcare costs are soaring is that the Gov’t has been “improving” it since the mid ’80s.
I won’t even get into trial lawyers….
DirtCrashr | 05-Jul-07 at 10:42 am | Permalink
The best way to separate a fool from his money is to inject a qualitative component into a quantitative equation, thus ruining it. Seen from that angle, the emotion-based vocabulary of the Socialists which is rife with feelings about Class and a lot of other descriptive rhetoric, is an attempt at the transubstantiation of adjectives for nouns.
Anthroblogogy | 05-Jul-07 at 12:13 pm | Permalink
Lying Sack of Shit Medicine…
Fat turd Michael Moore has gassed-up another propaganda piece in favor of the most idiotic idea in a long time, Socialist Utopian Medicine. As pdb indicates, there is a titanic level of fatuous ignorance and a downright contempt for knowledge and fac…..
Arcticelf | 09-Jul-07 at 2:26 pm | Permalink
I have heard exactly One (1) good argument for ’single payer’ health care (that being the Fed Gov): If we were to give every person who showed up an any doctor in the country, all the health care they needed, just show up, you get treated, and then send Uncle Sam the bill; it would cost less then Medicade/Medicare does now.
The savings work out this way:
1 Doctor/nurse/other health care worker spends ~50% of their time doing paperwork to justify the health care they have given.
For each Doc/Nurse/other we have 2 or 3 paper pushers at the hospital, making sure its all right, and doing more paper work.
For each Doc/Nurse/other at the hospital we have ~6 people at an insurance company or fed gov doing paperwork.
If we can fire 9 paper pushers, and recover 50% of our health care workers time, for fewer of our tax dollars waisted, that sounds like a good first step to a solution to me.
AE