American Values as Glimpsed Through our Health Care Policies (by Gordon Marino at HuffPost)

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Gordon Marino

American Values as Glimpsed Through our Health Care Policies
Posted July 30, 2007 | 04:15 PM (EST)
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I was in a funk last week and a person in a funk sometimes makes bad decisions. Like the other night -- I decided to take in Michael Moore's SiCKO to shake some of the horrible thoughts I was having. Very bad idea: like treating food poisoning by downing a milkshake. I walked out staggering, as if the film forced me to acknowledge what I already half understood. Having resided in Denmark for three years with a wife and two infants, I knew that we do not have to live in a society in which the dying have to worry about whether or not their exit will be covered by their insurance carriers.

The documentary should have given us pause to catch ourselves, but the media on the left accepts a great deal of advertising revenue from drug companies, so they were unusually reserved about the questions raised by Moore. Those on the right, who feel nothing but nausea at the notion of the government-run health care, worked to douse the discussion that the film stoked. They trotted out one Canadian after another to complain about wait lines for bypasses -- as though the less than wealthy don't have to wait here, as though children haven't died waiting for treatment in the emergency rooms of U.S. hospitals! I believe there have been two such deaths already this summer.

But stories can be conjured up to make any point and stories aside, we are a practical, bottom line people, and the bottom line is plain, we are 36th the in world -- behind Cuba -- in infant mortality rates. And for all our football-type prattle about being number one, we are in the 29th spot in life expectancy. How does one argue with these vital statistics? Generally, they don't.

Discussing the film with former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC, harrumphed about the queues in Canada and then mocked Moore's film burbling, "How much does that guy weigh anyhow?" A few days earlier, Moore was on Larry King Live. One gentleman called up to comment, "My wife and I are in our sixties. Neither one of us has health insurance. But we just can't understand why you keep bashing America." Sicko. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gordon-marino/american-values-as-glimps_b_58420.html