The Leonard Lopate Show

YES to universal health care!! I've read that Obama and Edwards both have comprehensive plans to achieve some sort of universal health care plan for the U.S. It will be a tough battle.

I would prefer if the money went towards education, A highschool diploma used to mean something; no more! It is time for universal education, empower the people, give citizens the chance to earn a publicly funded BA or BS.

I DO NOT want to pay for the baby boomers health insurance!

Mr. Moore,

I saw “SICKO”. Although I agree that insurance companies are greedy and that having a profit-based health care system might not be the right model (your example on PBS’s “NOW” that we wouldn’t tolerate a profit-based fire department deciding which fires to extinguish and which to let burn based upon the bottom line was powerful), I didn’t hear anything in your movie or in other forums where you’ve appeared about people taking responsibility for their own health. Why should I have to pay higher insurance rates (which I do in New York State) to cover people who smoke, eat garbage and/or never exercise and who then expect to have “pull-out-all-the-stops” health care when—-to their great surprise-—they have a major medicine condition due to a lifetime of not taking care of themselves? Where is “personal responsibility for one’s own health” in this debate?

Mr. Moore, what’s your diet and exercise regimen?

The critics of universal health care always say that in Canada people have to wait to get care. I don't really know what the situation in Canada is, but I'm French and before coming to the US, I never had to wait to see a doctor. Here, you have to wait sometimes weeks to see your family practitioner, a specialist, a dentist... In France, you go to your family practitioner without an appointment or he comes to your place if you are too sick or too old to come to his cabinet. You get to see a specialist within a week and your dentist won't let you in pain for one month before allowing you to come to his practice. I don't know what cause the delays in the US. Is it that US doctors spend too much time playing golf?

Yes, Leonard, I think you might like talking to Sally Fallon and Mary Enig about Nourishing Traditions and Eat Fat Lose Fat - very fascinating info on health and how to take charge of one's own. Everything to do with health is not acute care nor is it necessarily pharmaceutical! And even with universal coverage, nutrition isn't covered in med school and it otherwise a big job to learn how to feed oneself/family properly in an industrialized food chain. Or Nina Planck (author of Real Food) would be a good guest on this subject.

I appreciate Michael Moore's work and his ability to make people look at and talk about whatever issue he is working on. And I agree with the earlier comment about publicly funded education - it is a disgrace that we do not provide higher education like so many other countries without our wealth.

YES! i would be willing to pay higher taxes for universal health care

PS Michael - how about doing something on publicly funded higher education around the world vs education in the USA?

I agree with Patrick. I am from Italy and visiting a doctor is very quick, much faster than here. Doctors make house calls the same day you call them, and it's included in your free health care!

Here, I've waited 2 weeks or more to get an appointment with a specialist. Not to say there aren't any downfalls with the health care system in Italy, but at least everyone has access to it!

The answer to the question is "Of course". But the real question is how much of a tax increase will we as Americans accept?

While comparing the health care industries of other countries to America's, SICKO did not detail the tax differences and impact.

He touched upon tax rates people pay in the countries by showing their lifestyles as being comfortable - their biggest expense being vegetables, very funny footage for the film - but I wished he showed a simple graphic of this difference so we Americans can get a true sense of the impact - our personal impact - of paying for universal health care.

Just how much more taxes than us do citizens of other countries pay in all walks of life, gas, cigarettes, alcohol, etc?

Universal health care is one reason I do not mind paying the high taxes here. I remember all too well having to pay thousands of dollars on top of our insurance coverage when my daughter was born, having to refer more than on bogus medical bill from in-network doctors to our lawyer and, at times, using doctors we knew we couldn't trust. Whatever it's flaws not having to deal with the nonsence that seems to come along with an insurance based system is a geniune relief.

MA has a good sytem. ALL citizens in MA have health care - its a mix of private and public insurance and it is the law. Folks in MA don't have to worry about HC. So, that is universal.

Mr. Moore should encourge people to join unions. He has great HC via his union.

Kids should have tax-payer HC because they cannot fend for themselves. Adults can use safety nets that already exist or get it from their employer.

As for military folks - they EARN VA benefits - it is a reward for serving our country.

We should reform the system via an audit (like Corporate America via SOX), but we should not phase out private insurance.

Good News: 85% of Americans have access to HC via our current system - mix of public and private. We may need to run a major audit but no need to make a total leap to 100% govt-run HC.

Mr. Moore,

I agree that healthcare is a crisis in America. However, is eliminating free market competition the best way to provide good medical care to our citizens? Do we really want the same government who runs our Departments of Motor Vehicles running our healthcare system?

How are you going to have any kind of government insurance for 300 million people (what would be a lot more then any socialized medicine program in the world) with all the big hospital, insurance, doctor and insurance company lobbyists in Washington?

Jon Pope

While I'm an advocate of universal healthcare, I don't know how to respond to those against the idea who argue that such a system would cut back on the medical industry's (pharmaceuticals) profits and thus decrease the amount of research and development they conduct to keep the medical field advancing with new technology, etc.

Is this true? Where will the funding come from?

How does one argue against that point?

My problem with Moore's movie was that it made me sleepy. Wasn't the world tour thing a bit long? Weren't there a couple too many stories about people getting the shaft? (btw, I generally agreed with the politics) I would like to hear how Moore decided on the length of his film.

I totally agree we should have universal healthcare. This country's figures will be larger though do to our overweight nature. Hopefully universal healthcare will help us lose weight!

Mr. Moore,

I am an internal medicine resident right now and everyday I see (and I do it myself) most doctors ordering several different unnecessary tests when a patient comes in. The diagnosis could be screaming at you but we still do the rest of the imaging and labs and consults just make sure that in case something goes wrong and we get sued, we can say that we thought of everything and did everything. I am sure this balloons health care costs but I don't think we care. Ultimately its out jobs and our families at risk. I did not go to school for the past 8 years (and the more residency) to have it all jeopardized by a greedy lawyer. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF REFORMING THE LITIGATION PROCESS TO CUT HEALTHCARE COSTS?

A question for Michael. The countries with socialized health care are generally a lot smaller than the US. How can the US manage its population?

Also can you make your next movie about public education? From the elementary school level through to the predatory private lenders for college this needs to be heard on a wider audience. Canadian public education at all levels is in the top 5 while the US is way down the list.

Thanks.

What is the coverage for members of the Senate, Congress, Executive branches? The debate should start with everyone in this country getting as at least the coverage that elected officials enjoy.

I don't know if Mr Moore mentions the fact in his film that seniors are now being REQUIRED to be HMO members thereby restricting access to doctors. When I was taking care of my parents 20 years ago I was able to take them to any doctor, specialist, etc. What is going to happen to Medicare if this continues!?

What does michael moore think about the medicare drug plan; & why healthier people *should* pay

Hi, Leonard--

I agree that Medicare is a good government health care program in general, but I don't feel the same way about its supplemental drug plan that was implemented a few years ago. I wonder what Michael Moore thinks of it? It seems worse than the basic Medicare it was added to, but how does it compare to prescription coverage by private insurance?

And in response to the email you read earlier, people w/healthier lifestyles should pay for insurance for smokers, etc., because we all have risks & we all will need health care. There are factors we can't control by lifestyle choices, from accidents to genetics, & I want the smokers & nonsmokers alike to pay for the health consequences. (Personally, I'd like my taxes or insurance premiums to include paying for prevention programs, so fewer people will have unhealthy lifestyles.)

I am Canadian and British and have lived in the US for 5 years. From my experience in Canada, England and the US, I have been constantly surprised by the cost of health care in the US. When I gave birth to my 3rd child in the US, the stay at the hospital for 5 days following a C section was US$25,000...this excludes the baby, the C section theater, the anesthetist, and the visits to the doctor for 9 months. My private pregnancies in the UK cost me the equivalent of US12,000 for the whole lot.

My US doctor paid $150,000 per year in malpractice insurance...It seems t

hat this also needs a revision on the hill.

I am curious how many people are employed by the health care insurance industry and what moving to a national health care system would do to unemployment figures for those displaced?

As the ex-Parliment member in the film said: If the government can fund a war and hurt people, they can certainly fund helping people.

France proper only has 62 million people, not 70, not a huge deal...

If you had universal health care wouldn't that be a transfer of wealth from government employees to private employees. Canada care essentially means that Canadian police get the same deal as auto workers. Maybe you should think about who loses, it's not just corporations.

You also should notice that countries like France and Cuba produce more medical professionals than the US.

BTW, why not just eliminate state medical boards? If the best doctor in Bulgaria is willing to examine me, why is that illegal?

I would be willing to pay higher taxes for universal health care (UHC). Everyone would be covered, and the profit incentive would be removed. How many more people could have been treated for the millions and billions of dollars that have gone to executives at insurance companies? The "efficiency" of the private insurance providers is geared towards decreasing their costs and increasing their profits, not to providing health care to their members. The government could do just as good a job.

Re: Gary's comment about why should he pay for people who smoke and eat garbage --

you speak as if the current system is set up to favor the healthiest, rather than the wealthiest. this is a fallacious argument. and even if it were true, people who eat well and jog every day end up with cancer too.

whatever your lifestyle, if you ended up wasting away in a cancer ward i would gladly contribute my taxes toward your care.

Dr. G's question is very important. Maybe if screening your health was more efficient monetarily, it would easier to set a standard for how insurance companies deal with patients. Why pay $6,000 more for a cancer screening that is only 2% more accurate?

It's easy to blame baby boomers, even more so when it comes to health care. Getting taken care of should be what you NEED to stay healthy. Two knee replacement surgeries so you can run 12 miles every day at 55 years old is not NEEDED. Surgery is dangerous, there are no magic wands involved. We should be focusing our resources on people fighting for their well-being, not their age.

YES!...But I say this while I'm totally aware that its financial considerations must be carefully monitored to avoid fraudulent considerations of many kinds.---How can one allow a war under false pretences, pretending to help a country with a totally different culture and religion , spending OUR taxpayer dollars, killing our precious men and women AND many more of that county's own people while denying us of something so fundamental as UHC?...Medicare is great so far as it goes but many people are really hurt by the "donut hole"...there are many ways of avoiding it like takng the meds some days and spacing them with days which do not include meds. Those are the lucky ones because some require a more steadfast regimen (for ex: someone requiring insulin). July 20,2007

It may seem wrong, but although we have health insurance, if someone in my family were to fall gravely ill, we would move from New York to Wales, where both health care and prescriptions would be covered on the NHS. Even with insurance, the copay on prescriptions can be outrageous. Medicine which costs us $70 costs our family abroad absolutely nothing. £0. If one of us were to be diagnosed with cancer, and we were to be put on a regime of five drugs, refilled twice a month, the copays could and would add up to thousands of dollars per year, especially as cancer drugs are more costly than allergy medicine.

I wish Michael would comment on Australian system that appears more feasible here given our desire and ability of many to pay their own way. Maybe Israel has some similar components as well as Germany to be considered.

I laud Michael for educating Americans about alternative cultures and systems and for shaping the dialogue we need to be having as a society, rather than allowing us to just keep complaining and accepting the terribly flawed system we have.

Michael deserves our appreciation and not cheap shots and criticism by so called journalists who simply want attention for themselves a la Gupta/CNN.

Please keep doing what you are doing Michael because those running for office won't.

I have been a nurse for 30 years, and I can attest to the fact that our hospital emergency rooms are choked by uninsured sick people. How sad is it that we send millions every day to support the war but so very little to support our own children. The main reason Bill Clinton was pilloried was that within the first six months of his administration, he moved against the interests of the big insurance companies and big tobacco. Shame on all of us!!

We all pay for everyone's healthcare anyway...through higher rates and taxes!

I've lived in a bunch of countries that have universal health care, and had positive experiences in all of them. Whatever they spend is worth it in peace of mind.

Let's improve health care and save money too. Build a system that takes a page from Canada, France, the UK, and other developed countries. How do we begin? Take "profit" out of health care - it should be a right not a consumer item. I resent the fact that HMO's and drug companies buy commercial advertising. This is insane and Sicko pushed my "outraged" button for sure. Unfortunately all our politicians are on the take too - the more money drug and insurance companies pay to maintain the status quo the higher drugs will cost and the more the insured will be denied services.

When you have survey questions (like this topic), why not set up some way where people can just say yes/no, not mix them in with their general comments on the show (or, I must admit, comments about how to respond to surveys.)

***Lopate Show staff responds:

Dear Bob, thanks for the comment. we usually want people to respond beyond a simple "yes" or "no," so we try to frame our questions in a way that requires a little explanation.