Really Moore Goverment?

By Scott Monson

Last semester many ISU students had the opportunity of viewing the movie Sicko on campus. During the film Michael Moore compares the inadequacies of the American health system with the advantages of both the socialist and communist health systems. By following this formula Michael brilliantly leads the viewer to the conclusion that he desires. The viewer is supposed to come out of the film feeling that America needs either socialized health care or a similar system in America. The film however shows you only half of the story. Many of the dark sides of the European and Cuban systems are ignored.

Michael is indeed correct in that there are definitely problems with the American Health care system. What he doesn’t mention however is the over-regulation along with government mandates that do not permit the free market to work in the American health care system. Over-regulation not big HMO’s are the primary reason America’s system is seeing hard times.

Most people do not know that America has many aspects already of a universal system.

The 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act make many services available to Americans regardless of their citizenship. Americans and Illegals partake of our system all the time without paying.

It is also insinuated that America has an unfounded fear of Communism. What is not mentioned in the film are the 6 million murdered in the Ukraine and USSR by Stalin and Brezhnev. He also conveniently forgets to mention the 2 million Cambodians slain by Pol Pot. I haven’t seen a communist re-education video but Sicko gives me personally an idea of what one might have been like.

It is beyond me that some of the same people that criticize FEMA’s actions during Katrina, which denounce our actions at Abu Ghraib & Guantanamo Bay, and claim Bush lied people died come to the conclusion that our government is capable of providing sufficient health care to eveyone in America.