I don't know that those who think the US needs health-care reform are necessarily comfortable with using "Sicko" or Michael Moore as the model for what is wrong with health-care in the US.
That said, Moore provides a staggering list of facts that seem, on the surface, difficult to argue with. But when one actually reads the facts and then the proposed solutions, one finds they are the same.
Assuming there is ANY problem with the system in the US, it is worth pointing out, with regard to cost, that there is ALWAYS a payer. No one on earth has "free" health-care. In the US it is largely left to the individual to pay directly, rather than indirectly via re-distribution schemes. So...why do we pay so much?
All other legal issues aside (gov mandates of a price floor, anti-trust exemptions granted by gov, laws written in favor of specific heath-care models [like HMOs], etc.), it's worth noting that the cost soars NOT in a vacuum, but in an environment where the government (via the Federal Reserve) drives DOWN the value of the dollar, and thus drives UP costs on everything (not just health-care).
What should be starting to become clear is that government issued "single-payer" health-care is a solution provided by the very people responsible for Moore's list of problems. Government. Simply re-read his list.
He also disregards valid concerns from the other side of the argument or dismisses them as irrelevant.
