WENDELL POTTER: I didn't intend to, until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years, and particularly back in the early '90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan.
So?
He doesn't make much of an argument for these tactics being wrong, or the cause they where used for being wrong, he just assumes it. That's fine he's entitled to his own opinion, but if he wants people to change their minds he should come up with some serious reasons for people to do so.
And they're really plans that have very high deductibles
Which in many ways is a very good thing. Its moving to actually providing insurance against serious risk. Covering everything and paying for most of it from the 1st dollar, is a really good way to inflate the costs of health care.
And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care.
Provide something worthwhile and normally expensive for free and your likely to get long lines. Nothing unusual about that, nor is there any special connection to health care. It doesn't even really have to be something all that worthwhile or expensive. Give out free ice cream and you can get very long lines.
WENDELL POTTER: It was absolutely stunning. It was like being hit by lightning. It was almost-- what country am I in? I just it just didn't seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me.
Not only is this not based on fact or argument, rather just emotion, its also very unspecific about even the emotion. He gives no one else any reason to be stunned, he just says he was.
In this case, Nataline Sarkisyan's doctors at UCLA had recommended that she have a liver transplant. But when the coverage request was reviewed at Cigna, the decision was made to deny it.
Well here at least is a bit of real information, but its argument by anecdote, and a very unspecific anecdote at that. In a sense its reasonable to be unspecific, he doesn't have all her medical information, and it would be improper, perhaps illegal, to share it if he did, also there isn't space in the article, and most readers of the article wouldn't understand most of it, but he doesn't give any solid reason to think that the decision was a very poor one, or that if it was that poor decisions are the norm in our current system. In fact denials are more likely in most "single payer" systems. (Which is one of the reasons we pay more for health care.)
MICHAEL MOORE: I went across the city to a crowded hospital waiting room. How long did you have to wait here to get help?
CANADIAN WOMAN #1: 20 minutes
CANADIAN WOMAN #2: 45 minutes
Again argument by anecdote. The typical emergency wait may not be shorter than in the US. But lets assume it is. You have to consider that for many types of tests or treatment the wait in Canada is massively longer.
I didn't watch Moore's movie, but I've seen the clips about Cuba. They don't give me any confidence in the rest of the movie.
BRITISH MAN #1: No, no, no. Everything's on NHS.
Which means they did charge her, or they charged someone else on her behalf. "Paid through taxes" isn't "free".
Well, a big chunk of it <health care insurance premiums> goes into shareholders' pockets.
And a big chunk of what I pay for food also goes in to shareholder's pockets. Oh the horror... |
