Your emphasis is interesting. I may not be “deep” enough to understand how the linked essay applies.
Maybe you could summarize your point for me.

Our economy at is best called mixed. We have one set of rules for the wealthy, another set for the impoverished– and the middle class foots the bill. We are a welfare state, which funds both ends of the spectrum–we have socialized policies for both corporations and the underlings. This includes our health care system.

We have yet to experience a free market economy. Even form the get-go, the U.S. was established from the transferences of wealth, E.g. encroaching and warring the land from the Native Americans.

I hope to see a true free market economy!!

Emma Goldman, Mikhail Bakunin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, Kevin Carson…

The misconception in America is that the current system of providing health care is anything that resembles free market. In the past 30 years, governments, state and federal, have warped the health care market beyond recognition.

Why does an health insurance company always interfere with the patient-doctor relationship today?

Why do states have mandatory minimum coverage levels for health insurance?

Why does everyone pay the same group rate in a health plan despite showing obvious different risk profiles?

Why do corporations enjoy a special tax status for providing health insurance?

Why does a state like Massachusetts mandate that everyone BUY health INSURANCE?

Why do many health insurance plan cover technologies that are not at all affordable by the general public?

I hate Michael Moore. Socialism is the same as settling for poverty.

Why Socialism Requires Killing Fields

(Note: essay only applies to state socialism, not libertarian socialism)

I’d probably be interested. If you’d like to talk about it, I can be reached at the e-mail link on my profile page.

I would really like to hear more about your first hand experience. Maybe I can ask the other contributors if you could do a guest post here at The Liberty Papers on the subject. Would you be interested?

And I look forward to reading your future articles about socialized health care in the countries you mentioned. I lived under the British NHS for six years while stationed overseas, and I can personally attest that there’s ample targets for criticism within that system.

I think you’re giving Moore a little too much credit as someone who wants a serious discussion on health care and a little too forgiving of him as a propagandist trying to push a disastrous system of medicine on the United States. I do agree with you though that there are problems with the U.S. health system and that a full discussion is well overdue. My problem with Moore’s position, however, is that he excludes proponents of free market solutions from consideration while pushing solely government-sponsored ideas…which isn’t so much a case of Moore inviting serious discussion as it is Moore attempting to cram a one-sided argument down our throats.

But in the interests of presenting the other side of the equation, here’s a link chock full of articles illustrating why socialized medicine is one of the worst ideas on Earth…not a lot of them were on Moore’s reading list I’m sure.

http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/healthcare/socialized.html

If any good can come from this film, it will be (as you said) a “serious discussion” about this issue. But before we can have a serious discussion, we have to sort out the facts from the lies and misinformation. I don’t have a problem with Moore making a biased film supporting his point of view; what I do have a problem with is his deliberate distortions, omitting inconvenient facts, and his overall dishonest approach. If he had confidence in his positions he would take the criticism head on without constructing straw men.

I hope you will check back at The Liberty Papers from time to time as we will continue to write about this important issue. With the few posts I have written on Moore’s assertions in the film have barley scratched the surface (I haven’t even got into Canada’s or England’s healthcare woes) but I plan on getting into this issue in more depth in future posts.

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Moore is the first one to say that his documentaries are slanted to one side. An approach he justifies with the premise that we have been inundated with the other viewpoint. He also states that his documentaries are to spark dialog among all of us for better solutions; not for him to provide the solution.

This is a classic example of don’t shoot the messenger.

Health care will not be addressed until we the people demand it. We need serious discussions that look at what a free market system could look like versus a universal plan.

Actually, I consider communism and socialism to be inherently evil. They discourage individual accomplishment, and rail against the very idea of individualism. They make it possible for government to steal money you’ve earned to give it to people who haven’t earned it under the premise of collective good. Their “gifts” to the world are stagnation, starvation, death, and inevitable collapse. The problems with communism and socialism aren’t the leaders who run those systems…the problem is that the systems themselves are inherently flawed.

As for Cuba, I don’t really get freaked out by them, because they’re not really a threat to us. I just find it pathetic that idiots like Moore keep holding it and Castro up as some shining example of glorious government achievement when the reality shows it is anything but that. What galls me is the utter willingness of Moore to lie and distort the “facts” in his film to cover the rot. It’s more important for Moore to make an obviously slanted film to take his little potshots, score points with smear tactics, and look smart to the peanut gallery than it is for Moore to find actual solutions to the problems with the U.S. medical system (or anything else he’s ever covered). The man’s an attention whore and a fraud…dig beneath the ad hominum attacks and his policy positions have no more merit than Castro’s.

Incidentally the Cuban health care system is favorably ranked. In fact, under the ALBA trade agreement Cuba trades education and health care in exchange for oil.

I find it hard to believe that today people still get all freaked out when Cuba is mentioned. [A Cold War indoctrination instilled in otherwise intelligent people.] While I support free market economies, I do not consider communism or socialism as inherently “evil”. It is the leadership of all ideologies that make them such.