The Country Too Annoying To Be in Michael Moore's 'Sicko'

Just watched footage that didn't make it into 'Sicko,' surfaced by Bruce at the River Blog. Documentary filmmaker Moore judged that a segment on Norway, the #1 country for health in the world, would detract from the impact of his film because Americans might think it too fantastical.

In America, talking about health care, being subjected to the various results of its industrial brainwashing, or directly experiencing it all tend to make me verbally temerarious, and you know how wearing it is to be near someone when they're roaring, "Bullshit!! This is complete bull-ssshhhhiiiiitttt!!," throwing their coffee mug at a flat-screen TV, or biting chunks of wood off furniture in a foaming rage.

Yet that's how mad our country's health care system makes me, and acting polite about its incompetence and cruelties requires great restraint--one more easily overwhelmed if your faith has been undermined by seeing something demonstrably, and apparently effortlessly, better. Our system's poor performance is in now way a surprise, it's exactly what should be expected from an industry whose main function is to maximize profit. Economic policy is health policy; health care is congruent with economic care. They can't be separated. Norway's approach provides worthwhile contrasts in philosophy and results.