SICKO & THIRD PARTY RAPE
Michael Moore’s film, SICKO, is powerful indictment of the United States, not just for its insane Medical System, but for is equally insane government and the entire military-industrial complex. The legal system, the PharmacoMafia, the Insurance Mafia and, indeed, the greed and corruption of Big Business are all at the core of the problem. There has, of course, always been greed and fraud. It appears to me, however, that three distinct power plays are the foundation of the current malady. Almost simultaneously the Federal Reserve and John D. Rockefeller became the chief Robber Barons of the world. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Federal Reserve was created just two years after the Supreme Court found Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company in violation of antitrust law! With no government oversight, the Federal Reserve serves to control money supply and influence the economy far more than most other factors combined. They are unique Robber Barons!
The third great power play began in 1965, with the passage of Medicare. Within 5 years, medical expenses went from less than 5% to 12% of GNP, with NO improvement in health! The introduction of government into medicine opened the door for hospital administrators, who pushed for ever greater profits, the PharmacoMafia, and the Insurance Mafia. Thus Third Party Rape began in full in 1965. The third policy is the federal government, hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry, lawyers and the insurance mafia working in cahoots to dominate medicine (with the full complicity of the AMA), along with everything else. They are just part of the military-industrial complex about which Eisenhower warned us.
In most other western countries, medical care and college education are subsidized fully by taxes. Drug costs in many countries are a tiny percentage of those in this country. Legal costs are virtually non-existent in most other countries. Governments appear to exist elsewhere without spending $10,000 for toilet seats! It is obvious that a U.S. government medical system would truly bankrupt the world, just as it is close to doing now with its inept mismanagement of everything from the Savings & Loan situation a few decades ago, to the electrical power grid, to our transportation system, to the disgraceful dependence upon oil, to the stupidity of subsidizing corn for auto fuel, to the ridiculous greed of the current mortgage situation, to ill-advised invasions of Iraq, etc, etc. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is little difference in either party. Both of them are inept and corrupt to the core. As Al Quie, Minnesota Congressman for 22 years, said when he quit Congress, “there are not enough honest people in Congress for me to continue.”
SICKO emphasizes the inequities of the American Medical System (remember there is no Health System). But it is the inequity and indeed immorality of the entire federal-industrial-military complex that is at the core of the problem. T