Michael Moore's New Film Leaked To BitTorrent 1088
Jared writes "Michael Moore was afraid the Feds might sieze his new documentary Sicko, a scathing indictment of the US health-care system, because part of it was filmed in Cuba despite the US embargo. So he stashed a copy of the film in Canada just to be safe. He might as well not have bothered — the film has shown up on BitTorrent and P2P networks everywhere. So it's safe now."
Comment removed (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:About that Cuban healthcare... (Score:5, Informative)
Canada not so nice (Score:5, Informative)
Depending on the political power your region of the country holds, you may be out of luck. It's not the market (number of sick people) which determines where these devices are installed. It's pure politics, and the resulting distribution is not even remotely fair.
That's not really an improvement.
Re:About that Cuban healthcare... (Score:5, Informative)
I also find it funny that a lot of posts on
Sure make fun of the guy. It is easier to ignore the actual message that the US private Healthcare system is a total mess.
Re:Uh Oh... (Score:2, Informative)
I can't believe my original post got moderated a troll though. Especially since I never said he was on the other side of P2P at all. Only that one wouldn't want him on the other side.
The suggestion was that putting an unreleased film of his on P2P might not make him amenable to be on the P2P side of things. Since I wasn't sure where he stood now, I tried to make the original post neutral as to his current position.
Anyways, Ouch.
That's just scaremongering (Score:3, Informative)
Actually we'd be paying 0.46% less. (Score:3, Informative)
The cost of defending U.S. malpractice claims is estimated at $6.5 billion in 2001, only 0.46 percent of total health spending. The two most important reasons for higher U.S. spending appear to be higher incomes and higher medical care prices.
The medical insurance companies are making lots and lots of money, and that's not because they are giving services for the dollars they are taking in.
Re:The U.S. has gone completely mad... (Score:3, Informative)
If it isn't nominated for an Oscar, I'd be surprised - even given his rant^H^H^H^Hacceptance speech for his Bowling For Columbine oscar.
What's especially powerful is how the film touches on the psychological effects of health insecurity - a much more docile and unprovokable population, easier to keep in their place.
It was especially sickening to see how the health insurance companies regard any payout as a 'loss', even if the customer is a net cash cow, and how the companies keep M.D.s on 6-figure retainers purely for the purpose of denying people care, based on the most trivial contractual technicalities. Any system where people's incomes and careers benefit from effectively sentencing honest citizens to an early grave can only be labelled as impossibly corrupt.
Re:About that Cuban healthcare... (Score:3, Informative)
What does that mean though? If the US government didn't give free and good healthcare to people detained indefinitely at gitmo, the public would complain. Quite rightly in my opinion. Part of the vast death rate of Russian soldiers captured by the Germans (and vice versa) in WWII was caused by denying them healthcare. And the cost of providing healthcare to detainees is probably negligable anyway if you look at it as a percentage of the vast cost of keeping gitmo open.
Like everything else he does it's stunt designed to show the irony of the situation. But it only does that until you start to think about what would happen if things were the reverse of what they are. And then it doesn't seem so ironic anymore.
Re:That's just scaremongering (Score:3, Informative)
Frankly, I'd rather pay a large chunk of my salary than have to wait half a year for medical services.
Re:Those evil cubans! (Score:2, Informative)
There was an revolution which removed the old dictator and looked like it would turn Cuba into a free country - orginally Castro promised free elections. But it turned into a communist one once they started summary executions of opposition leaders, censorship of the press, and installing Fidel as a new dictator. Incidentally, the people who disagreed with this ended up being the Cuban exile community which campaigns to keep the embargo in place until the regime goes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba#Cuba_following_
I've heard people argue convincingly that Cuba was free from the fall of Batista to the point where Castro managed to grab power permanently.
I live in the US, and I have 100% free health care (Score:5, Informative)
Why do I say that? Well, personal experience. My income is about $12,000 a year, and about two months ago I had an operation to diagnose a kidney disease. That is, this was not life threatening, but for diagnostic purposes. I didn't have to wait two years either, rather I only waited about a month and a half.
What did I pay for it? Nothing. No co-pay, no co-insurance, no cost for anethesia, no deductable. Nothing. Nada. Even my prescription drugs are free, everything from simple pain killers to the latest and greatest name brands. Who paid for it all? The state of Arizona. One acronym: AHCCCS [google.com]. Similar programs exist in all 50 states.
If this isn't providing health care to those who can't afford it, then I don't know what is. It has all of the benefits of private health care, in fact it works into the private health care system, so you get all of the same doctors and everything you would get in most private health care plans. The particular plan I am on is called Health Choice AZ, and there are many such plans to choose from, including a few PPO plans. I am not making any of this up, google it and you shall see. The information is sitting right at your fingertips.
Why do people like Michael Moore completely omit this fact when they bash America's health care system? They act as though poor people get nothing here - its just not true. If our health care system was like Canada's, hell I could be on dialysis right about now with how long it would have taken for me to get a proper diagnosis. I don't know about anybody else, but I wouldn't trade our current health care system for anything else.
Re:About that Cuban healthcare... (Score:3, Informative)
OK, how about this:
The number of malpractice filings 1992-2001 was pretty much constant (around 1% net decrease over that period), and over that period 54% of malpractice judgments came from 5% of doctors.
Re:Distorting the truth? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021119.html [spinsanity.org] - here you go. Educate yourself on the man.
Note: These are the same people who wrote this [amazon.com] - no fans of the current president.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5335853/site/newsweek/ [msn.com]
Michael Isikoff, co-writer of the MSNBC piece, also wrote this [amazon.com].
There're your specifics, sir. The man is not a true documentarian, and makes the whole practice look worse than Geraldo Rivera journalism.
Re:yet another... (Score:4, Informative)
Michael Moore a fraud? (Score:2, Informative)
Compulsory health insurance... The third way (Score:3, Informative)
The third way is "Compulsory health insurance". You don't need to run a huge health service, or even manage a state health insurance system. It seems to work in several European countries, (Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany) the poorest benefit from the lower premiums which are brought about by the universal coverage. It doesn't prevent the state from providing a healthcare system, neither does it require it to do so.
watch the movie before you run your mouth off (Score:5, Informative)
The state of the American health care system is atrocious, and anyone who defends it is either ignorant, a crazy Libertarian, or a tool for the insurance industry.
SiCKO also on Youtube (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't mix up health care and health insurance (Score:3, Informative)
Actually Germany (and the Netherlands and a few others) don't exactly have socialized insurance. What they have is a lots of private insurers who are mandated by law to a) have a basic insurance which covers all necessary care. b) offer it to anyone without checks on health. c) offering premium insurance (private room, alternative medicine etc.) only as an extension of the private package.
Since the majority takes just the basic package, health care insurers are compelled to compete on price. I've always thought this would be an attainable system for the US with it's anti socialized anything bias. As far was I can tell the main problem in the US is that HMO's are allowed to refuse patients.
Re:inertia, saving face, not rocking our boat (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Remember, guys (Score:3, Informative)
You should also read Truth about Bowling [hardylaw.net] to see another case of how Michael Moore blatantly distorts the facts in his "documentaries".
you're poor (Score:3, Informative)
the poor and the rich in the usa get just dandy healthcare. the rich can afford it out of pocket, and the poor benefit from generous state and federal programs. it is the middle class who are screwed by the us healthcare system
Re:Distorting the truth? (Score:1, Informative)
And if we are to check, it will most certainly turn out that you are a badly educated fool who didn't unterstand what you saw.
"Michael Moore hates America. Why should anyone listen to his American hating, Halliburton stock owning fat ass?"
And this just proves you are a foolish ranting troll, he doesn't hate your country, he wants to heal it, makes it better. And his size is not an argument, it just proves you have none.
Re:Remember, guys (Score:3, Informative)
That is not interpreting the facts differently, that is performing cut-and-paste to make up new facts to fit his opinion. If someone took a speech that you had made and changed it in such a way that you were attributed with saying things you never did say then you would be hopping mad.
If Moore had a leg to stand on and the guts to stand on it then he'd let the pure, unvarnished facts speak for themselves. The man is a hack journalist at best and he has to resort to cheap editing tricks to make his points.
Re:yet another... (Score:5, Informative)
Please post an actual lie that Michael Moore had in his movies. The arguments in Fahrenheit 9/11 were presented in terms of evidence--government documents, congressional transcripts/testimony, interviews, books, etc. You can interpret the facts differently if you wish, but that doesn't mean he's lying.
I've read a bit of the "Michael Moore is a liar" threads here and elsewhere, but their content is , from what I've seen, limited to re-interpreting the facts a different way, just leaving out the facts that led to his conclusion, all the while pretending that he's just spouting foundationless opinion, a la Rush Limbaugh
ZOMG, you just said Michael Moore is pretending that he's Rush Limbaugh!!!!
Now if you said that was a lie, and that you said no such thing, and I retorted saying those were your words, who would be right? I dare say you would be. It is a lie, and not a "bending" of truth.
Here is an example: In the movie "Bowling for Columbine", Michael Moore wanted to paint the NRA as a nasty gun club that lacked compassion for the Columbine shooting. Here is how he did it. First he spliced in some video of children crying outside columbine, then cut to Charlton Heston saying "from my cold, dead, hands", then cut to a billboard about an NRA meeting in Denver while Michael Moore tells us that after Columbine Charlton Heston decided to have a pro-gun rally in Denver, then cut to a video of Heston's speech (except utilizing the above demonstrated edit job to alter the message).
The problem with this is that Heston's "cold, dead, hands" speech wasn't even from his Denver speech. And after the Columbine shooting, the NRA didn't suddenly decide to hold a gun-rally. Their National Convention has been planned to be there for years. And it wasn't even a pro-gun rally, as all the exhibits and committee meetings were canceled in respect of the recent tragedy. The only thing not canceled was the members meeting, which could not be canceled due to state laws governing non-profits.
When you imply something untrue by using careful editing and splicing, you are lying. I'm sorry that we live in a world where lying is so casually dismissed (thanks to our current and last president), and that lying about somebody we don't like is okay. But the fact remains that Moore is a liar and his "documentaries" aren't worth the film they're printed on.
Are you serious? (Score:2, Informative)
You can't chalk that one up to poor presentation. Changing a man's words to mean the opposite of his intent is a falsehood. Either he got it wrong because he's incompetent or he got it wrong because he's deceptive.
It's hard for me to believe that you've really looked into this if you believe that Michael Moore has no intent to deceive his viewers.
Re:Distorting the truth? (Score:5, Informative)
2 minutes, 23 seconds in, the bank manager says "We have to do a background check". If you watched less than 2 and a half minutes of the film, why should I listen to your opinion about it?
Re:I live in the US, and I have 100% free health c (Score:4, Informative)
The people who get lost are those working low-wage jobs and are just making ends meet. The state doesn't recognize them as being poor enough to need assistance, and to these people it is more important to put food on the table than purchase independent health-insurance. If they get sick, often what little health-insurance they may have through work will not cover their needs. This leaves them with enormous medical bills, and no way to pay them.
Actually I think the poor are well looked after in the states, if you are unable to work or qualify for state-assistance you can be better off than people who work two jobs and make just enough money to scrape by. It's the people in the middle that fall between the cracks. I only have heard anecdotal evidence that that gap is getting larger... but I don't have any real evidence at hand to justify that statement so it could be false.
Re:Distorting the truth? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/b/bowl
Re:That's just scaremongering (Score:3, Informative)
From personal experience, myself, I was having passing out spells. Totally random. My blood pressure was fine, so nothing was deemed critical and life threatening. I had an untrasound that day and bloodwork. Took me 3 weeks to get a MRI, mind you, I live in Toronto. Turns out, I'm OK.
Having said that, one of my lawyers here at work, her partner had an aneurisym a couple years back. He went into the hospital literally last weekend (in Montreal) as he was having a pain threshold of 10 (whatever that means to him) headaches. He was in the emergency, and within 3 hours had a CAT scan, and an MRI.
The difference between the people you've talked to and the people, including myself, who've got these done quickly is EMERGENCIES. Electives take a while, if you're at risk and require emergency support - you're bumped to the head of the line. That's how it works. Even if you're rural - you may have to travel to a city centre to get the required attention - but you get it, in the time required to save your life.
Re:Lots of publicity, lots of stunts (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/1659.cfm [worldpress.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba [wikipedia.org]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1739773
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/185.html [hartford-hwp.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Cuba [wikipedia.org]
Re:Are you serious? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, you could just google for yourself [google.com].
Re:I live in the US, and I have 100% free health c (Score:3, Informative)
My family was on PA Medicaid when my first daughter was born. We didn't have to pay a dime out of pocket and we saw doctors very frequently (first pregnancy, it's an average of every other week). The major differences I saw between "public" health care and the HMO I'm on now.
1) It was easier to see a doctor on Medicaid. It might not be the doctor you want, but we saw a family doctor and she was great. In addition, doctors spend time with you. A lot of time. If my wife went in and I had a cough, they would check me out. In addition, the buck stopped there. With my HMO I have to get referrals, doctors refer to specialists so they aren't liable..... and on and on and on.
2) Technical evals (blood, imaging...) are severly limited with Medicaid. We got one Ultrasound, and every time she needed to pee in a cup, we had to traipse across the city to a "testing site". I assume this is to limit costs.
3) Hospital choice. We didn't get a lot with Medicaid. We had to go to a teaching hospital. We had a lot of younger doctors. There are cases where this is ok, and cases where that is not cool.
These are the main differences. If I could pay into Medicaid I would. (Note: I realize that I subsidize it every day with my taxes). If you need to get a 4D hyperbeam imaging when you twist your ankle, Medicaid is not for you. If you just need a doc to wrap it up and give you a prescription, Medicaid +1.
Re:Documentary? Please. (Score:3, Informative)
For the record, Moore agrees with you; he doesn't characterize what he makes as documentaries.
Re:Remember, guys (Score:3, Informative)
Something that is simply biased in the other direction? That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard. The Fifty-Nine Deceits isn't about getting at anything more truthful than Fahrenheit 9/11: it's about discrediting the film outright using the opposite political viewpoint.
If you read again, you'll find that a number of the "Deceits" have little to do with the content of the film. Take "Moore's changing positions", where a segment of the film with no narration is compared to a quote from Moore on September 12th, 2001 that wasn't even in the film, and presented as evidence that "Fahrenheit's purported view does not appear to be the same as Moore's actual view." I, a thinking individual, cannot understand how this counts as a "deceit", and the article is full of such nonsense.
"Truth about Bowling for Columbine"'s reach also exceeds its grasp. The thesis is that the average viewer is an incredible idiot that is incapable of understanding that he is watching a film with a political viewpoint and to illustrate this he quotes "reviewers", many of which (if you follow the links) turn out to be blog postings and Geocities pages. It contains such gems "Bowling's theme is, rather curiously, not opposed to firearms ownership.", a fact which is utterly transparent to the viewer and is stated outright. But the main thing I remember from it is the conclusion: "The point is not that Bowling is unfair, or lacking in objectivity.", followed shortly thereafter by "Suppose for a moment that Moore's behavior can be explained as a product of Narcisstic Personality Disorder [...]"
Re:yet another... (Score:3, Informative)
As for Heston's "mixed ethnicity" line at the end, that is clearly another edit job. Moore claims the interview was shown in its entirety, yet the clock in the background shows a lot of it is missing. It shows Charlton Heston getting up and leaving the interview 23 minutes in. But the whole interview only takes up less than 6 minutes on film. That is nearly three quarters of the interview edited out? I'm figuring the "mixed ethnicity" line was, like just about everything else, taken out of context.
Re:The problem I have with Moore is.... (Score:3, Informative)
Then go watch it, the movie isn't contra guns, in fact it comes to the conclusions that guns are not the real problem and the real issues are lie elsewhere, i.e. "climate of fear". But yeah, its of course much easier to bash him for no good reason, then to actually take time and watch what he has to say...
Re:inertia, saving face, not rocking our boat (Score:3, Informative)
Would you like to repeat that to Jorge Luis García Pérez (his memoires in Spanish [cadal.org]), who spent 17 years in jail for shouting "Away with Castro!" on the central square of his city, and got beaten with machetes while being there? Of course, the officers in charge were too clever to do most of the torturing themselves - they just promised other prisoners some private hours with a woman if they messed the guy up. If they didn't just let the dog loose on him.
One of they reasons this guy was treated as bad as he was, is that he is black. And blacks don't count in Cuba. So when blacks raise their voice, as he did, by having all the prisoners sing the national anthem on October 10th (they day slavery was abolished in Cuba) they get punished hard (in this case: with machetes). So there goes your equality as well.