Uninsured in America examines
the conventional wisdom that 45
million Americans cannot get
health insurance and do not have
access to health care. Watch It Now!
Two Women shows that when
governments determine health
care priorities, some people suffer
truly unfortunate consequences.
Watch It Now!
In A Short Course in Brain
Surgery, filmmaker Stuart
Browning shows the callousness
of "single-payer", government
-run health care systems. Watch It Now!
Indoctrinate U, reveals the
ugly truths about academia that
you won't see in their glossy
admissions brochures.
Watch The Trailer!
Our short film El Uno De Mayo,
casts a light on the left-wing
totalitarian groups behind the
recent May Day marches. Watch It Now!
Think Canada's government-run
health care system is a model for
the U.S.? Think again!
Dead Meat is a searing cine-
matic examination of socialized
medicine. Watch It Now!
On Friday, I appeared on Canadian national television in a story about the popularity of my video "A Short Course In Brain Surgery" and its contribution to the health care debate. The video (of which there are at least three copies on YouTube) has been viewed over 2 million times. Click the thumbnail to play.
The Perils of Public Health Care (CBC, Feb 22 2008)
We've just posted details for two more campus screenings of Indoctrinate U: one at Louisiana State University (Shreveport) and another at San Diego State University. For more information, visit the Indoctrinate U screenings page.
A Short Course In Brain Surgery - my short movie which tells the story of Lindsay McCreith, a Canadian with a cancerous brain tumor who had to come to the U.S. to receive timely medical care - has now been viewed over 500,000 times on YouTube.
Not bad for a piece about health care policy.
As this nation barrels head-long towards government-controlled "universal healthcare", I hope that many more people are able to view the movie - and draw the appropriate conclusion.
Matthew Sheffield at NewsBusters has interviewed Evan Maloney. Topic: The making of Indoctrinate U.
Recently I had the privilege of attending the premier of the "Indoctrinate U," a documentary that exposes the widespread suppression of conservative and libertarian opinions on America's college campuses. Turns out, the same 60s and 70s radicals who marched for free speech back then aren't so interested in the concept now that they're running academia.
This is a great film and a very necessary one as well. I was so impressed by it that I wanted to interview its creator, Evan Coyne Maloney. We had an in-depth and candid discussion about a variety of things including how he got interested in film, getting funding for it, the background behind campus speech codes, how the media covers academic censorship and much more.
We are starting to post some of the scenes we loved but ended up having to cut from our feature length film Indoctrinate U. The first deleted scene is called "Columbia Quiz."
This less-than-five-minute video may prove embarrassing to the administration of Columbia University, which very clearly did not want Evan Maloney filming - unless he could convince them that our film would paper over the truth and make the university look good.
Jamie Court of Santa Monica, California's "Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights" has a frustrating editorial in today's L.A. Times.
He asks "Is it the right of the government to impose an obligation to buy a private product that costs $12,000 a year for a family of four?" and concludes:
mandatory private insurance on this scale will not work. Mandatory auto insurance, which has been in force in California for more than two decades, has failed miserably. That's why a portion of our auto insurance premiums today go to pay for "uninsured motorist" coverage.
One in seven drivers has no auto insurance, compared to one in five without health insurance under a nonmandatory system.
I think Mr. Court is right about this. Forcing people to buy what they do not want or cannot afford is nothing but a confiscatory tax that limits people's freedom to spend their own money and control their own lives. And, there will be massive non-compliance.
Mr. Court's "solution" to the problem, however, is totally off-base. He says:
Californians are ready for market reforms to make health insurance more available and affordable, including forcing insurers to price policies fairly and preventing them from denying coverage to less healthy patients. Sacramento legislators should make the system fairer, regulate healthcare costs, then expand subsidies for low-income families. They should fix the broken market, not foist it on the public.
What a mistake! How is government regulation of insurance pricing, "forced issue" mandates and regulation of healthcare costs a "market reform"? More government control is a prescription for socialized medicine, which will work just as well as the grand Socialist "experiments" in the USSR, North Korea, East Germany and communist China.
Why, oh why, don't more people realize that government already mucks around in the not very "free market" for healthcare too much? Why don't people realize that every time government mandates or regulates something, it prevents the market from offering value and options?
When government mandates force sober homosexual men to buy health insurance policies that cover pregnancy expenses, infertility treatments and drug and alcohol in-patient care, premiums for these patients cost much more than necessary. When government regulation prohibits health insurers from offering plans across state-lines, there is less competition in each state and prices are higher than they would be in a true open market.
It's simple economics, folks! Won't someone PLEASE take a refresher course in Economics 101 . . . and pay attention during class?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Contact:
Jon Caldara, president, 303-279-6536 or jon@i2i.org
Amy Oliver, operations director, 970-371-3413 or amy@i2i.org
Think tank hosts independent film maker and free market health care advocate Stuart Browning for the Colorado premiere of Free Market Cure
GOLDEN, Colo - The Independence Institute is proud to announce that it will be hosting the Colorado premiere of Free Market Cure, a series of short films that honestly depicts the dangers of socialized medicine. Independent film maker and producer of Free Market Cure Stuart Browning will be our guest of honor.
According to Browning, those on the left including Hollywood and many politicians "are gearing up to bring socialized medicine to the U.S. under the guise of 'universal healthcare.' Americans should be aware, however, that government-run health care means high taxes, medical rationing - and waiting lists to see specialists, get diagnostic tests and to receive surgery."
Free Market Cure is designed to counter Michael Moore's Sicko, which Browning called "a large dose of misinformation and propaganda."
The premiere will be on Wednesday, September 19, at the Shwayder in the Mizel Center for Culture and Arts at 350 S. Dahlia Street in Denver. The movies and Browning's commentary will begin at 7 p.m. and will be followed by coffee and dessert. The event is free and open to the public but seating is limited so reservations are requested. Please contact Kay at 303-279-6536 or kay@i2i.org.
"Anyone who is even remotely concerned about the direction in which medical care in Colorado is headed must see Free Market Cure," said President Jon Caldara.
Caldara issued a personal invitation to all of Colorado's 208 commission members. "I understand that members were invited to hear Donna Smith who was featured in Sicko. I invite all of them to hear another perspective." he added.
Visit the Independence Institute Web site for more information.
The Independence Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit public policy research organization based in Golden, Colo.
Yesterday I gave an interview about Indoctrinate U on KCOL-AM out of Loveland, CO. Today saw two more interviews with Greg Allen of Accent Radio Network and Bud Hedinger from WFLA-AM out of Tampa, FL.
Please listen for me talking about our important film on the Steve Deace show tomorrow (9/6/2007) on WHO-AM from Des Moines, Iowa and with Travis Jackson on Knucklehead Radio from Maine.
Then on Friday (9/7/2007) I'll be on Lynn Woolley's show on KTEM-AM out of Temple, TX. Finally, next Wednesday (9/12/2007) I'll be promoting Indoctrinate U on "Kelli's" show on WJON-AM out of St. Cloud, MN.
Please tune in -- on the radio or on the web -- if you get the chance. The discussions arising from the film and the entire topic of political correctness run amok on college campuses have been great.
A recent study says that the federal government has been restocking mountain streams in Colorado with the wrong species of an endangered trout for more than 20 years! President Bush's approval ratings are in the twenty-percent range. Approval ratings for Congress are wallowing in the teens.
But, hey, let's give the federal government complete control over our healthcare system.
Am I the only lunatic who thinks this kind of logic stinks like old fish on a hot summer day?
Canada, once considered the bedrock of national health care systems, is in the beginning stages of change toward free-market health insurance.
[...]
For the first time, private health care clinics are proliferating throughout Canada and arguments for allowing private physicians to practice freely are being heard.
"You are seeing the Medicare orthodoxy of the last 30 years being questioned in Canada," said Dr. David Gratzer, a registered physician in Canada and the U.S., and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a nonprofit public-policy think tank. "Over the last two years, the health care system has dramatically changed to allow more private health care."
The Supreme Court of Canada, widely viewed as among the most liberal in the world, nearly two years ago allowed a man in Quebec to buy health care on his own - striking down 30 years of precedent and giving advocates for private health care a major victory.
The case is known as the Chaoulli decision, after Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, who took action against the system after a patient was forced to wait nearly one year for a hip replacement.
If Moore's film channels the prevailing left-wing wisdom about the alleged glories of government-run healthcare, Browning's work represents a much-needed corrective: a skepticism about government's ability to provide efficient coverage and a confidence that the free-market is a better compass for change than a Hollywood ideologue. "I can't imagine anything more crucial than the right to make life-or-death decisions, the right to privacy, the right to choose one's own doctor. And all these things are at stake," said Browning in a recent interview from his Florida office.
Rather than quibbling with Michael Moore's omission of Cuba's position relative to the U.S. on a World Health Organization (WHO) international health care system ranking report, CNN should have called into question the use of that biased report itself.
The WHO report doesn't just rank health care systems according to how well they cure you when you're sick. Indeed, 25% of the WHO report's scoring is based on the "fairness" of a country's health care financing as measured by how redistributionist - socialist - it is.
The result is an absurd report that ranks the medical system of Morocco as superior to that the U.S. But it's good enough for Michael Moore!
Last night I appeared on the FOX News channel show "Hannity's America" discussing my films, Michael Moore's Sicko and the threat of collectivized medicine.
The only video to show up on the web so far is from an anti-FOX wingnut site who have edited the video with some inane commentary at the end - as well as this little jewel on their web site:
As for Stuart Browning ... According to one website, he has connections to some conservative (and possibly CIA or governmental) sources of money ...
For the advocates of government-run medicine who actually believe the United Nation's claim that the U.S. health care system is inferior to that of Morocco(!), it's not a big leap to assume that the CIA funds filmmakers like me to debunk socialized medicine.
Michael Moore isn't the only advocate of government-run medicine to use deception and lies to further the cause. Paul Krugman at the New York Times, in a column earlier this week, defends the Canadian system with all the deceit he can muster:
Yes, Canadians wait longer than insured Americans for elective surgery. But over all, the average Canadian's access to health care is as good as that of the average insured American ...
Krugman wants his readers to think that by "elective", he means things like hip replacements and cataract operations - when, in fact, "elective" surgery in Canada includes all cancer surgery and coronary artery bypass surgeries.
David Hogberg has an excellent article this morning over at The American Spectator explaining why the health insurance market doesn't work the way that other markets do. The answer? One word ... government.
By now it is no secret that Moore's new documentary Sicko shows health insurance companies finding all sorts of insidious ways to avoid paying for treatment. On the surface, it makes sense to blame this on the profit motive. Paying for sick people is often expensive and finding ways to deny them care is good for the bottom line. The health insurance company that utilizes the most innovative methods to avoid paying for care will be rewarded with the highest profit margin.
Yet such thinking overlooks a rather obvious question: How do health insurance companies attract customers if they treat some of their customers so badly? A company can't make any profit if no one is willing to buy its product or service. Sure, a company may be able to make a profit for a while by fooling customers into buying its shoddy products or services. But eventually customers wise up. Word that the company is bad spreads, and customers takes their business elsewhere. If the market for health insurance worked properly, then companies that deny paying for care on the flimsiest of reasons would risk getting a bad reputation and seeing their customers go to companies that do not engage in such practices. So why doesn't this happen?
The answer is that thanks to government policy the health insurance market doesn't work properly.
This site, and its new companion website Free Market Cure, feature short movies - made for the internet - which explore the U.S. health care system as well as the true nature of government rationing of health care as practiced in Canada's single-payer system.
The movement towards "universal health care" or "single-payer health care" represents government control over the standards and availability of medical care. Everywhere that these systems have been tried, the results have been the same: shortages and rationing. We feel a better way to control costs is for consumers to be responsible for - and in control of - their own health care spending.
I hope that you will find these short films and commentary a welcome antidote to the blatantly false propaganda offered in Michael Moore's film Sicko.
Update: We'll be putting our short film "Dead Meat" up on YouTube as we have maxed out our video server bandwidth limits due to heavy traffic. We plan to have it up soon. In the meantime, check out all of our short films dealing with health care at our companion site Free Market Cure.
Here's left-wing healthcare pundit Ezra Klein in an email message to me commenting on the anecdotal stories in my movies on Canadian health care:
Ah, argument by anecdote, the last refuge of the scoundrel. [...] America has no shortage of terrible tales of maltreatment, deprivation, and wrongful death, but I'm not going to dip into that pond as I try to not enlist other's misfortunes as pawns in my argument.
And here he is commenting on the anecdotal stories in Michael Moore's Sicko:
Every story, every tale, every vignette asks the same question: "Who are we?" Who are we that our fellow citizens have to decide which fingers they'll pay to get reattached? Who are we that our hospitals push the ill and indigent into cabs, and drop them off, disoriented and clad in a paper-thin gown, on skid row?
