The remark sounded like a "Saturday Night Live" spoof on health care in America: "After all, you just go to an emergency room."
Pathetically, the statement claiming health care is easily available to all came from President George W. Bush. It once again revealed a jarring disconnect from reality and a pitiful ignorance of his own country's troubled health-care system.
The president's belief that emergency room care is on tap when needed is only part of his weird rationale for threatening to veto an increase in funds for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
He frets that if the program proves beneficial to children whose families can't afford health insurance, more children may be enrolled—giving a boost to advocates of a national single-payer health-care system. He also worries about $7 billion in added costs per year—a pittance compared to the $30 billion in annual tax breaks for the country's wealthiest families and the $8 billion per month for costs of the Iraq war.
Against this presidential backdrop of resistance to improving children's health, the Treasury Department is investigating filmmaker Michael Moore for traveling to Cuba to film part of his new gadfly movie, "Sicko," a compelling view of America's flawed, overpriced health-care system.
What government agents hope to accomplish by investigating Moore is a mystery. It simply looks like more bungling by the White House's ideological errand boys, who believe muzzling critics and suppressing scientific studies can make truth vanish.
The film is a hit, and Moore is an old hand at absorbing insults. Moreover, the film's overarching findings are a politically humiliating compendium of how the U.S. government has failed citizens.
As for the spiteful investigation of Moore, what is worse: Moore traveling to communist Cuba to compare its health systems with the U.S.'s, or U.S. businesses importing toxic foods and counterfeit medicines from Marxist China with impunity?
After visits to Cuba, Britain, Canada, France and the United States, Moore skillfully bolsters his critical view of U.S. health systems with solid data.
The United States ranks 37th in the world in health-care quality, according to the World Health Organization. It ranks 54th in the affordability of health care.
In 2005, 46 million Americans had no health insurance. The United States spends 13.7 percent of domestic gross product on health, compared to 5.8 percent in Britain, 9.8 percent in France and 6.3 percent in Cuba.
The administration's efforts would be better spent helping kids and healing the nation's ailing health-care system.
