Michael Moore's "Sicko" is hot internet news

[Flymo]

Some of the comments are interesting as well, like "When taxpayers become liable for all of your medical expenses, all of your behavior, from the smallest to the largest detail will come under their {the governments} control. Maybe some people don't mind making a trade like that. But I do, and my freedom isn't theirs {the governments} to spend. Not for "free" health insurance, not for anything."

That's just plain nonsense. You might as well say when taxpayers become liable for children's education all of your behaviour comes under the government's control. There is absolutely no connection between funding of healthcare and government control. And if you have a free healthcare system you don't have to use it - as with education, you can pay to go private if you want.

You can buy your own health insurance without an employer, but it is extremely expensive. This is a case where the market has been skewed by government interference. In my State private medicine has all but been been abolished by MN Care. If you are refused by your employers insurance, then you qualify for MN Care and the State (MN taxpayers) will insure you. We are starting to see a shortage of doctors and medical personal now. Two factors drive that, no profit motive for private practice and malpractice law suits. The scariest place in the MN system is the emergency room. See, when you don't have to pay for anything, everything is an emergency room visit. So, if you have a heart attack, you better make an appointment and hope there is a doctor available.

It doesn't have to be like that, and I suspect the problem is that MN Care is not properly funded. Here in the UK we also have both a free healthcare service and a private one. I get private health insurance as part of my salary package, but I've never signed up to it because the free healthcare is perfectly adequate. We have too many doctors, not too few - newly qualified doctors are currently making a big fuss because there aren't enough jobs to go round. That's partly because our government messed up a new incentive-based pay scheme for doctors and we currently have the best paid doctors in Europe, but even so I suspect our healthcare costs a lot less than it does in the US.