Sicko Gothenburg

I realize that translating everything I write is too time consuming. Therefore I will shorten some parts here and there.

Roland Poirier Martinsson in todays Expressen discusses Michael Moores film Sicko, the American health insurance system and, above all, the (non-)reporting about Moores film that goes on in Swedish media.

If you disregard the most one-eyed fans, it's today commonly accepted that Michael Moore uses lies too eagerly for his films to be trustworthy. This observation has nothing to do with his political standpoint. That his role has switched from that of the debater to that of the joker and is moving towards that of the clown is entirely a consequence of Moores juggling during the cutting of his films. It's strange that this development seems to have gone unnoticed by Swedish journalists. You get the impression that they, instead of critically examining the bluffer Moores contribution to the debate, rejoice over it and want to spread it.

Martinsson thinks that what should have been reporting about a film (that should have been a documentary), instead has become a splendid opportunity for the leftist Swedish media elite to argue against privatization in the health care sector.

Hear a few examples from the news:

SvDs Anna-Lena Haverdahl writes that Moores
film ”should send shock waves” to Europe, since it shows how bad it can ”get if private profit-making entirely rule health care”.

Aftonbladets Wolfgang Hansson
is afraid of a Swedish import of the sickest health care in the world - if it comes here "we're in trouble".

Expressen directs a question to Social minister Göran Hägglund in connection to the opening of the film: ”What do you have to say to those who are worried that Sweden is moving in the direction of the USA?"

SVTs Agenda claims that Sicko ”shakes up the debate about public or private health care in Sweden”.

Kalla Fakta, TV4, makes a note that Sicko ”with its disclosures of the flaws in the private health care has shook the USA”.

TT describes the topic of the film as a "struggle between good and evil" - guess where you find the evil?

The same drift is repeated almost everywhere. I left many examples out.

The problem with American health care is, according to Martinsson, not in the privatized health care, but in the health insurance system (read his article).

I myself have in several rounds worked in the Swedish health care (as late as this year). In the Swedish post I give a glimpse of what it looks like where I worked the last time, at a home for 7 mentally handicapped people in Gothenburg.

What I expose is

• ineffectivity. Most of the day you actually do nothing at all.
• laziness. Some things that need to be done are left unattended, just because the personnel is lazy.
• chaotic lack of personnel. People call in sick very often, due to private problems.
• nonchalance. Sometimes they don't call in sick, they just don't bother to come.
• fraud. Some persons are entitled to personal assistance by the Social Insurance of Sweden. Money is paid to the care administration from the Social Insurance of Sweden, in compensation for the personal assistance that these persons have received. In order to improve the economy, false reports of personal assistance are produced. Money received for no work performed...

I give three suggestions on how to improve the situation:

• Higher salaries, to get personnel.
• Cut down on personnel. There is very low work load.
• Fire people who don't do what they're being paid for. Unfortunately this can't be done in Sweden, because of our employment regulations.

I also give two links about Michael Moore:

Moorelies

Moorewatch