I am commenting on Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s review on Michael Moore’s film, which has turned out to be quite biased. Unfortunately, my comment to his blog has not been published to date and I would therefore like to share it with you:

Dr. Walter Rohloff, MD, Albuquerque

Dear Dr. Gupta,

I have seen both Michael Moore’s recent interview with Wolf Blitzer and later with Larry King and yourself and I feel that your review on CNN was quite unfair and it would serve you well to admit its shortcomings. You have nowhere made a convincing argument that Michael Moore indeed “fudged the facts” as you claim. If your presentation about mildly different health care cost estimates in the USA or CUBA that you and Moore have found should justify “fudged facts”, it would only be one more of the trivial nit pickings that hardly matter in comparison to your own distortions (like calling universal health care as it exists elsewhere a “Utopia” and “not truly free”) and omissions (Not to talk about the humane and financial benefits of Universal Health Care ) . Instead, your “fact check” parades a conservative hit man for the health for profit industry as an “expert - only associated with Vanderbilt University” and allows him to make unreferenced claims against the film that are hilariously misleading or plain false. I have grown up in Germany under the universal health care system there and worked and studied medicine in Great Britain for many years and can well confirm that Michael Moore’s film presents no “utopia” and that indeed basic health care is unrestricted and rapidly available for everyone. Your “fact check” again repeats the false litany preached to the public by greedy insurers and uninformed doctors about the “long waiting times” in Canada, England, Germany etc. without mentioning that waiting time for emergency access is shorter than in the USA and longer mainly for non urgent (elective) procedures - and this is quite acceptable. In the USA on the other hand, 47 million uninsured americans cannot get other than emergency medical care no matter how long they wait! The insured rest may also not get it because of a ruthless denial by some HMO cubicle clerk, no matter how long they wait! You even challenged Michael Moore to decide whether he would rather be seen in the USA or elsewhere for cardiac emergency care. As the National Institute of Health has recently concluded, an enormous number of cardiac interventions are done in the USA without proper need and benefit for the patients, possibly because of the wrong kind of incentives. I found the interview with Tony Benn in Michael Moores SICKO the most significant contribution: The British NHS Universal Health Care system was born during and despite the economic hardship of the postwar years because people understood that to take care of each other in such a vital matter as health care should be a human right in an industrialized country - and even Margaret Thatcher never tried to do away with the NHS. I can tell you from my personal experience in Germany and Britain that there are few if any citizens who would want to exchange their Universal Health Care system for some for profit or individualized health care system instead as it is glorified in the USA. America’s Health system needs an aggressive overhaul, bold vision and infusion from good examples elsewhere.

Sincerely

Dr. Walter Rohloff, Renal Medicine, Albuquerque