Sicko

Michael Moore went to Cuba to tout the wonderful health care system that leftist Democrats like Hillary would like to emulate. He took some sick 9/11 responders to the embargoed country for treatment, however he failed to get clearance for the trip and now faces a U.S. Treasury Probe. Moore’s response?

The efforts of the Bush Administration to conduct a politically motivated investigation of Michael Moore and ‘SiCKO’ will not stop us from making sure the American people see this film.

The stunt was engineered to promote the next Moore faux documentary “SiCKO”, which we can assume will be as full of holes and lies as his previous films. How did they get some 9/11 heroes to go to Cuba? They lied.

Responders were told Cuban doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illness, and that health care in the communist country was free, according to those offered the two-week February trip.

While free, one has to wonder how effective any “advances” coming out of Cuba will be. Judging by the multitudes of other advances Castro’s paradise has produced I’d guess this will be as big as Iran’s herbal cure for AIDS. Fred Thompson was critical of Moore’s trip:

While this p.r. stunt has obviously been successful — here I am talking about it — Moore’s a piker compared to Fidel Castro and his regime. Moore just parrots the story they created — one of the most successful public-relations coups in history. This is the story of free, high quality Cuban health care.

The truth is that Cuban medical care has never recovered from Castro’s takeover — when the country’s health care ranked among the world’s best. He won the support of the Cuban people by promising to replace Batista’s dictatorship with free elections, and to end corruption. Once in power, though, he made himself dictator and instituted Soviet-style Communism. Cubans not only failed to regain their democratic rights, their economy plunged into centrally planned poverty.

As many as half of Cuba’s doctors fled almost immediately — and defections continue to this day. Castro won’t allow observers in to monitor his nation’s true state, but defectors tell us that many Cubans live with permanent malnutrition and long waits for even basic medical services. Many treatments we take for granted aren’t available at all — except to the Communist elite or foreigners with dollars.

For them, Castro keeps “show” clinics equipped with the best medicines and technologies available. It was almost certainly one of these that Moore went to, if the stories in the NY Post and the Daily News are true.

Moore responded with criticism of Thompson’s Cuban cigar habit and challenged Thompson to a health care debate. Fred’s response to that: Priceless!