Just back from Atlantic City, spending a few days in the sun, surf, and casinos. While there, I got a chance to see Michael Moore’s Sicko. Say what you will, the man is a gifted propagandist. He’s now able to pull off things that others can’t.

Still, were I doing a “counter Sicko” documentary, I’d know where to start. Atlantic City. The town is filled with recent immigrants from eastern Europe and Russia. So, I’d go around and ask them, “Why have you immigrated to the US vs., say, France?”

I’m pretty confident that several of the immigrants would say, “No jobs in France. US have jobs. Good jobs. Much opportunity.” Or some such.

I could follow up: “But in France you’d get ‘free’ healthcare.”

And I’m pretty confident I’d get answers like: “Rather have job, take my chances.”

Moore used all sorts of manipulative anecdotes to make his case. Fair enough, I suppose. But the final scene, with Moore jokingly “petitioning” Congress to do his laundry, really said it all for me. In a sense, that’s what statists want: A complete nanny state, where the government ‘takes care’ of everything for the people. Me? No thanks. I can do my own laundry, thank you very much.

One series of anecdotes that Sicko does expose that is a major concern is his exposing of insurance companies. Denial of benefits, and even the twisted incentives of rewarding insurance-company staff to have high denial-of-benefits rates is chilling to me. An individual can easily to denied their contractual rights by the deep-pocketed insurance companies.

This imbalance is, for me, the Achilles Heel of free-market capitalism. Capitalism is based on property rights and contracts, yet the legal system is a stacked deck in favor of the well-heeled and large corporations.

This imbalance needs fixing…pronto. Otherwise, the Moore’s of the world can and will make the case for the State to step in and redress this obvious injustice.

-Robert Capozzi