There's No Substitute For Freedom To Choose

"Little Victim of Health-Care Crisis," read a headline this week over a story about 5-year-old Nicolette Falzone, who has a cancerous tumor on her spine.

The Falzones pay $1,000 a month to Health Net of the Northeast for family coverage. The oncologist in its network's original diagnosis recommended chemotherapy as treatment. Anthony and Maria Falzone took their daughter to Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan for a second opinion, which determined that Nicolette needed surgery as soon as possible. Health Net refused to pay for the surgery because Sloan-Kettering is out of its network. The Falzones have been appealing to their insurance company for the past two months. Time is of the essence, and doctors have been left on standby, waiting for the bureaucratic nightmare to end.

The Staten Island Advance reporter who wrote the story, Cormac Gordon, ended his front-page article with these words: "But as our physician friend pointed out, there is really no system at all. In a nation as wealthy as America, there has to be a better way."

Heartbreaking stories like this are similar to the ones in "Sicko," and if it were up to that film's director, Michael Moore, he'd recommend sending Nicolette to France because it has the world's best health care. But it was Mr. Gordon's article that performed the minor miracle — once the story broke and the public reacted, the insurance giant relented and is now authorizing the surgery.

We must be grateful for "Sicko" and Mr. Moore because they have focused attention on an important issue, and had any other documentary filmmaker addressed health care, the result would have been ignored by the mainstream press. But Mr. Moore holds a dear spot in the health care industry, as they share the same anti-American socialist agenda.

Careful analysis of his documentary raises more questions than Mr. Moore answers, but it's clear he believes that other nations do a better job with health care. Obviously, he's not up to date with his research, or maybe he is but prefers not to share the truth. Things have been going south abroad for years.

One look at the result of the recent elections in France should give us a clue about what the French think about being taxed to death for their so-called free health care. In 2004, the French health minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, told a government commission: "Our health system has gone mad. Profound reforms are urgent."

Agence France-Presse recently reported that the French health care system is running a deficit of $2.7 billion. And in the French presidential election in May, voters in surprising numbers rejected the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, who had promised actually to raise some health benefits, and elected instead the center-right politician Nicolas Sarkozy, who, according to AFP, "plans to move fast to overhaul the economy, with the deficit-ridden health care system a primary target."

But what about Canada, where Mr. Moore claims the citizens love their system? Apparently, they have problems as well. I'm sure he had to have read the British Medical Journal article relating to that health system. In a March 2004 article about breast cancer treatment, David Spurgeon wrote, "Canadian provinces, and Quebec in particular, have had problems providing prompt radiotherapy for some years. By 2000, several provinces were forced to send more than 800 patients to the United States for treatment as a result of shortages of healthcare staff and long waiting times."

As a result, a landmark lawsuit was filed against 12 Quebec hospitals on behalf of breast cancer patients who were forced to find treatment abroad because they weren't allowed to pay for private treatment in Canada. One woman flew to Turkey, and another who had been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer traveled to Vermont on a four-hour bus trip every week with her 5-year-old son to receive treatment.

We're all familiar with the deadly wait times in Britain, which we were reminded of again this week. According to the July 23 issue of the Daily Telegraph, a 30-year-old television producer in Britain, Laura Price, died from a suspected epileptic fit on July 23 while waiting for vital brain scans from the National Health Service. Three days before she died, Ms. Price visited a specialist at Charing Cross Hospital who told her she would have to wait six weeks for a brain scan.

Our system has flaws, and what the Falzones' case has taught us is that we have to shop around, while we can, for the health insurance that offers the widest network with quality doctors and low co-payments. A national health system, however, is not a good substitute for the freedom of choice.