Since its launch last summer, Free Market Cure, the website and video series created by MPI fellow Stuart Browning to expose the myths of single-payer health care, has become an internet phenomenon. In January alone, freemarketcure.com averaged over 15,000 visitors a day, and Browning's short film, "A Short Course in Brain Surgery," has been viewed over 1.2 million times.
"A Short Course in Brain Surgery" tells the story of an Ontario man whose blinding headaches and seizures could not move the Canadian medical system to do the tests needed for a diagnosis--so he had to travel to the U.S. and pay out of pocket to learn he had a golfball-sized brain tumor. When he returned to Canada with the news, doctors told him he would have to wait eight months to begin treatment for his life-threatening condition--so he came back to the States, and within a month had received the surgery he needed to restore him to health. It's one of several short films available for free at Browning's site--and all of them are worth watching and considering carefully as we head into an election where health care will be a major issue.
Michael Moore's paean to socialized health care, Sicko, has just been nominated for an Oscar. But don't be fooled. Hollywood's approval does not mean the film is accurate, or that its policy recommendations are sound.