European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 20, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                June stars and stripes Page 15 opinion Sicko just airs health cares dirty laundry by Daniel Weintraub Sacramento Bee Michael Moore almost had me going until he got to the part about the Moores latest careens like a runaway truck through the worst ills of the health care it then sets those foibles against the Best traits of government run systems in great France at turns shocking and just Plain the documentary builds a solid indict ment of private health Moore slams one firm for retroactively denying coverage to a woman who failed to disclose a yeast infection on her another issued a fatal order denying treatment for a toddler who had the bad Luck to arrive at the wrong emergency a third billed a woman for an ambulance ride after an Acci Dent because her trip to the Hospital had not been it is stuff like this that drives so Many americans crazy about their health care sys and if people conclude that they cannot depend on private insurance to cover them when they need its not a big leap from there to decide that the nation does not need the services of such an that is exactly Moores take the health insurance companies out of the he said in Sacramento last week after a preview showing of the film that will open in the states on june he is an unabashed supporter of a single payer health care system financed with taxes and overseen by the but while his film might be effective As it is also it is a Hodgepodge of Hasty conclusions and glaring omissions layered one on top of another until the viewer is almost forced to submit to Moores among the problems Moore begins by insisting that his Story will be about people who have in not those who go but some of his most vivid examples such As a Man who loses two fingers in an Accident and can Only afford to pay for one of them to be reattached Are about people who do not have any coverage at he blames All of the Industry bad behaviour on the profit but one of his biggest villains Kaiser Permanente is a and while he does a gut wrenching Seg ment on los Angeles hospitals dumping homeless patients Back on the Street after they Are he mentions Only in pass ing that one of the guilty parties is a Public Hospital owned by the Arent those the same people he wants to put in charge of All of our health care he tells the gripping Story of a Man who died of cancer after his health plan refused to pay for experimental but he never asks his audience to consider that no matter what kind of system we it will not provide unlimited care especially experimental there will always be a under a single payer that person would be a government employee some might even say a would that really be any better Moore never gets around to telling us that the underfunded Ca Nadian and British systems have such Long waiting lists that the Canadian supreme court struck Down a ban on private health and the British Are buying insurance to supplement their government the Climax of the movie takes us to a place Moore lionized without even a pass ing reference to Fidel castros crimes against his own had Moore been a cuban and tried to Challenge the govern ment the Way he does he would have been snuffed out or locked up Long not Given free health John Academy award winning director Michael Moore Speaks with the Media saturday in where the North american premiere of his latest documentary Sicko was featured in two showings As a fundraiser for the Antrim county democratic and then there is after getting Al most orgasmic Over the Quality of French health Moore goes on to extol the Vir tues of paid maternity mandatory minimum 35hour nearly free Day care a government ser vice that sends a person to your Home twice a week to clean your clothes after you have a oblivious to Frances economic its chronic High unemployment or projections showing that the country Cra let grave social benefits Are uns ustain Moore turns the laundry service into his Ideal of civilization at its it never occurs to him it might be embarrassing evidence of what happens to people when they expect the government to tend to their every health care can be a life death but laundry Moore is right that we need to fix our health insurance and his film at its Best forces us to think about whether we All should do More to help each other Deal with the Cost of illness and injury that strike the population More or less at ran but when he ends the movie on the Steps of the laundry Basket in prepared to demand the kind of service he saw in his satire turns on that is exactly the kind of ridiculous Extension of dependency that opponents of single payer health care fear will be the inevitable result of the eve expanding government Moore Daniel Weintraub is a Sacramento Bee prosecutors Mission should be not Victory Raleigh news observer editorial As Mike Nifong tried to Tell his Side of the travesty of Justice for which he was it seemed at times that the District attorney himself didst really understand How things went so terribly in the just concluded misconduct Case before the North Carolina state Nifong acknowledged his mis denied but  explain How three Duke Lacrosse players Reade Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans wound up living a year of their lives under heinous sexual assault charges that were not the bar stripped Nifong of his License As it should despite his announcement that he would a strip per hired for a Lacrosse team party claimed she had been raped at that party the night of March the Durham Community was Over a very Short period of the dancers charges aroused divisions of race and class and harsh feelings toward Duke Cable television networks seized upon the and Mike running for elec Tion As was giving interviews every where and calling the players names and vowing be had a Strong Case but he haunt done Basic including having a conversation with the the players hired the very Best defense something that ultimately Cost a total of the Case began to look the strippers Story police procedures were ques rape charges were final the bar brought ethics charges against attorney Gen eral Roy Cooper took the Case and then he dropped it saying that no crime had Nifong was labelled a rogue prosecutor who had withheld evidence favourable to the defend then came Nifong end of Story the players and their families now May turn to in any event they will be a Long time in get Ting their lives one must in All what might have happened if these Young men had not had Access to Legal Talent the Quality of Wake Joe Cheshire and the other de sense attorneys Many others would not and people who were innocent would have been prosecuted and possibly convict that that attorneys on All sides in North Carolina ought to be talking one District attorney said of the outcome of Nifong Case before the bar that the system maybe it worked regarding disciplinary but for months it didst work properly at District attorneys must affirm that their role in the court system is not merely there have been too Many in stances of manipulation of the system by prosecutors to put themselves in an advantageous that is not and it must Smith and Cheshire would be Good choices to advise Mike Easley and legislators about ensuring that it Mike Nifong Legal career is and it ought to he has suffered a personal set but one that he had considering the Price of injustice paid by the three Duke students who became his tar prickly City by Scott Stantis of Cox up it in w1ns1xw 9 t s n it if questions