Sickened by health care system

Fifteen years ago, Congress destroyed, with unconcealed joy, a health care reform plan put forward by Hillary Clinton. The plan was far from perfect, but what if Congress had used it as a basis for a compromise plan rather than bury it to spite the uppity first lady? Americans might have avoided 15 years of high costs and indifferent medical care produced by a system designed to benefit not the sick or the healers but insurance company bureaucrats. Has the chance come and gone?

Hillary Clinton, of course, is now Senator Clinton of New York State and a Democratic candidate for president. Surely, if elected, she would enact the reforms she unsuccessfully fought for in her husband's first term. Perhaps, but Ms. Clinton is now one of the top recipients in Congress of campaign contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry, so she may view matters differently than she did so many years ago.

This last bit of information is gleaned from "Sicko," the latest inflammatory film to emerge from gadfly documentarian Michael Moore (It opened in the Berkshires on Friday.) Mr. Moore is not a go-to guy for even-handed treatment of complex subjects like health care,

source;www.berkshireeagle.com