This week I got a chance to see Michael Moore's latest award-less documentary, SiCKO. It details the plight of American healthcare, calling for universal, government-paid healthcare for everyone. He spends the first half of his movie discussing the way insurance companies screw most of their applicants out of coverage, then the second half exploring foreign universal systems in Canada, Great Britain, France, and Cuba.

Of course, it is the Republican Party's fault for this disaster: Richard Nixon's administration started the HMO system in which companies have a financial incentive not to insure people; George W. Bush signed a prescription drug bill that resulted in costlier pills.

I'm not going to argue that our healthcare system is fine. It is a mess. No hospital should have to turn away a patient with a sawed-off finger or a tumor just because they don't have coverage. But in today's system, they have to, because there is no way to be sure they will be able to pay for their treatments. But I do not believe a universal system is a viable answer in American society.

I admit, universal healthcare systems are amazing. I like them. I wish we had one. Just imagine, walking into a hospital for anything for free at any time of day. But the thing is, we can't afford it in this country.

In Europe, people get taxed obscene amounts of their salary, rarely blow 50% and usually around 60-70%. Furthermore, their populations are a fraction of the U.S.'s, so to guarantee their people healthcare is much easier. If America taxed that much, our healthcare system would be absolutely incredible. But I do not want the government taking that much money, and most Americans agree with me. No one will get elected if they campaign on raising the taxes enough to pay for a universal healthcare system.

I believe the solution, as it always has been in the U.S., is capitalism. Look at dentists. Dentists are not in the HMO world. Granted, they don't deal with life-threatening diagnoses or treatments, but it is an interesting case study. Dentists are free to set whatever price they feel is fair and charge it. You give them your credit card and you pay. It's like buying anything else. (Insurance will cover dentistry in some cases, but they simply sign a check; you are free to choose any dentist.) Dentists have to compete for customers, and therefore price accordingly.

Doctors do not have this luxury. They are told which patients they will get by insurance companies, and to go to a specialist requires time-consuming referrals and other paperwork. Care is costly and inefficient. I see no reason why we can't have a free enterprise system in healthcare like we do in all of our other industries.

When you are only taxing the public between 20-30% of over 300 million people, there is no way to afford a healthcare system that will be on par with private doctors as far as care quality. I see nothing wrong with a healthcare system for people who can't afford care, much like a type of welfare, but to guarantee free healthcare for everyone is just impractical.

I also do not understand this conclusion that the government must guarantee healthcare. What makes it different from other necessities? The government doesn't guarantee housing or food for every American. These are just as essential to life in this country. The idea that this is necessary I believe is just wrong.

Liberals know they cannot set up a healthcare system right now with the tax dollars coming in. The goal is not decent care, it's more control. Call me a selfish jerk, but I do not want my tax money paying for some idiot who skateboards off the side of a building. Would I want my tax money paying for a hard working American family father who has a tumor? Probably. But it's not the government's place to tell me that I have to. And believe you me, once universal healthcare is created, the road will begin toward the elimination of free enterprise and, as the goal always is with liberal government, higher taxes.

As far as prescription drugs go, I think it's troubling when drugs here are hundreds of dollars for 30 pills, but any quantity of any pill is £6.65 in the U.K. Yes, I believe in competition, but pharmaceutical companies don't compete. They race to find a drug first, then sell it for as much as they can. This is not fair, and it is not competition. I believe drug patents should be dropped to 1-2 years, so that they have that much time to be rewarded for the invention of a drug. After that, all companies should have access to the formula, be able to produce it, and compete for the lowest cost. Seems like a reasonable solution to me, and gasp! It means changing an existing law rather than adding ten new ones.

The system sucks. There is a problem. But universal healthcare is not the answer. In the end, Moore's film isn't about healthcare, it's about government control. It's about how America sucks. And his anti-Americanism makes me sick. Our country has problems, but they can all be solved with less government rather than more.

Let's sit down and make some common-sense solutions with the money we have, rather than try to expand the government so much that it collapses upon itself and becomes the failures of Medicaid and Medical in New York and California, which have forced both states into billions of dollars in debt.

Let's put real competition back into the healthcare system.