"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Friday, July 06, 2007

Google supports "SICKO"

They are apologizing because one of their employees criticized it! The full apology below

In a world of 24/7 news cycles, a summer weekend can bring considerable -- and unanticipated -- excitement. Take for example the reaction we've just seen to an item on our new health advertising blog. Frankly, we were surprised by the pickup, but perhaps we shouldn't have been. We've been proponents of corporate blogging for some time, despite the significant communication challenges that obviously arise from having many voices from all parts of our company speak publicly through blog posts. In this case, the blog criticized Michael Moore's new film "Sicko" to suggest how health care companies might use our ad programs when they face controversy. Our internal review of the piece before publication failed to recognize that readers would -- properly, but incorrectly -- impute the criticisms as reflecting Google's official position. We blew it.

In fact, Google does share many of the concerns that Mr. Moore expresses about the cost and availability of health care in America. Indeed, we think these issues are sufficiently important that we invited our employees to attend his film (nearly 1,000 people did so). We believe that it will fall to many entities -- businesses, government, educational institutions, individuals -- to work together to solve the current system's shortcomings. This is one reason we're deploying our technology and our expertise with the hope of improving health system information for everyone who is or will become a patient. Over the last several months, we have been blogging about our thinking in this area. See: November 30, 2006, March 28, May 23, and June 23, 2007.

In the meantime, we have taken steps on our own to address the failures we see in our health care system. In our case, the menu of health care options that we offer our employees includes both direct services (for example, on-site medical and dental professionals in certain locations) as well as a range of preventive care programs. It's one of the ways we're attempting to demonstrate corporate responsibility on a major issue of our time.

Source

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)

5 comments:

Robert said...

Sicko really did injustice when comparing our health system with others. He did not give the whole story - he looked at them through rose colored glasses. In fact many of these are very debt ridden and are in the midst of massive changes themselves including the one model everyone holds up such a Canada.

This is not to say we have some major issues with health care and need to address these. But the movie Sicko is very misleading in comparisons.

Josh said...

Everyone should see this film. For anyone to defend our system vs the other country's system is just insane. It's obvious that we are far behind the curve when it comes to health care. We must blow up our current system and start all over again with a true universal health care system. It shouldn't be an issue of whether we do this or not but an issue of HOW we do it. It must be done.

Don said...

Josh you should see a Doctor.

Dionne said...

Josh:
I think maybe you should go live in one of these other countries and see for yourself how "superior" their health care is. I can't believe how many people like you have this mentality. Universal, government health care would make what we are dealing with now like a walk in the park. Yikes!!

Robert:
Moore never gives the whole story, thats why most everyone calls his "documentaries" propaganda films, because they are.

J-Sin said...

yawn, the typical noise from the right and blind. apologizers for the rich and overprivileged, armed with meaningless prattle and AM radio noise. Thankfully many Americans are waking up to your annoying propaganda machine of disinformation.