Sicko
Speaking of the healthcare system in the US, I’ve been eagerly anticipating Michael Moore‘s new film, Sicko, which I think has the potential to have the greatest impact of all his films so far. It’s just premiered at Cannes after an earlier private screening in New York for many of the people whose stories he presents in the film. The response so far has been excellent and the articles on the film are just starting to come out. I really liked Andrew O’Hehir’s piece on the film from Salon over the weekend, for instance:
Still, there is no mistaking the passion and political intelligence at work in “Sicko.” It’s both a more finely calibrated film and one with more far-reaching consequences than any he’s made before. Moore is trying to rouse Americans to action on an issue most of us agree about, at least superficially. You may know people who will still defend the Iraq war (although they’re less and less eager to talk about it). But who do you know who will defend the current method of health-care delivery, administered by insurance companies whose central task is to minimize cost and maximize shareholder return? Americans of many different political stripes would probably share Moore’s conclusions at the press conference: “It’s wrong and it’s immoral. We have to take the profit motive out of health care. It’s as simple as that.”
[. . .] When Moore interviews Tony Benn, a leading figure on the British left, his larger concerns come into focus. Benn argues that for-profit healthcare and the other instruments of the corporate state, like student loans and bottomless credit-card debt, perform a crucial function for that state. They undermine democracy by creating a docile and hardworking population that is addicted to constant debt and an essentially unsustainable lifestyle, that literally cannot afford to quit jobs or take time off, that is more interested in maintaining high incomes than in social or political change. Moore seizes on this insight and makes it a kind of central theme; both in the film and aloud, at the press conference, he wondered whether some essential and unrecognized change has occurred in the American character.
“I hope this film engenders discussion, not just about healthcare, but about why we are the way we are these days,” Moore told us. “Where is our soul? Why would we allow 50 million Americans, 9 million of them children, not to have health insurance? Maybe my role as a filmmaker is to go down a road we might be afraid to go down, because it might lead to a dark place.”
Rose Ann Demoro’s column on Sicko from the Huffington Post is also worth a read:
“Sicko” is not just an indictment of an indefensible healthcare industry in the U.S. It’s a rejoinder for those who think we can fix the soulless monster by tinkering with an unconscionable system that puts us further in thrall to those who created the crisis.
Following the screening, Moore put it as simply as possible: the private insurance companies “have to go.”
Unlike too many of our friends in the progressive community, Moore did not go for the easy way out.
There are no calls here for forcing individuals to buy unaffordable, junk insurance. Or handing over ever more tax dollars to those who profit by denying care, and whose biggest accomplishment, says Moore, “is buying our U.S. Congress” to protect their wealth and stranglehold over our health.
To me, it sounds like this is exactly the debate that really needs to happen here instead of looking for ways to provide insurance to the 50 million (50 million!) people who have no insurance at all. Getting rid of the insurance companies altogether for most health needs seems to be the only real — though it’s also the most radical — solution.
As some Canadian reporters pointed out in the press conference at Cannes, the picture Moore paints of Canada in this film, as he did in Bowling for Columbine, doesn’t fully reflect the reality of the challenges faced by the Canadian system.
As in Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore uses Canada as an example of a more humane social system. When a Canadian reporter suggested the portrait of the Canadian medical system was unduly rosy, and wait times for care were long, Moore asked the reporter if he’d trade in his health card to join the American system.
“No,” said the reporter promptly, earning a laugh from the audience.
“Right,” Moore said. “When I look at Canada, the only long line I look at is that you get to live three years longer than we do. … Why does a baby born into Toronto have a better chance of living to his first birthday than a baby in Detroit?
“I would hope you’re a country that’s not offended by a compliment.”
Not at all, Michael. Not at all. Before any Canadians start to gloat, though, it’s important to remind ourselves that these relatively good life expectancies do not apply to Canada’s indigenous peoples, who typically die at a much younger age than the non-native population. We have a long way to go before everyone in Canada gets equal benefits from our medical system. Hopefully, one of the results from the increased dialogue about these various healthcare systems will be more action in Canada to improve accessibility to medical care. We can always do better. And we should be doing a better job than we are in Canada.
1 comment
Absolutely! The only real solution, albeit radical, is to get rid of the insurance.