Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’ Leaves Top Democrats Ill at Ease
WASHINGTON - With the release of Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” a movie once again is adding sizzle to an issue that’s a high priority for liberal politicians - this time comprehensive health insurance for all. But unlike Al Gore’s film on global warming, which helped rally support on an equally controversial problem, “Sicko” is creating an awkward situation for the leading Democratic presidential candidates.
Rejecting Moore’s prescription on healthcare could alienate liberal activists, who will play a big role in choosing the party’s next standard-bearer. However, his proposal - wiping out private health insurance and replacing it with a massive federal program - could be political poison with the larger electorate.
At a special screening in Washington this week, politicians, lobbyists, media pooh-bahs and policy junkies flocked to see Moore’s film. And its slashing demand for action on an issue that voters care deeply about, and Democrats hope to capitalize on, generated plenty of buzz. Moore hopes that, after its general release June 29, “Sicko” will exert significant influence on the presidential campaign.
Instead of greeting the film with hosannas or challenging it head-on, however, the leading Democratic presidential candidates have sidestepped direct comment on Moore’s proposals.
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of South Carolina all have staked out positions sharply at odds with Moore’s approach. But none of them is eager to have that fact dragged into the spotlight.
If Moore’s fire-breathing proposal catches on among party activists, who tend to be suspicious of the private sector and supportive of direct government action, the candidates’ pragmatic, consensus-seeking ideas could look like weak-kneed temporizing - much the way their rejection of an immediate pullout from Iraq has drawn heated criticism from antiwar activists.
In “Sicko,” the filmmaker calls for abolishing the insurance industry, putting a tight regulatory collar on pharmaceutical companies and embracing a Canadian-style government-run system.
Advocacy groups are already planning to use the film to pressure the Democratic hopefuls.
“The candidates haven’t sensed the political fever in this country that fundamental change is called for in the healthcare system,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Assn. “What we are going to do is call on the candidates to reconsider their positions.”
Stoking the passions of rank-and-file Democrats for a government takeover of the healthcare system amounts to political folly, respond some liberal veterans of Washington’s healthcare battles.
“To presume that the private sector is going to sit idly by to see the destruction of private coverage I think is a misreading of reality,” said Ron Pollack of the advocacy group Families USA. “I think the presidential candidates understand that if healthcare reform is going to have a chance of success, it will require bipartisanship and a balance of public and private coverage. It cannot be the triumph of one ideology over the other.”
Such a blending increasingly seems to be taking place in major federal and state programs, including Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicare. As employer-sponsored health insurance shrinks, insurance companies have reinvented themselves as managers and middlemen for government programs, said UC Berkeley health economist James Robinson.
For example, more than 60% of Americans enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor, are now in some form of managed care, compared with fewer than 25% in the mid-1990s. In California, Medicaid is known as Medi-Cal.
“Whatever mix of private and public sources will increase the number of people with coverage, the insurance companies would like it to be managed by them,” Robinson said in a recent interview. “They can work with Medicare, they can work with Medicaid, they can work with employers, they can work with whomever.”
There’s little room for such nuanced partnerships in “Sicko.” If there’s a villain in the movie, “the villain is called the health insurance industry of America,” Moore told a Capitol Hill rally Wednesday. To laughter and applause, Moore said he hoped the film would turn into a “going-away present” for industry lobbyists.
“Sicko” uses the wrenching stories of individual Americans to compare some of the worst failings of this country’s system with a rosy perspective on healthcare in Canada, Britain, France and even Cuba - a country that offers healthcare for all but also imprisoned a doctor in the late 1990s for speaking out against government failure to respond to an epidemic of a mosquito-borne virus.
Moore investigates the dumping of hospital patients on skid row in Los Angeles. He tells the story of a middle-class couple from Colorado who lost their home and had to move in with their adult children because of medical bills, even though they had insurance. A particularly sobering episode involves a Missouri family in which the father is denied a medical procedure that might have saved him from cancer.
Filmgoers also meet an uninsured American who accidentally sawed off two of his fingertips and had to choose which one to have reattached, because he couldn’t afford to do both. Moore juxtaposes that story with that of a young man in Canada who lost five fingers in an accident and had them all reattached - without having to pay.
“It’s quite effective, [but] it’s not a documentary,” Robert D. Reischauer, one of Washington’s leading health policy experts and a supporter of coverage for all, said after viewing the movie.
“Policy propaganda,” he called it.
For most Democratic presidential candidates (Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio advocates a government single-payer program), it’s more like a headache.
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
I can’t wait to see the film. Policy Propaganda is what is being fed to us on a daily basis. Solutions that sound good on the surface and with deeper study reveal they are most beneficial to corporate greed that the majority of all politicians are benefiting from either by private investments or political contributions.
For more of my Modern Musings www.taureandevi.blogspot.com
Please go see SICKO opening weekend - June 29th. We need movies like this to do well so people will continue to make and invest in films that talk about real issues and can really make a difference.
“Top Dems’ are committed to blocking real health care reform. All of their reform plans have as the key part of their design the protecting of the insurance companies, HMO’s and big pharma.
Mike Moore is worried about what’s happening to Americans. “Top Dems” couldn’t care less and only worry about the big companies that feed them big bucks.
All documentaries are propaganda. They all have their own perspective. Ask yourself why “The March of the Penguins” makes absolutely no mention of global warming or fishing and it’s effect on the penguin population. The answer is not because this is not a significant factually based problem, but because it would offend the conservatives who got behind that documentary in a big way. Michael Moore’s movies have a particular worldview and should be viewed with a hermeneutic of suspicion to that worldview, but so should all other so called documentaries.
Of course, the healthcare/insurance industry will fight back with its usual tactics. What the politicians miss is that people are not asking for universal health insurance, they are clamoring for universal healthcare. What single payer does is pool the resources of the commons to provide universal healthcare rather than pool the resources and give them to private companies in order to have a substantial percentage siphoned off for profits, shareholder dividends and CEO salaries, not healthcare.
Debate moderator: Senator Clinton (or insert candidate name here), this is a two part question: First, do you accept campaign contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries? Second, why do you feel that it is morally justifiable for insurance companies to make huge profits off the sick and dying while providing no service in return but layer after layer of bureaucracy and interference between healthcare providers and their patients, especially in the areas of treatment options and medications?
Senator Clinton (or insert candidate name here): Well …
Access to quality health care is a basic human right.
I can see a day when the USA privatizes access to oxygen…and those that cannot afford to pay can go suck methane
While the practical political value of this film is problematic given the power of the health care and insurance lobbies, hopefully it will give Americans pause to think of what their government actually does for the majority of its citizens compared to other countries whose governments operate according to more humane and socialistic principles.
Perhaps people will begin to question a system that is fundamentally corrupt, buoyed as it is by the big money of corporate capitalists who use a supposedly democratic system to benefit themselves at the expense of most people.
Edwards could really shine if he changed his healthcare platform to single payer. So could Clinton and Obama.
They should refund every dollar in campaign contributions from the healthcare industry and then tell us they don’t support a single payer government run system. We should demand it. The time to change this system is now.
Thank you Michael Moore–all is forgiven for your sophmoric 911 film. It is time for all Democratic candidates to declare if they are for single-payer, universal GOVERNMENT RUN health care. (which means that the insurance company leeches are going to have to find more constructive ways of making extortionate bets with Americans like at casinos, race tracks, and Jai Lai frontons!)
Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers, are you listening?–speak up with clarity and conviction on this issue!!
I’ve always felt there’s got to be a special circle of hell for people who get rich by soaking money out of people who are sick and hurting and desperate for care and help.
Uh, “political poison with the larger electorate.” Are you fucking insane? The “larger electorate” would approve of a comprehensive national health care program in a heartbeat.
There has to be an insurgency within the Democratic party. It won’t happen in one election cycle but progressives have to stop putting themselves behind third parties and decide to take the Democratic party away from the current interest groups that dominate American society.
Ralph Nader is correct in saying that the two parties increasingly resemble each other - this is true as far as economics (letting corporations run everything, even government) and foreign policy(maintaining a Cold War-style global defense system).
Democrats greatest strength would be economic populism, if we could manage to get the party away from people like the Democratic Losership Council, it could mean an America with truly diverse ideas and debates. Maybe people would actually start voting again.
“To presume that the private sector is going to sit idly by to see the destruction of private coverage I think is a misreading of reality,” said Ron Pollack of the advocacy group Families USA.
To presume that the public sector is going to sit idly by while the private interests of a few barbaric parasites INSURE the debilitation and destruction of WE THE PEOPLE is a misreading of reality.
The American people have been at or near 70% in favor of universal health care for over 30 years now. The audacity of our presumptive Representatives in saying there is insufficient “political will” to get it done is getting old…and dangerous.
When even hard-core naval-gazers like my sister, who has no interest in anything she doesn’t see in her mirror, are up in arms about this subject…you know “the times they are a-changing.”
The monthly cost of inadequate insurance to cover the average family is equal to a house payment; and still going up. Even then, most claims will be denied.
People are mad as hell! If the “political analysists” don’t wake up to that REALITY soon, we may just wind up with another kind of civil war. Maybe a few weeks of mowing their own lawns and scrubbing their own toilets will help them see the light.
Don’t forget: It was just last week that a woman died, in the EMERGENCY ROOM, while the janitor mopped the floor around her and none of the medical staff would help her!
DEATH TO CORPORATE PERSONHOOD!
BGK
“However, his proposal - wiping out private health insurance and replacing it with a massive federal program - could be political poison with the larger electorate.”
Umm, which “larger electorate” are you talking about? According to a NY Times poll (3/2/07) 78% of Americans would repeal recent tax cuts to provide universal health coverage. Only 18% faced with this choice would keep the tax cuts. 90% said the US health care system needed “fundamental change or total reorganization”. Where’s the poison? News flash, Democrats: that 18% ain’t voting for you anyway.
Republicans will label any attempt to give us universal health care as “Socialist” (dont look now pubs but socialist are about all thats left of the “coalitions of the willing)or even “communist” as Moore brought the dreaded Cuba to the discussion.
Lets hope the electorate really wants change.
Vey true Mr. Langley, but this is the LA Times publishing this story. The idea that democracy is limited to corporate boardrooms is far, far, “outside the range of allowable discourse” as Chomsky would say. So they have to say the people would be against it. And, to the extent that they will be, once the corporatons are done with their billions of dollars worth of brainwashing, they are right.
Technological developments in our society have kept moving, though our infrastructure is crumbling and our “rights” are based on old piece of parchment…good job, government!
“…if healthcare reform is going to have a chance of success, it will require bipartisanship and a balance of public and private coverage.”
And here’s how it’ll work: if you can afford it, you pay for it. If not, you’re covered by the state. If you can afford it and try to rip off the state anyway, you get your ass beat. Just like unemployment insurance - most never collect, but it’s there god forbid. If you’re caught defrauding UI, you go to jail and lose the right to file.
Now, please, those who can afford health insurance, please whine about how unfair it is that others aren’t paying their own way. We know - it’s not your fault their daddies didn’t leave them the keys to the vault…
If I had to choose which finger to be reattached, I would unhesitatingly choose the middle finger, as that is the one which would get the most use in our present political climate.
Well. Well. Whadd’ya know? The writer actually farted out the Kucinich name at the very end. Of course there’s no coverage that he’s been preesing for Single Payer FOR YEARS!
Wake up, Americans-allegedly-seeking-the-country-the way-”We The People-deserve-it-to-be! Stop fooling around arguing the “top tier” like the media wants you to and SERIOUSLY GET BEHIND KUCINICH!
As he once famously said, “I’m very much electable–if you vote for me”!!! His Kucinich/Conyers health plan is only one of MANY things this man can do for US! PLEASE, help him do it by suopporting him no matter the jokes, ignoring, or poo-poo-ing this Great Leadr is subject to.
this article is a great example of how the MSM is going to frame this debate: it’ll be a tough political sell b/c the MSM will make goddam sure that it is, and we’ll only get a public-private partnership (universal health insurance) b/c the privates (corporations) want their billions, and the MSM ain’t gonna challenge that.
Kucinich has my vote even if I have to write his name in on my ballot.
BigNoseKate said it and I think it shoud be repeated,
“To presume that the public sector is going to sit idly by while the private interests of a few barbaric parasites INSURE the debilitation and destruction of WE THE PEOPLE is a misreading of reality.”
“The American people have been at or near 70% in favor of universal health care for over 30 years now. The audacity of our presumptive Representatives in saying there is insufficient “political will” to get it done is getting old…and dangerous.”
COMarc, “I’ve always felt there’s got to be a special circle of hell for people who get rich by soaking money out of people who are sick and hurting and desperate for care and help.” [and for the politicians both Republicans and Democrata who enable them]
Anyone who has read the Bible knows that Saint Peter was a communist and that Jesus was concerned about how we treat the least among us. It’s going to take a whole lot of forgiveness for those “barbaric parasites” not to end up in a bad place.
Why not work on extending Medicare to all Americans. That makes it a joint effort between government and private insurance companies. Anyone who thinks private insurance companies alone are capable, or willing, to solve the problem of the uninsured, is on too much medication. The reality is that government has a major role to play in this dilemma, and we better wake up to that fact.
Turn the entire health care system over to the U.S. nuns! They run tight, efficient, caring, CLEAN and well managed hospitals and don’t take any B.S. from anyone!! Make it non-profit, with the People owning the hospitals, pharmaceutical companies etc. The insurance companies can just pack it up and go home.
I was given a “Health Security Identification Card” for “Complete Care” many years ago. On the back side of the card it says: This card WILL entitle you to…Lifelong doctor and hospital care, Your choice of any doctor, hospital, HMO or clinic, Longterm nursing and home health care, Prescription medicine, Health services guaranteed to all U.S. residents….IF the Federal Government or your State enacts a universal, publicly funded Health Care Program. MAKE THIS CARD VALID!!
Too bad the card was a JOKE. Just like my “Official backseat driver’s card”.
The bias of this article is really important to understand because it proves just how deep immorality resides the press. Given the connection between MSM and corporate heathcare, more items using similar rhetorical styles can be expected. The polls cited clearly indicate the public understands the primary mission given the USG in the Constitution’s Preamble–”to promote the general Welfare.”
The L.A. Times, “Liberal” media?????
Just look at the mention they had of Cuba imprisoning a doctor. Holy crap. Why do they not mention Cuba sent the most doctors to earthquake ravaged Pakistan, and offered to send doctors in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (which the US denied).
They mention how he paints a “rosy picture” of other systems, but fail to mention why… They are ranked ahead of us in mostly all Health Care rankings.
Others have pointed out the “electorate poison” which should be more accurately called “media poison”. I believe in Chomsky’s Failed States he cites a poll that 51% of Americans would approve of universal single payer EVEN IF it meant taxes went up.
This is going to be a fun, and at the same time frustrating summer.
See my earlier but very similar plan complete with funding, at:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/opedne_
professo_070314_why_we_need_to_have_.htm
and
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_
professo_070201_a_comprehensive_heal.htm
Most of the democratic “leadership”??? are nothing but Republicaqn Lite. With the exception of Kucinich, who is not one of the favored Democrats, the pretty much BELONG TO THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY. Unless someone like Al Gore runs (perhaps with Kusinich as a running mate, we will get more of the same compicated mess we currently have disquised as Universal health care only even MORE of our money will go to the insurance co., big pharma etc. When will those in power, from whichever party, realize that “socialism” is not communism. The most popular government programs ever (and some of the most efficient) are “social”security and medicare. In fact, abuses in Medicare are generally greedy doctors who scam the system, and the insurance companies who try to cheat the people who pay them money. First elect Gore, Kucinich or whoever. Then let them go on National television and address the American people to FLOOD the offices of their congressmen and senators and demand a single payer, gov. run system be passed, or as one person suggested, expand Medicare to cover everyone. The best way to bypass the slime on K-Street is to go directly to the voters and let them TELL their elected officials to vote for the interests of the people, not the corporation, or replace them with someone who will.
Leading Democratic candidates upset with Moore’s film? GOOD! Kucinich is the one candidate proposing what needs to be done–Medicare for all. Most Americans want this.
The Dems need to pass public financing for all elections, no exceptions for folks with private fortunes or rich friends/donors. They, and Republicans who don’t like the current system either, could then be free — FREE — of influence from corporate lobbyists who now have more say (they say “access to present their information”) in legislation than we do.
Public financing would make it easier to pass universal single payer health care BUT IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE NOW AND THEY CAN DO IT IF THEY TRY. THEY ARE JUST NOT LISTENING TO THE PEOPLE.
Isn’t it funny how the obvious solution is seen as extreme or won’t sell with the electorate?
This sheep-like herd mentality keeps everyone in line because nobody wants to seem extreme — except capitalist cheerleaders, religious nuts, hyper-jingoist nuts and the whole Republican Party which has dismantled good government by its extreme positions and actions.
Maybe people are just too stupid to be helped.
it’s every man and woman for themselves. america has no social conscience. here comes them damn commies again.
Michael Moore position best represents my opinion about health care. How can we expect meaningful reform when profit making corporations are allowed to stand between us and our doctors? Insurance companies demand an ever growing amount of profit and that strips money away from the system as a whole. They’ve had their hands in our pockets for so long that they and they alone have bankrupted our nation’s entire medical system. Private medical insurance as a national health care policy is a poorly designed scam. We need it to stop, now.
Awaken…
Not only stupid but FEARFUL of the change they SAY they want–AND STUPID! Cowardice and follow the (STUPID) crowd mentality guarantees bullshit as usual. Kucinich is neither STUPID or a coward!
If all healthcare costs were paid by the government, that would remove a big financial burden from those US companies that are paying for it for their employees. GM, for instance, while not one of my favorite companies, says that $1000 of the price of every car they make is the cost of health insurance. Pit corporation against corporation, and we have a better chance to win on this issue.
That universal care SHOULD happen: Agreed
That universal care COULD happen: Never say never, but I don’t think it’s likely.
How many hundreds of thousands of US citizens, in addition to millions more world-wide marched to oppose the war on Iraq?
There might be hundreds of thousands, even millions of US citizens willing to march for this issue. A war was started on Iraq. Why should I think there would be a different result this time?
I still write the congress people and support Kucinich and would march if there were marches. So, I am optimistic, just not hopeful.
Here in southern New Mexico a lot of folks do an end run around big pharma/medicine by going to Mexico to fill prescriptions, etc. I’ve seen some damn fine dental work done there too…
There is a good single payer medical system in the US. It is called the Veterans Administration, and under Bill Clinton was put in order by Kenneth Kizer. Until Bush screwed it over by appointing a Friend of George (James Nicholson) as director, it was and still is producing results superior to the Mayo Clinic and the Massachusetts General Hospital. It has been lauded by the New England Journal of Medicine and The Annals of Internal Medicine. VA patients have a longer life expectancy than managed care Medicare patients. Until the aforementioned FoG screwed up its budget so that it couldn’t meet the influx of Iraqi and Afghanistan wounded, it was doing well. The way it was working makes it a good model for what medical care should be for all Americans. But Corporate America hates it, so don’t hold your breath.
I like the idea of playing the corporations against each other. Force them to pay for their employees’ health care or support a single payer system. Given that choice, I bet that only medical insurance companies, for profit hospitals and pharmaceutical corporations back our present system. All the medical people I know despise the present system.
It’s more than simply that the medical industrial complex has it’s greedy fingers in everybody’s “candidate-finger-puppet” inner workings, it’s how they got the ability to get there.
One of the greatest Constitutional F*&k-ups was when the Supreme Court determined that corporations hold the same powers of citizenship and voice as each individual citizen.
Corporations can behave as a single taxpayer/person/voter/citizen, not that any of them actually PAY TAXES!! THAT little ditty has to be repealed/truncated… whatever the appropriate term is…
When that change occurs, we can then begin to start enjoying the rights afforded us. At that point we can actually get them out of our elections, our doctors’ offices, hospitals, etc. and begin to demand that the candidates and (elected?) representatives actually SERVE the public by ensuring that we have appropriate health care–which we deserve. (Remember the term public servant??)
All those companies opting out of employee insurance plans are only joining the prescribed dilemma because it gives them an excuse to “screwge” us for profit and gain for stockholders.
These days it appears that the real battle is stakeholders vs stockholders. It’s actually been going on for quite some time now.
Capitalism is an ugly thing, there’s nothing humane about it.
[quote] “It’s quite effective, [but] it’s not a documentary,” Robert D. Reischauer, one of Washington’s leading health policy experts and a supporter of coverage for all, said after viewing the movie. “Policy propaganda,” he called it. [unquote]
Takes a propagandist to know a propagandist.
This so-called “sharing” between public and private is an even bigger disaster waiting to happen. One only has to read up on the history of health care in Canada, Britain, and other countries that now have universal health care. It creates a two-tiered system, and guess which tier gets the health care.
Lunafish and big-nosed Kate–Good points about the personhood of inanimate corporations before the law. Their “personhood” needs to be terminated right now.
A personal anecdote: I’m self employed and I have a high end ($$$) health plan.Several years ago I had a minor stroke, I recovered in minutes and called my doctor. He had me come in and sent me to the hospital for tests. 5 days later I was discharged.
The bill was $33,590. My portion was $13,770. There was no logical explanation of the billing, no rhyme or reason to the insurer’s policy of paying 50% of this or 25% of that. I was billed by Doctors I never saw, labs I was never in. I had specialists examined me and never answered a question I asked. (I got really pissed at one of them one morning as I was watching the Today Show and reading the paper while he was talking to his Residents like I was in a coma…he was an incredible asshole!) It was an unnerving experience.I left the hospital knowing no more than when I arrived.
After over 30k worth of modern America medicine in one of the nation’s most respected hospitals, I had the same explanation of my stroke my Internist had given me an hour after it happened.
I negotiated the insurer down on the bill and saved my self 3,000 dollars. What a country!
Like so many movements, this movement toward universal single payer health care needs to be a bottom-up movement in which the grassroots take over from the established higher ups, who are running away from this issue.
Sicko should help create momentum for the Kucinich campaign. Dennis has been advocating universal single payer for years, which the author of this article conveniently and probably intentionally forgot to mention.
Fascinating. In America we do a better job of regulating and reforming car insurance companies than medical insurance companies. You can guess who has the stronger lobby…
I can’t expect that Moore’s film will force any changes. His films are entertaining, but but there has not been a significant change of policy from any one of his docudramas.
I can only hope that this may have a cumulative effect on the American voters. Maybe he should do a documentary on America’s voting problems too, but then if Americans knew the facts on our stolen elections they probably wouldn’t vote at all.
Michael should have run a bit further with this very interesting fact — Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian health care, baptist minister, and first socialist CCF/NDP) provincial premier of any province or state in North America, is Kiefer Sutherland’s grandfather. Shirley Douglas, Kiefer’s mother, is also an actor and Canada’s most outspoken activist on behalf of defending the Canadian system. Kiefer has also campaigned for the NDP. Check this video: http://www.workingtv.com/mouseland.html
Maybe Kiefer’s mother can prod him to use his Jack Bauer persona for some good for a change.
Rep. John Conyers H.R. 676, which has over 70 co-sponsors, is the best solution to the health care crisis hands down. The incrementalists and the hacks for the insurance lobby do not want to end their pipeline of money, and will work to keep the insurance companies in the game. The insurance companies add nothing to health care, and for-profit business should not be in the business of health care.
Don’t be deceived by those who will play upon the lack of knowledge of Americans and use fear to keep their cash registers ringing.
If one takes the time to read this carefully, one can see a negative bias by looking at the loaded language: “massive” federal program, abolishing the insurance industry (false, only the part of the industry involved in health care, plus look at this extended one-sided diatribe against a government run single payer system:
“To presume that the private sector is going to sit idly by to see the destruction of private coverage I think is a misreading of reality,” said Ron Pollack of the advocacy group Families USA. “I think the presidential candidates understand that if healthcare reform is going to have a chance of success, it will require bipartisanship and a balance of public and private coverage. It cannot be the triumph of one ideology over the other.”
Such a blending increasingly seems to be taking place in major federal and state programs, including Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and Medicare. As employer-sponsored health insurance shrinks, insurance companies have reinvented themselves as managers and middlemen for government programs, said UC Berkeley health economist James Robinson.
For example, more than 60% of Americans enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor, are now in some form of managed care, compared with fewer than 25% in the mid-1990s. In California, Medicaid is known as Medi-Cal.
“Whatever mix of private and public sources will increase the number of people with coverage, the insurance companies would like it to be managed by them,” Robinson said in a recent interview. “They can work with Medicare, they can work with Medicaid, they can work with employers, they can work with whomever.”
This isn’t a new article–its propaganda for the insurance industries.
It is dishearting to see this article recieve top billing on the Common Dreams site.I suggest a trip to Daily Kos to read -”LA Times Hit Piece on SiCKO and American People
by LithiumCola” to see that this is just another example of the typical stuff the ‘liberal’ CMSM puts out.
The picture is clear on Democratic presidential candidates: on issue after issue, Dennis Kucinich is progressive; the others are not.
That is why the mainstream media [read: corporate] either ignore or make fun of him. His agenda does not support corporate hegemony. Instead, it supports the interests of the people.
The most amazing thing about this piece is the grudging afterthought included in parenthesis at its end—-DENNIS KUCINICH AND HIS SINGLEPAYER HEALTH PLAN. What? A mainstream media article actually mentioning Dennis without denigrating him in some way? Must have missed the Politically-Approved Corporatist Editor’s Pen.
Keep in mind that any political candidate who supports universal healthcare will be putting themselves at great physical risk. We have already seen how private corporations led us into an illegal war resulting in over a million deaths (Iraqi’s) so far and still come up with a different excuse each week of why we must remain there.
Only time will tell if Kucinich is a trail blazer or a martyr because if the general population actually ends up being awatre that he exists, then corporate blood sucking insurance companies will be gunning for him big time! FOX and other War Party propaganda machines will demonize him, call him a communist or some other ridiculous misnomer, demand his arrest and basically claim that he’s mad.
Having said that, it’s rare to find such a courageous politician who actually represents majority opinion (the majority always thought that a universal healthcare system run by the government was a good idea!)and willing to put his life at rish with such policies like withdrawing from Iraq immediately, reducing oil imports, impeaching the war party and other actions that must be pursued simply because they’re the morally right things to do.
Kucinich won’t get elected until we also have a mainstream media outlet (with a wide audience that is!)that represents the majority opinion. But because of corportate dependency, no MSM outlet has a chance of even getting into the fray at this point.
Anyone have an idea of how to make commondreams.org required reading for all voters? Yeah…that’s what I thought. I don’t either.
Single payer is the only system that makes sense. Why is there an industry that profiteers off of the health, or lack thereof, of the populace? Profit motive is motive to deny care. Profit motive is motive to minimize care. Profit motive is motive to discourage active, preventive care. Why is there always a middle-man between patient and provider? A middle-man who has veto power over what constitutes proper and prudent medical care. A middle-man who in many cases is not even medically trained. And why is this middle-man so much more aggressive when the patient is poor and not abundantly insured? The wealthiest among us have no concern; what insurance won’t cover, they pay from chump change.
How to keep the pharmaceutical companies from scalping us…
Years ago, doctors and dentists could not advertise. Also, I don’t think the drug companies were allowed to push their drugs in the media either.
I was in the medical field for a very long time. I saw the HUNDREDS of dollars of drugs given to physicians and dentists at each visit while their patients were waiting past their appointed time to see their doctors. Also, drug companies spend BILLIONS of dollars in the media convincing us that we need a purple pill. (What is that? We don’t know but, we think we need it.)
How to save money? Keep the doctors informed as to what is available but don’t GIVE them millions of dollars worth of samples. Pass laws that prohibit drug companies from advertising to little old ladies like me. The cost of needed drugs would go WAY down! And maybe we could afford the purple pill if we really needed it.
You go, Michael! I can’t wait to see what he says about these problems.
No, DEMs cowering in the unAmerican corner, still!
“To presume that the private sector is going to sit idly by to see the destruction of private coverage I think is a misreading of reality, said Ron Pollack of the advocacy group Families USA.”
Michael Moore knows damned well that the private health care industry isn’t going away any time soon; they have too many politicians with their hands out looking for campaign contributions, and therefore, too much power to vanish overnight.
Moore is simply trying to educate the public on how they’re getting screwed, not only by the insurance industry, but by politicians, Rebublicans and Democrats alike, who refuse to place caps on premiums while this industry and many others are gouging us to benefit their shareholders.
Michael Moore is about PEOPLE, not profits.
Trying to create change from within the Democratic Party isn’t going to happen. I’ve been hearing that for a decade now. There was supposedly a big push to do it after the 2000 elections. So, how’s that working out?
And don’t hold your breath waiting for the Dems to pass serious campaign finance reform. Seen any sign of that from Reid and Pelosi? After all, the leaders in Congress set the agenda. What are Reid and Pelosi doing about campaign finance reform? Compare that to how much effort the Dems have spent hitting up lobbyist for money since they took power. Which seems more important to the Dem leaders?
Don’t be fooled into thinking the Democratic Party is a democratic. The leadership seems to be impervious to what the party members think. How many local and state resolutions have there been against the Iraq war? I’ve seen people putting lots of effort into those like they mean something. Its probably easier to count the states where the state Democratic Party hasn’t issued such a resolution. But note the Dem leadership. The day after the election they were promising in the MSM that war funding would not be cut. And they’ve delivered on that promise.
The Democratic presidential nominations are an example of what a rigged game the Democratic Party is. All the rules favor the candidates supported by big money. The Dems could use any clean election rules they want in what is considered to be an internal party contest. They just can’t go above the limits in federal law. But they could use any clean election or equally funded candidate rules they want. Do they? Or do they keep their nomination race as wide open to big money as they can keep it? And look at the calendar. Its got all the big states jammed into one brief spree of votes. That favors the candidates with the big money to bombard a state with ads. It handicaps a grassroots campaign that needs to build momentum. And even if a candidate like Kucinich overcomes all of that and gets the most votes, there’s still 800 “super-delegates” at the convention that are unelected Dem party hacks. So Kucinich probably needs 60% to win instead of 50% because if its close the party hacks will line up with his opponent.
So, given all of that, and the extreme tilt of the Democratic party rules to favor big money, is it any surprise that all the people considered to the be frontrunners by the MSM have health-care plans that do more to protect insurance and HMO profits than to help Americans? Heck, I think Edwards even goes so far as to try to say that the answer is to FORCE everyone to buy from the insurance companies. That’s how to make money, pay a politician to pass a law that forces people to be your customers. Cute.
Nope, we’ve seen in the last decade that trying to work to change the Democratic party is a waste of time, money and energy. The leadership in entrenched, they don’t give a damn what their party members actually think, and they rig the rules in their favor to make sure they stay in power. The only alternative is to go create a third party and then hope that most of the sheep\voters who keep voting Democrat in the illusion that they are an opposition wise up when there is consistently, election after election, a party committed to the interests of ordinary Americans instead.
I did office work in hospitals for several years. There is a massive and ruthless lobby to stop socialized medicine, and it includes money from the pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly (George Bush family), Pfizer Chemical (which used to specialize mostly in garden fertilizers and farm animal medicines, but now makes pills for people), and the Hotel-Restaurant owner & mgmt corporations that own increasingly more American hospitals…. McMedicine for the McMasses. Add the horrifically corrupt insurance companies and you have a cesspool of corporate greed…. the lobby against tax-financed not-for-profit health care…. it’s a giant ogre to battle and it includes the Bush family. Some greedy conservative Democrats cash in too…. Vote Them Out. The guilty parties are predominantly Republican, COMarc (strikes out again with enemy propaganda). I agree with those above who said America can only likely expect, in the near future at least, a hybrid of private-public health care, because the pharm/hotel-restaurant/insurance corporations are too entrenched right now…. encourage them gradually to ‘invest’ in something less critical to life, unless they are bent on genocide. Socialized medicine often provides superior health care because they are motivated by service and compassion rather than profit margins for the corporate investors to skim off the top.
Of course the insurance industry is willing to talk to anyone and manage anything given to them–they want profits. It is these profits that make the single-payer healthcare pay for itself. This article is more propaganda for the insurance industry.
In reading this thread, I am aware of several interesting, at least to me, ideas having arisen. The concept of its requiring a mediated compromise between the insurance-based “healthcare” system and a single payer plan is fallacious. We (the U.S.) didn’t require a mediated compromise between democracy and occupation in Iraq. We just sent Shock and Awe upon the people of Iraq without asking them what they wanted. I propose we do the same to the insurance companies who resist single-payer healtcare in the name of greater profits and their survival. We shut them down and take their financial assets(as we are doing with oil in Iraq) to initiate the single-payer plan. We could declare a moratorium on additional taxes for the people of the U.S. for a time as the surplus from the billionaire medical insurers would cover most of the transition. We could even provide “welfare” payments to those people who lost their jobs in the insurance business so they could get retraining for more productive jobs. Extreme, you say? Well, isn’t what we are doing in the name of “democracy” around the world rather extreme? I think that by developing a form of genuine healthcare that focuses more on health than on care, we create a better society for all of us. What it costs to treat disease vs. what it costs to prevent it is a monumental savings in not only money, but in the quality of life the results. This is a huge essay which is just being developed here. I hope that you who are reading this are not taking it too seriously, but allowing it to stir your own creative juices as to solutions to the current crisis facing humanity in all areas, not just the medical/industrial/corporatist complex. And, yes, I support Dennis K. His ideas and his presentation are so life-sustaining that it boggles the mind that reasonable people cannot feel the truth in what he is saying. He is so far ahead of the curve that it may take a cataclismic domestic tragedy to open the eyes of the blind leading us and those being led.
One other idea that struck me about the present system: it is very similar to what religion did to the teachings of the Spiritual Masters who have arisen through the ages. Middlemen, and it is mostly men, created the belief that they were necessary to instruct the ignorant on the blessings of the god of their creation. The insurance companies are the religious “leaders” who tell us how we should use the medical institutions and tools. They tell us they know better than we how to get the best of the technology. And, they make sure that those health practitioners who teach self-responsibility for individual and community health are marginalized as charlatans and snake-oil salesmen.
Just some food for thought.
St John
Funny how a sensible, public closed system universal health care which would better identify health problem sources, including environmental, dietary, etc. isn’t considered part of American security in the fullest sense, yet Bush tried pushing for large scale small pox vaccines from his buddies. Our largest industries spew and create poisons and toxins and have prevented the field of environmental medicine from taking a strong foothold in our country. Obscene.
The private sector is working hard agaist the health and well-being of the American people (yes, I know it’s a no-brainer). Call it treason. A wasteful “Health Care ” System better called a Drug & Hospitalization Reimbursement System.
The corporate Democratic Leadership Council which holds sway in the Democratic Party, should be called on their allegiences.
As for Michael Moore, here’s a guy who’s been speaking out for ordinary Americans for well over a decade. I know which side he’s on and the side Bush and too many Democrats are on. As Florence Reece said, ” Which Side Are You On?”
Zoya said,”this so-called ’sharing’ between
public and private is an even bigger disaster waiting to happen. One only has to read up on the history of health care in Canada, Britain, and other countries that now have universal health care. It creates a two-tiered system, and guess which tier gets the health care.”
Having lived in Canada, I can say it works quite well after being improved over time. Same is true in England.
I favor single payer universal health care. Insurance companies take too much out of the premiums for administrative costs that benefit no one.
The Medical Industrial Complex is not going to let it happen without the fight of our lives, for our lives. In third world countries ,without health care people just die in the streets, and it seems to happen here a lot now. Mental patients die in jails or on the streets for lack of care. These greedy bastards do not care who they kill, just as long as they make money. No money or you spent it all on health care ,too bad. Die you dumb bastard ,die. You were not smart enough or greedy enough to provide for the needs of the money eating monster called health care in this country. I live in an area that is growing and you should see the cut throat competition that goes on between 3 hospitals for patients. They keep building new and grander specialty services as they cry poverty. But try and get care and they can not help you unless you have the best insurance. Now I was a nurse for many years and we nurses never knew who had insurance or how the bills were paid, for it did not affect care. No patient was discharged unless we knew they had a home or someone to care for them. We called social services if we needed help and we often did ,but we did not abandon patients as hospitals do on a regular basis now. The infrastructure of social services no longer exists. It was was gutted due to funding shortfalls, in the 80’s and 90’s because no one thought it was necessary. I had to leave nursing because my heart could not take the callousness of corporate run hospital’s . The Medical Industrial Complex is more deadly than the military industrial complex and even more ruthless. So prepare for the fight of our lives and there are no politicians except one or two who will fight the money grubbing hordes.
NEWSFLASH!! to Epona and others who discuss “elections” and “voting” (including yourstruly in the past)….
There will be NO “free” and “fair” elections in this country until “We the People” count the votes AND eliminate computerized voting. IF we honestly feel there is someone to vote for, we will have to vote ABSENTEE and XEROX our ballots if we ever hope for our votes to be counted.
And of course all this is not to mention the probability that before the 2008 election there will be another “9-11″ and the elections will be “postponed” for “national security” reasons.
I hate to be so cynical, but….reality checks can be…oh….so….revealing….!
It’s time for all of us who value freedom and the Constitution (and single payer national health care!) to go on the political “offensive”. There is no other choice.
I have heard that even Iran, whose government the U.S. is so eager to change, provides health and medical insurance for all. Better change the regime in the U.S.
Socialized healthcare works. Maybe some things should be socialized and some privatized. Who counts the votes is what counts and who decides which functions should be socialized or privatized is also what counts. The Repugs and Dims want corporations to decide what counts. Mike Gravel and the Greens want you to decide.
The equation is simple: as long as TV ads are perceived to be the most important factor in a political campaign, candidates are going to feel they have to raise lots of money for their campaigns. When the polls show that TV ads have no relation to popular awareness of candidates, then the wealthy corporations will have much less clout.
It is obvious, even before the Sicko film, that single payer would be much more efficient and humane than our current system. If our elected officials cannot demonstrate their willingness to turn away from the insurance companies, by all rights they should be defeated at the polls. We shall see.
Democrats all jumped ship to Gore’s proclamation of Global Warming in the movie An Inconvenient Truth, which he narrated. That is because Gore’s advocating more money making scheme where people like him will be able to cash in on all the cap and trade scheme that all capitalist would like to set up. Michael Moore’s single payer proposal goes against all those democrats who have long converted to the idea of privatization of everything, with the gov’t being there to pick up the fallouts. They have been so brainwashed to think that the government can’t be part of the solution, it could only come in to mop up the mess of all the pigs in the throughs.
Gee….If I am not mistaken I believe it was Ralph Nader in both ‘00 and ‘04 who was the only serious Presidential candidate pushing for a Single Payer Universal Health Care System….but since he didn’t have enough money to buy his way into the Corporate Controlled debates no one got to hear his call for SPUHC for all in his wonderful and broad-based independent party platform…… If none of these Democratic knuckle-heads push for SPUHC for all then we should back whomever does regardless of whether you see them as a “spoiler” or not (God, can we get past that obnoxious and politically incorrect term?).
Go Ralph, Go!
mindy
The medical insurance industry in this country isn’t strictly about making profits in the healthcare field. The insurance companies, who deal in one commodity - cash - are a gigantic slush fund for Wall Street. To tamper with their cash flow would affect every company in the country and send the stock market into a well deserved tail spin.
The insurance industry is one of the most powerful forces in US politics because of the massive wealth accumulated through their scam industry. They underwrite the Dims as well as the Repugs. Only Kucinich, Conyers, Gravel and one or two ostracized others have the nerve to support single payer. In opposing it, the Dims illustrate their subservience to the corporate oligarchy. This system is so corrupt that legitimate national elections aren’t even possible at this point. I hope SICKO will open the eyes of enough people to make them realize that an alternative to politics as usual is vital. Now we need a “documentary” on the state of our present electoral process!
It’s too bad Mr Moore has to tell us about something our politicians won’t tell us about.
Sicko just makes clear what analysts and progressives have known for years: private medical insurance adds a 30+% layer of profiteering to a medical system that is already ridden with gouging, cheating, and rascals seeking easy bucks. Where we have had government run systems (education, roads, military, welfare) they have operated quite well, and often better than privately run competitors. It is easier to invigilate government systems to insure honesty and efficiency than to track and clean up the bewildering jungle of private entrepreneurs. Some day the American people will realize they have been thoroughly brainwashed by opponents of “socialized medicine”, and will do what the rest of the world does: set up a centralized, government run system to provide decent medical care to ALL our people.
“whatever Mix of private and public sources will increase the number of people with coverage, the insurance companies would like it to be managed by them.— They can work with employers—— etc
Of course they would, of course they can—- these whores will do anything to keep their ill gotten 30% cut of the cost of health care here. This is the worst of all possible worlds—Public money spent by private interests—–for a price—–As for their lobbyists—- The only answer I can think of is Put a bounty on them.
Granted that the west coast doesn’t recognize anything east of the Rockies as the U.S., and granted that the MSM does not usually give the straight story, please note that John Edwards is the former senator from NORTH Carolina. We are a state as different from the other one as could possibly be, and many of us get highly agitated when lumped together, or confused, with that other one with a similar name.
Hit pieces are pervasive when it comes to Michael Moore. “High-minded” Liberals are particularly generous with their back-handed compliments. See the Salon and Village Voice reviews and also the misguided documentary Manufacturing Dissent for examples of this (especially when anything complimentary is said about Cuba which they particularly despise).
Cultural critics bring up things like his use of old footage or dramatic music or his use of stunts, but am I the only one who finds these amusing or entertaining? If Moore were to incorporate their criticisms, he’d have a boring documentary filled with talking heads spouting the usual “fair and balanced” nonsense.
One thing the Village Voice does bring up is the fact that Moore’s critique of the health care system hints at a much larger critique of American society. However rather than pointing to the “socialist paradise” of Cuba (does Moore really do this beyond simply showing Cubans as human beings that care for other human beings?) he makes the simple observation that we must move from a “Me” society to a “We” society. If critics can’t figure this out, then they obviously have written their little solipsistic reviews with only “Me” in consideration.
At a boy, Michael, give ‘em hell!
I retired to Mexico. One, not the only, reason was cost of living including health care in the U.S. meant that my wife and I would NEVER be able to quit working. While I dont exactly live Social Security check to Social Security check we are fugal. My wife and I both worked in the Medical field before retiring, she a nurse and me in the Lab.
My next door neighbor sold medical insurance in the States before he retired down here. He just built a new swimming pool on his 1/2 block piece of property at a cost of more than $75,000 dollars U.S. and will soon be breaking ground for a new house encircled by gardens and little bridges. His garage is the size of an airplane hanger to hold his two boats, three cars and assorted toys.
Now when you think about it, he made a killing selling medical insurance and his company made a profit on top of his commissions - WHY WHY WHY?
I have always said that the profits that insurance companies and their representatives make is a waste. Add that money back into a universal Health Care system and there would be plenty of $$ to make it the best in the world.
This “expert” on health care policy who attacks Michael Moore’s movie as “propaganda” is no expert, but bet on it, he’s hired gun for the health insurance gang or the neo cons and political prostitute for them. As for as the jack ass who wrote this hatchet job attack on the movie by saying it won’t fly with the people, which is a damn lie, I could say I wouldn’t cross the street to see Richard Gere sex down his wife or wench if he has one for millions of dollars, but actually I would cross the street to sex her down myself for millions to then turn around to give the funds to Michael Moore and his supporters seeking to get out the truth the outrageous rip off called health care coverage in this country which is worst in the industrialized world and the most expensive. Low quality for a high price, kind of the Wal Mart of health care.
Creating a single payer national health care system in this country could be done quite simply. Just put every American from birth to death on Medicare, and make the Medicare benefits cover EVERYTHING including dental and vision with a HUGE emphasis on PREVENTION.
This is a no-brainer. The only thing standing in our way is a lack of political will on the part of the people to MAKE IT HAPPEN!
We need to get off our butts, turn the damn TV off and get together with our neighbors to caucus on this issue (and others!!). Coffee and cookies anyone?
Typical human condition. We do the SAME THING day to day and then wonder why nothing is different in the morning! If we want a different outcome, then we have to MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Remember the song from the 60’s? “Just wishing and hoping and thinking and praying….” Ain’t gonna work.
If we don’t get out and connect with each other beyond these pages, we’re doomed.
Restore Democracy & Bill BRG, good points. Purvis: I recall Gore Vidal stating that the insurance companies were the piggy banks to the large corporations. I almost was unable to buy my current property in Florida due to insurance companies refusing to insure after the deluge of hurricanes that hit the state (seven in total) between 2004-2005. The rates are astronomical.
Top dems sidestepping comment–what else is new?
Ron Pollack says “It cannot be the triumph of one ideology over another.” Why not? We have been living with the triumph of one ideology over another for six years. Nothing’s going to change until the democratic leaders who have a platform - like Pollack and Nancy Pelosi - start playing to win instead of playing not to lose.
Robert D. Reischauer may be “one of Washington’s leading health policy experts and a supporter of coverage for all,” but does he know anything about film-making or for that matter the essay form?
A documentary does not become a documentary until it is effective. It does not become effective until organized by a purpose.
“Sicko” is in the tradition of “The Jungle”
by Upton Sinclair. Effective but “policy
propaganda,” as Reischauer characterizes “Sicko,” is too smarmy a view. The anecdotal material of “Sicko,” which is its essence, both is spontaneous and carries Moore’s argument. It might even carry the day if we would let it.
Reischauer, although a distinguished thinker, is not known for essays as compelling as those of Moore, Swift or Sinclair.
Down with “Top Dems.”
I heard Christie Harvey of the “Center for American Progress” say that Moore “goes to far,” and he is “so unkept, he looks like he smells like hot dogs.” Ms. Harvey and the Center for Progress often do good work, but it was disappointing to hear her dismiss Moore in such a fashion.
In addition to “Sicko,” people will be inspired by http://www.saludthefilm.net It’s about the 100,000 “health care diplomats” Cuba has sent all over the world. Cuba has also opened an international medical school where everyone goes for free, including a few students from impoverished communities here in the US.
It’s interesting how blithely you assume that turning over Medicaid to Managed Care companies is no big deal. I work in the health care field and I can tell you that since HMOs have taken over Medicaid, services to the poor and elderly have gone to hell. I have been reduced to tears trying to get through to HMOs to refer my patients for needed care. Before the HMOs took over, it was so much easier. I called one phone number and always got through to a real person and the referral was made. Now it’s a nightmare. I can’t tell you how heartbreaking it is to see what little in the way of public health care we have is being turned over to profit-making companies whose mission is to make money, not provide health care to poor and elderly patients. This is another example of our tax dollars lining the pockets of corporations. It’s not only sad, it’s criminal.
Brace yourself for a battle. The health care industry is not going to take this precieved assault on their avarice lying down. Too much money is at stake for them. They are buying policians here in Canada to legislate changes to allow for privatization. They have also opened store front think tanks such as the Fraser Institute and National Citizens Coalition and bought up washed up and discredited politicans to lay waste on our much treasured but threatened single payer health system. Use the Michael Moore doc as a launching point and in the words of Kris Kristoferson, ” Don’t let those bastards bring you down.” Remember that in a piss fight, the skunks (health insurance companies) don’t have to win if enough people mobilize! We’re fighting to retain our single payer universal health care system in Canada from coast to coast.
It’s too bad Mr Moore has to tell us about something our so called “news” media won’t.
In any civilization the role of the “news media” should be to inform the people of the important events taking place. The USA’s newsmedia, like the health care and political system have failed miserably, thanks to the unbridled greed of capitalism.
Social democracy with some carefully regulated capitalism will eliminate those problems.
What else can you expect from the LA Times? Calling our system a nuanced partnership is ridiculous. And the ideology of the insurance industry has already triumphed over publicly managed health care so that line is moot. Ron Pollock is clearly an industry flack and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar should be ashamed of himself for writing such industry swill.
As a Registered Nurse in Oregon, I received a mail request from the California Nurses Association asking me to join nurses nationwide in volunteering as hosts at the opening screenings of SiCKO to pass out flyers and inform viewers about Guaranteed Healthcare in America. This is the wonderfully activist organization that chased Arnold Schwartzenegger around the state with picket signs when he impugned nurses for objecting to the rules change about patient/nurse ratios.
So when you see someone handing out information flyers at the theatre, you’re talking to a nurse (maybe me). And by the way, the patient/nurse ratio isn’t about laziness. It’s about having enough time with patients to see a crisis developing, about not being so rushed and stressed that dangerous mistakes get made. All we want to do is protect and care for our patients and help them get well. We shouldn’t have to fight a bureaucracy to do that.
This reporter is subtly undermining both Moore’s film and the healthcare issue by making single payer sound like a communist conspiracy. In fact, we already have single payer in America–it’s called medicare. That’s all we’re asking for, and it’s not a left wing extremist position. The only reason the Democratic candidates are hiding is that they’re all in hock to the drug companies and HMOs. Elect any one of them–Obama, Clinton, or Edwards–and we’ll never get good healthcare in this corporate system.
One should remember that having an underlying single-payer healthcare system doesn’t exclude having a complementary private insurance system. Even here in Europe the private side to healthcare isn’t outright *banned*… and if you make use of it, you get reimbursed to the tune of what the cost would have been on the public side. This kind of a mechanism is important to keep people from complaining that they’re paying for something they might not be using.
Of course the public side needs to be properly funded and taken care of so that it maintains its quality; the conservatives love nothing more than to try to starve the beast and then claim that as it is not able to run on air it just needs to be put out of its misery.
under the heading of “there just comes a time”,i am reminded of the depression era classic “the folklore of capitalism” by trust busting asst atty gen thurman arnold.he related that in order to repair a cratered economy,somethings just had to be done whether the natl association of manufacturers liked it or not.for instance there had to be a broader construction of the commerce clause,or there would be no markets for wingnuts to bitch about.we are in a similar situation regarding health care in this country.our system eats up an intolerable 14.5% of gdp,and does a nakedly unsatisfactory job.private insurance companies have failed because health care is not a commodity,its more properly a human right.the social consequences of continuing to ignore a reality that every other industrial country has long since accepted,are obvious.judge arnold understood that depression era americans were ill served by an 18th century ideological reading of the us constitution.today,we are ideologically straightjacketed by an ideological misunderstanding of the role of the federal gov in providing healthcare.ironically,by continuing on the current calamitous path,we hamstring the very market system NAM,and other wingnut groups are always bragging about.just as during depression times,progressives will have to save the system from its own excesses.
Once a politician “stakes out” a position on this issue, without admitting first and foremost that health care is a universal right, something that is part of the essential bargain a citizenry has with its representatives –that they will look out for our best interests and do as much as possible for us — they cannot have my support, as I will only support a candidate I can trust to seek out and advance my best interests. Other countries provide health care to all of their citizens, and none of the ones that do so have perilous economies as a result. I fail to see how it could harm us and only how it could help us. And that brings us right back around to who universal health care would actually hurt, and who are the “us” that it would actually help. It’s never the same people. It’s never you, is it?
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, whoever he is, should be ashamed of this story. Talk a bout “Sicko” being slanted… He mentions polls/surveys which he alleges support keeping the system as it is, but cites nary a one. I have seen this film. It had me in tears by the end. Michael Moore and Tony Benn, whom he interviewed for the film, have it right. In the U.S. it’s all about “ME” and not about “WE”. Somehow the majority of us have been so totally brainwashed that we have no sense of working for the common good. If we don’t return to that sort of ethic, we are doomed to being the lackeys to the moneyed class. I am hoping this film will come to my community and other small towns where the belief in the status quo by the so-called middle class is so entrenched. It just might wake them up!
I enjoyed reading the opinion of the writer,St. John, who likened our modern day insurance to the ancient spiritual hocus pocus middle men. I believe that Michael Moore tells us the truth. The politicians need bargaining chips to compete for office and to stay there. It is in their best interest to keep us in the dark——just like the medicine men of old.
Corporate money buys the Executive and most leaders in Congress.
No people-oriented problems, like health care, are likely to ever get solved as long as big money owns the government.
A carefully thought-thru system that funds federal primary & general elections with public money is the key to getting a government that works for all of us, instead of just for the rich.
Hard to understand why there’s not more focus on this underlying sine qua non….
The movie is a masterpiece of art and will inspire Americans to become active participants in the movement for peace, social and economic justice. Michael Moore for President!!!!!
Yes, it is about putting people first, and I hope “Sicko” can help people see beyond the billions in false advertising that are about to be spent to defeat any notion of changing the way things are. To see things as they are, no matter how painful that may be, is a sign of maturity. To see the callousness with which our “health care” system treats those who are ill and least able to care for themselves, and to see that other countries do not share this attitude may help create some awareness of how drastic is the need for reform. To go beyond “me and mine first” to realise care for all will take a major shift of American outlook and assumption of responsibility.
Companies are entities created by the state by the act of incorporation. The state has a right - and a duty - to dissolve such entities that behave in ways detrimental to the public good.
Interesting! Once again the media refuses to mention the one presidential candidate who has a progressive stance on the issues, including healthcare. I’m sick of compromizing and voting for the least of two evils. Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the candidate who cares about working class people.
He is willing to discuss the issues, including a living wage, quality & free education - Pre-K to college, campaign finance reform, gun laws & the military industrial complex and a Pentagon level Department of Peace. Forget these Republicrats & listen to the presidential candidate who will work to bring peace with justice and an America in which we may once agin feel proud.
Check him out at: http://kucinich.us/issues
This MSM piece is craftily designed to undermine universal health care by giving way too much voice to the sceptics. Typical.
Hey everyone, you don’t have to be a nurse to get one of Michael Moore’s SiCKO scrub tops. Call 800-745-3090 and you can wear a scrub to his movie and if you go to calnurses.org you can click on “join the SiCKO premiere with RNs” and download handout flyers. It’s not my place to demand people get active, but I encourage everyone to participate in informing the public before the insurance industry does so. This is our chance!
I’m told the scrubs are cut a little on the small side size-wise but they come with a visor for $15 and free shipping.
Got the website for flyers wrong. go to www.guaranteedhealthcare.org to download and print flyers.