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SiCKO
Michael Moore’s most important work
I got to see an advance copy of Michael Moore’s latest documentary, “SiCKO”
tonight, and it’s an utterly extraordinary film.
We all knew the American medical system was broken. But how did Americans, who
boasted just a generation ago of being the freest and strongest people on earth,
fall into the clutches of vicious, depraved sociopaths, the moral and emotional
cripples who run our insurance companies, our HMOs, the pharmaceutical
companies, and our hospitals. How did we let them turn the Congress and White
House into puppets, willing to endlessly sell out the American people so outfits
like Kaiser Permenante and GlaxoSmithKline could augment already huge profits?
Moore doesn’t have a simple answer, but notes that debt is the instrument used
to make Americans docile, cowed, and dependent. And what better way to make sure
they are permanent debt serfs than by putting their most basic needs at the
mercy of for-profit enterprises, and then telling those enterprises to feast,
and the government would protect them from any objections by their victims.
Moore travels to Canada, to the UK, to France, and to Cuba, seeking to discover
why Americans are so afraid of what the insurance companies call “socialized
medicine” and if the horror stories are true. They aren’t. Of the four
countries, only Cuba has a lower rating for health services from the World
Health Organizations (39th, compared to America’s 37th) and that is due to the
fact that Cuba, largely due to American actions, is an impoverished third world
nation. And despite that, infant mortality is lower, and life expectancy
slightly higher. In the developed nations of Canada, the UK and France, the
differences are astronomical. He cites a study that I wrote an essay upon last
year, in which a study of middle-aged white males in America and the UK showed
that there was a shocking difference in the number and severity of health
problems between the two groups, with British males showing rates of diabetes,
heart problems, cancer and other diseases as low as one third that of their
American counterparts. And as I noted at the time, one in four of the British
subjects lived in London in the 1950s, with a poisonous atmosphere loaded with
particulates, and survived that to engage in the legendary British fondness for
ale and fags. And they are still healthier and live longer than their American
counterparts.
After examining the incredibly good medical care France provides its citizens
(the doctors make house calls, and home health assistants will even come to the
house and do a new mother’s laundry!), Moore asked rhetorically why Americans
were told they should hate the French. The answer, he suggested, was that in
France, the government fears the people, and not the other way around.
The movie has more than its share of startling moments, and Moore, maturing as a
documentarian, has learned to step back and let events speak for themselves. One
such startling moment is the exact moment (to the second) when the nightmarish
medical system that burdens Americans was born, when Erlichman is caught on one
of the secret tapes briefing Nixon on HMOs. “I’m not too keen on these medical
plans” a dubious Nixon says. “Well, these are private. For profit.”, Erlichmann
replies. “I like that.” says Nixon, and the next day gives a major policy speech
in which he promises, blinking rapidly, that America is on the verge of a fair
and generous plan and that everyone will get the best medical care in the world.
One of the most affecting moments comes when 9/11 rescue workers, suffering a
variety of ailments caught after that murderous son of a bitch Guiliani told
them it was safe, were ferried by Moore to Guantanamo Bay for “the same medical
care they give the evil-doers of al Qaida.” Chased away from the American gulag,
they go to Cuba itself, where they are given batteries of tests, and receive
diagnoses and treatments. (One woman with pulmonary fibrosis is stunned to learn
that the inhaler she pays $120 for in the US in Cuba costs – a nickel.) After,
they are invited to visit a Cuban fire station, where the local firefighters
want to honor the heroes of 9/11. As with Katrina, Cuba was ready to help as
needed for 9/11, and both times, the wizened, cowardly little gnomes of the GOP
turned them back, fearing that Cuban generosity and kindness might make them
look bad. Far better that thousand of Americans die than that they suffer mild
embarrassment.
The political climate has changed. When Fahrenheit 911 came out, our local movie
theater was afraid to show it, and we perforce had to drive some seventy miles
to Ashland to see it. And even there, in an enlightened college town, home to
America’s greatest Shakespearean festival, the movie theater saw fit to put up a
disclaimer stating that the movie was being shown by wide public demand, and
that they had the right to show it.
This time, the local theater will be showing “SiCKO”, albeit a week after
everyone else. And I suspect that a lot of the people who objected to “F911"
will be going to see it, because they have suffered just as much under the
present bankrupt and corrupt system as everyone else.
Mike, if you’re reading this, I still plan to got to the movie theater and plunk
down my $8 and watch it. Only now, I’ll be able to listen to see how the
audience reacts, and talk to people afterward and get their reactions.
That is going to be far more important than anything I could possibly write
here. I think I know what reaction the movie will provoke, I think I know what
reaction you wanted to provoke. I just hope you succeeded.
In France, the government fears the people. In England, Thatcher backed away
from privatizing health care, noting it would cause a revolution. Even in
Canada, a country noted for its comparatively temperate politics, we were taught
as kids to shout questions and cat calls at elected officials, and call them to
account in any way we could. My small “l” liberal family taught me that I should
hold the feet of the NDP candidate just as firmly to the fire as the Progressive
Conservative.
I think you want people to be outraged and demand reform, Mike.
But more then that, I think you want them to stop being afraid, to throw off the
shackles of economic slavery that insurers, employers, and politicians have
placed on everyone in America, and over turn this vile, vicious, greedy system
and give Americans the self-reliance and self-respect that is their birthright.
And most important, you think Americans are ready to do that.
I think you’re right.
Thank you, Mike, and I hope everyone goes to see your film.
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