Message From “The Progress Report” – A SiCKO America

Approximately 45 million Americans lack health insurance. Health care costs are increasing faster than wages, and six in ten insured Americans are "worried about being able to afford the cost of their health insurance over the next few years." But these high prices aren't buying the world's top care. Even while U.S. health spending per capita is higher than any other country, America is not necessarily the best country in which to get sick. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore highlights the deficiencies in the U.S. system in his new movie, SiCKO, which opens nationwide on June 29. Moore travels to Great Britain, France, Canada, and Cuba, comparing the accessibility and costs of those systems with health care in the United States. He finds that his own country often comes up short for Americans who can't always afford high premiums. "Every American has a human right to know that when he gets sick, he can go to the doctor without worrying if he can afford it," Moore said. Moore recently spoke with Oprah about America's broken health care system, which you can view at link below, along with clips from the film. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/16/michael-moore-talks-health-care-crisis-with-oprah/

Moore and SiCKO Are a Hit at Congress
Brian Beutler, Media Consortium
http://www.alternet.org/movies/54898/

Michael Moore Attacks the Grotesque Profit Motive of the US Health Care System
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/54639/

Inside “SiCKO” - EMT with Role in film says: Health care system's gotta be cured
BY JOHN GRAHAM

Lost in all the talk about Cuba and the controversy surrounding my trip there as part of "Sicko" is what really matters in all of this - how we treat people in this country. I worked at Ground Zero on the days after 9/11 with thousands of other men and women from in and around New York. Many of us contracted debilitating illnesses because of our work there. When we asked for help, we were ignored by almost everyone - everyone except Michael Moore. So when people ask what I think of Michael's new film, and especially the man himself, one thing comes to mind: He's brave.

Time and again, he's exposed issues in a provocative manner. In addition to exposing facts about our health-care industry, "Sicko" is a call to action to break the industry's death-grip on our society. I think all of us can agree that the health- care system in this country is broken. We can also agree that it's not the government that broke it; it's the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies. So when they come out and try to scare us about universal health care, it's nothing more than another dishonest attempt to keep raking in riches on the backs of the working people who make this country great.

I'm no filmmaker or film reviewer, but I can tell you that watching "Sicko" is an explosive experience. I know what I've gone through since 9/11 because I experienced it, but the rest of the film is almost unbelievable to me. How can we live in the richest country in the history of the world and simply ignore the tens of millions without health insurance? How can we live in a country where the care you receive is at the whim of pencil pushers at insurance companies whose bonuses are tied to the number of claims they deny? It just doesn't make sense.

More than that, though, is the fallacy that government health care won't work. Insurance companies and their lobbyists in Washington have gone through great pains for decades to save their own bottom lines, even at the expense of American lives. The fact is that if the government can provide police and fire protection, public libraries, the postal system and a host of other services that we all need, why can't it provide health care? If we take the profit out of the system, the only thing it will focus on is treating people. Isn't that what a health care system should be doing?

If you've ever been without health insurance, if you've ever had a claim for care questioned by someone at a desk, if you've ever watched a loved one suffer while your insurance company "decided" whether to cover them, or even if you've never had anything like this happen to you, it can. It does. And it might. And so you need to run to see "Sicko."