Sicko: Michael Moore’s latest epic
p2pnet.net news:- Does America’s health-care system work for most Americans? According to Michael Moore, it doesn’t.
He was at the famous Cannes film Festival in France showing Sicko, his newest political documentary, a “ferocious attack” on the US health care industry, says Associated Press.
Sicko “presents a series of heart-rending anecdotes meant to illustrate systemic failures and foul-ups under the nation’cystss insurance industry – even if many of the major pieces of evidence are ones that have been widely reported elsewhere and in some cases date back 20 years,” says The New York Times.
Sicko will be released in Canada and the US on June 29 with Moore asserting concerns about America’s health care system are second only to the Iraq war.
It’ll be online long before then, of course.
“If the movie results in members of Congress and governors putting this issue squarely on the table as the No. 1 priority, we will be part of that discussion and will welcome it,” the story has said Karen Ignagni, president of Washington trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans stating.
On Sunday, 60 Minutes, “took up a scandal that is part of Mr. Moore’s film – and has been well chronicled in The Los Angeles Times – about the abandonment by Los Angeles hospitals of homeless patients after they have received medical treatment,” the story continues.
“It’s a government that’s funded by the pharmaceutical companies and the health insurers, so I’m not surprised they’re coming after me,” AP has Moore, under investigation by the US Treasury Department for a trip to Cuba for one of the segments, declaring. “I’m surprised they’re doing it so soon. I didn’t think they’d want to draw attention to the movie this early on.”
Substantial parts of of Sicko comprised testimonies from Americans who’ve, “suffered at the hands of insurance companies, drug firms and HMOs,” the story states.
They include a mother whose daughter died because the nearest hospital couldn’t treat her, “and a man who was told the cost of reattaching his two severed fingers would be $60,000 for the middle finger and $12,000 for the ring finger”.
Several interview subjects died before the film was completed, says AP.
Americans “hate the system – it’s too expensive – but we have been hearing about these things for 35 years,” the NYT quotes professor Stuart Altman, a health policy expert at Brandeis University,l saying. “Unless we have a meltdown which affects the middle class — that is nowhere near happening — we will not be willing to fundamentally restructure the system.”
“To ride the Cannes momentum ahead of the film’s United States release,” Moore and his team plan to start running newspaper advertisements, “superimposing health insurer logos on tombstones and to use the michaelmoore.com Web to solicit whistle-blowers from the ranks of insurance company employees,” according to The New York Times.
Says Moore on michaelmoore.com on May 17, going quietly to Cannes wasn’t to be.
For some strange reason, on May 2nd the Bush administration initiated an action against me over how I obtained some of the content they believe is in my film. As none of them have actually seen the film (or so I hope!), they decided, unlike with “Fahrenheit 9/11,” not to wait until the film was out of the gate and too far down the road to begin their attack.
Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, launched an investigation of a trip I took to Cuba to film scenes for the movie. These scenes involve a group of 9/11 rescue workers who are suffering from illnesses obtained from working down at Ground Zero. They have received little or no help with their health care from the government. I do not want to give away what actually happens in the movie because I don’t want to spoil it for you (although I’m sure you’ll hear much about it after it unspools Saturday). Plus, our lawyers have advised me to say little at this point, as the film goes somewhere far scarier than “Cuba.” Rest assured of one thing: no laws were broken. All I’ve done is violate the modern-day rule of journalism that says, “ask no questions of those in power or your luncheon privileges will be revoked.”
This preemptive action taken by the Bush administration on the eve of the “Sicko” premiere in Cannes led our attorneys to fear for the safety of our film, noting that Secretary Paulson may try to claim that the content of the movie was obtained through a violation of the trade embargo that our country has against Cuba and the travel laws that prohibit average citizens of our free country from traveling to Cuba. (The law does not prohibit anyone from exercising their first amendment right of a free press and documentaries are protected works of journalism.)
I was floored when our lawyers told me this. “Are you saying they might actually confiscate our movie?” “Yes,” was the answer. “These days, anything is possible. Even if there is just a 20 percent chance the government would seize our movie before Cannes, does anyone want to take that risk?”
Certainly not. So there we were last week, spiriting a duplicate master negative out of the country just so no one from the government would take it from us. (Seriously, I can’t believe I just typed those words! Did I mention that I’m an American, and this is America and NO ONE should ever have to say they had to do such a thing?)
I mean, folks, I have just about had it. Investigating ME because I’m trying to help some 9/11 rescue workers our government has abandoned? Once again, up is down and black is white. There are only two people in need of an investigation and a trial, and the desire for this across America is so widespread you don’t even need to see the one’s smirk or hear the other’s sneer to know who I am talking about.
But no, I’m the one who now has to hire lawyers and sneak my documentary out of the country just so people can see a friggin’ movie. I mean, it’s just a movie! What on earth could I have placed on celluloid that would require such a nonsensical action against me?
Ok. Scratch that.
Well, I’m on my way to Cannes right now, a copy of the movie in my bag. Don’t feel too bad for me, I’ll be in the south of France for a week! But then it’s back to the U.S. for a number of premieres and benefits and then, finally, a chance for all of you to see this film that I have made. Circle June 29th on your calendar because that’s when it opens in theaters everywhere across the country and Canada (for the rest of the world, it opens in the fall).
I can’t wait for you to see it.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
Associated Press – ‘Sicko’ Spawns Moore Fever in Cannes, May 21, 2007
The New York Times – Film Offers New Talking Points in Health Care Debate, May 22, 2007
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