Michael Moore Attacks the Grotesque Profit Motive of the US Health Care System

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=108&ItemID=13136

Michael Moore Attacks the Grotesque Profit Motive of the US Health Care System
by Michael Moore
and Amy Goodman

June 23, 2007
Alternet


Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore sat down with Amy Goodman ahead of the release of his new film SiCKO. The film is a seething indictment of the US healthcare system. It focuses not on the more than 40 million people who don't have healthcare but on the 250 million who do - many of whom are abandoned by the very health insurance industry they paid into for decades. "They are getting away with murder," Moore said of the health insurance companies. "They charge whatever they want. There is no government control, and frankly we will not fix our system until we remove these private insurance companies."



Amy Goodman: Michael Moore is on the move. The Academy Award-winning filmmaker testified this week on Capitol Hill. And he's making his way to New Hampshire to challenge presidential candidates -- Democrat and Republican -- over the nation's healthcare system.



Oh, and his latest documentary, SiCKO, is being released in thousands of theaters next week. The film is a seething indictment of the US healthcare system. It focuses not on the more than 40 million people who don't have health insurance, but on the more than 250 million who do, many of whom are abandoned by the very health insurance industry they've paid into for decades.



I sat down with Michael Moore at the Tribeca Cinema here in New York, just after he'd done a sneak preview for 9/11 workers who fell ill after working in the toxic environment at Ground Zero. He was then doing a fundraiser for the Center for Justice and Democracy, a tort reform group. I began by asking Michael Moore what inspired him to make the film.



Michael Moore: Well, I actually -- I had a TV show on back in the '90s called TV Nation, and one day I just -- I thought it would be interesting to have like a race. So we sent a camera crew to an emergency room in Fort Lauderdale, a camera crew to an emergency room in Toronto, and then one to Havana. And they would each wait until someone came in with a broken arm or a broken leg. And then they were going to follow that person through and see Healthcare Olympics. And so, it was a race between the US, Canada and Cuba. And to make a long story short, Cuba won. They had the fastest care, the best care, and it cost nothing.



We turn the show in to NBC that week, and we get a call from the censor. They're not called "the censor," they're called Standards & Practices. And so, this woman calls. She's the head of Standards & Practices -- Dr. Somebody. I don't know they -- she actually had a "Dr." before her name, but I forget her last name now. But she calls, and she says, "Mike, Cuba can't win." I said, "What?" "Cuba can't win." "Well, they won. What do you mean they can't win? They won." "No, we can't say that on NBC. We can't say that Cuba won." "Well, yeah, but they won! They provided the fastest care. They were the cheapest. And the patient was happy, and the bone got fixed." "No, it's against regulations here." I said, "Oh, well, I'm not changing it."

FULL story at link.

It's like Al Gore with the 2000 election: you know, instead of asking for all of Florida to be recounted, which he would have won then, you know, they only want to recount the Democratic counties, where they thought they'd get their votes. And it was like, you know -- it's like, come on! You know, why do you only -- they take these half-step measures, and we're all the worse for it.

Until not too long ago, I also believed that Gore had only requested a handful of counties be recounted and that if he had requested the whole state be recounted then SCOTUS would not have stepped in and Gore would have won.

Not so -- Al Gore DID ask for the entire state to be recounted on national television, but in Florida (at least at that time) both candidates had to request a statewide recount for one to occur.

Al said this on the "LeShow" with Harry Shearer - it was taped on May 22, 2007. The main topic was "Assault on Reason" but Shearer asked about 2000 at the start of the interview.

YouTube clip of the discussion - does not include Al's statement about Florida
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=32190

I am looking at the Book-TV listings to see if I can find the video or audio...

:kick: