Michael Moore Documentary Rattles Health-Care Giants

Michael Moore Documentary Rattles Health-Care Giants
Trade Groups on the Defensive; Pharma Companies Allege Bias
By Rich Thomaselli
Published: August 21, 2006


Pharmaceutical companies have told their employees not to talk to documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, whose next project, 'Sicko,' looks at health care in the U.S.
(Photo Credit: AP)

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The health-care industry is worried sick over "Sicko."

Few details have emerged about the 2007 documentary from Michael Moore, the filmmaker who ripped apart Detroit automakers with "Roger and Me" and now has his sights set on the $1.5 trillion pharmaceutical and health-care industry. But it's still enough to mobilize health-care trade groups who are trying to discredit the film.

"A review of America's health-care system should be balanced, thoughtful and well-researched to pin down what works and what needs to be improved," said Ken Johnson, senior VP for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "You won't get that from Michael Moore."

Added a spokesman for one of the top 10 pharma companies: "We expect it will be one-sided and biased, just like his other documentaries."...

***

On his website, Mr. Moore offered a snapshot of what the documentary entails. "Back in February, I asked if people would send me letters describing their experiences with our health-care system, and I received over 19,000 of them," he wrote. "To read about the misery people are put through on a daily basis by our profit-based system was both moving and revolting. We've spent the better part of this year shooting our next movie, 'Sicko.' As we've done with our other films, we don't discuss them while we are making them. If people ask, we tell them 'Sicko' is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth."...

http://adage.com/article?article_id=111424

:wow:

Having "business meetings" in Hawaii?

:wow:




Sigh...

Suck ups to the profit uber alles 'bullies'.

Grrrr

Moore has one, and thank heaven for that. If they don't like it, let them make their own effing movie about how effing great they are. Good luck with that, a-holes.

Like they can afford to make a reliable film... :P

The HMOs and big Pharma do make their own movies touting how great they are. They're called advertisements. We can see them every day.

I loved this quote:

"They're so hip that whenever we have a family" with a health-care nightmare "they get free health care," Mr. Moore said during panel discussions last month at his second annual Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan. "There has been a 100% success rate of the people we're filming of getting whatever they need from the HMOs, pharmaceutical companies, whatever."

as I drove in to work and I would just marvel that the place they were describing, state-of-the-art, award-winning, NIH granted cancer center, BEST IN THE WORLD... was the unsafe, unfriendly, crowded, hellhole I slaved in every day.

the issue is pharmaceutical companies would much rather have you believe their propaganda since their "one sided" point of view is only about profits

IS truth!

POV's can be arbitrary, depending on what declarations or spin one decides to believe. Truth is only gained by knowledge of the facts, ; and over 19,000 decriptions of misery is much more than POV -- that many boil down to fact.

how about they talk to Moore? Here they are complaining about Moore's movie is going to be one sided and biased, and then they are instructing their employees not to talk to him. Kind of hard for him to include their opinions when they won't even speak to him.

Even when the film makers do what they can to avoid a bias, a point of view is what the audience sees.

For some reason, the 45 million folks that can't afford health care can't afford three piece suits and fresh haircuts either. I can see that in a film, in a TV interview... anywhere the health care big shots show their faces. So, let them make their own movie. I see the people in their advertisements with allergies and heart conditions and gastric reflux problems and they don't look like anybody in my neighborhood! The gap is so huge that the top brass can't even see anyone in my neighborhood. Michael Moore sees.

A bit of slander on their part there, I would say.

Why? Because NO ONE likes health insurance companies. In 2004, on the other hand, Baby Bush still had a lot of defenders.

'For profit' healthcare is AMERICORP's biggest scam. Moore's ability to go behind the delusions of marketing should convince a lot of people to take a long look at this industry.




.

then they have nothing to fear from MM's documentary. Right? The louder they yell 'foul', the more we know their asses are gonna get hung out in the wind.

...if they had nothing to worry about, the would not be so concerned that Moore is looking at them. IMO, let Moore lift the rock and let the health care slugs try and scurry out of the light!

:thumbsup:

WASHINGTON (AP) - An executive order being signed Tuesday by President Bush is designed to help people make more informed decisions about doctors and hospitals.
http://channels.isp.netscape.com/homerealestate/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1151&sc=1151&photoid=20060821WHRE113&idq=/ff/story/0001/20060822/0940146900.htm&source=APO

Bush's answer to people who can't afford healthcare treatment: "don't get sick". :mad:

I was subjected to the same drivel when my employer forced cafeteria medical benefits on us. I was surprised to find that the word 'competitive' was not used in the article.

What's going on here, and the only important thing, is they are taking steps to shift costs from the government and onto beneficiaries.

.... on the idea that somehow Americans can shop around for health care like it was a washing machine.

Yes, I need a coronary bypass, what's the best deal you can give me?

Sure, there could be some "market forces" put in play in the health care world, but it is a tough issue and not one that a one-track-free-market mind like Bush or any of his drooling advisors could figure out.

any help shrub is supposedly signing off on with yet another executive order. Read this article. Can't really put my finger on anything, but the tone of HHS director Leavitt sounds like I'm being sold another smoke-up-my-ass story, like "Healthy Skies" turns out to be "See the black clouds of pollution dollars".

Yeah. That'll work. I mean, look at his track record for competence...

The health care industry should be worried.......very worried.

Not to talk to Mr. Moore, how do they expect their viewpoints to be heard?

What?..... Oh, nevermind. :rofl:

:rofl:

and they don't want to talk about it?

like somehow The Little People and The Giants are in this War together -- not.

key word in this global economy of ours -- Giant.

.. for sure, baby.

FOR the people, AGAINST big HMO's and big Pharma.

Yes.

n/t

It's called "LABOR".

That is Moore's point of view. I defy anyone to name one MSM news program that even devotes one segment a month to Labor issues, yet even PBS has a Nightly Business Report.

The U.S. media are rapidly being monopolized by a dwindling number of parent corporations, all of whom have conservative economic agendas. The media are also critically dependent upon corporations for advertising. As a result, the news almost completely ignores corporate crime, as well as pro-labor and pro-consumer issues.

<snip>

A four-month study by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) analyzed how the New York Times and Washington Post covered NAFTA. Of the experts quoted in their articles, pro-NAFTA outnumbered anti-NAFTA sources by three to one. Not a single labor union representative was quoted. Reason: these newspapers' boards of directors are drawn from big business.

<snip>

...pro-labor stories are almost completely absent, even though blue-collar workers make up the vast majority of this nation's work force, and indeed the news media's audience. The majority of stories should include the conditions they work under, the challenges they face, the wages they earn and the hazards that maim and kill them. But the media is curiously silent on nearly all these natural topics. In 1989, researcher John Tasini studied ABC, NBC and CBS for a year to see how much coverage was devoted to workers' issues, including the minimum wage, workplace safety and child care. He found it amounted to a dismal 2.3 percent of all coverage. In fact, all three networks carried only 13 minutes of coverage on workplace safety for the entire year! The worst offender was NBC Nightly News, who devoted a total of 40 seconds to worker safety. This is not surprising, since its parent corporation, GE, has an appalling work safety record. Elsewhere, a Los Angeles Times poll found that 53 percent of the nation's newspaper editors were pro-management, but only 8 percent were pro-labor. The pro-corporate bias of our media is one of the most important reasons for the decline of labor unions in this country.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-liberalmedia.htm

The population period hates the healthcare situation. It won't be as polarziing as F911 (which, as right as it was, had the probush people just refusing to see it or just hate it).

Michael had better just endorse single payer healthcare with the film, so the Hilarycare solutions and other private-public partnerships (that screw the public) don't start getting touted as the solution to the ridiculous situtation we have here.

Good point. If Hillary had gone with a single payer proposal, I believe we would have universal healthcare today.

It's hard to challenge them with something like single payer which they'll absolutely hate. Hilary has her pro-business limits, even though she is ridiculously satirized as some kind of socialist and the like by the uninformed right.

Our membership numbers have steadily risen along with the worsening of the overall healthcare situation. We're not insurance, so this is not an overall good thing, but people just can't afford insurance premiums.

Actually I think those horrid pill-peddling commercials we are exposed to incessantly are one-sided and biased.

I'm sure Dean and the DNC will, but I'm not so sure about the DLC. We might need to force our reps to get on board.

Usually the people doing the important activist and street work get ignored. I can see the Black and Progressive Caucus jumping behind this; I'd have a hard time seeing others up there -- unless maybe Michael interviewed them for the film like the several he did for F911

It affects everyone except the top two percent-ers who can afford health care. Any Dem that can't support a populist issue should be fired asap.

Had to say it -- "hilarycare" is a bust.

will cause a lot of angst in Big Pharma boardrooms (whoa, those share prices & bottom lines may take a hit)--and will send ripples of worry through the rest of corporate America.

Gotta love this guy--a one-man social crusade! Might this be the final catalyst which forces the US to deal with its scandalous health care debacle? SG

:yourock:

I hope this film is as successful as F9/11.

:thumbsup:

In every one of his documentaries, M. Moore goes to great lengths to get the other side of the story, they just don't have any good reasons for their offenses. He asks simple straight forward questions and asks them to justify their positions, they can't and then whine about how unbalanced he is.

His first movie (that anyone heard of) was all about just trying to ask Roger Smith a simple question, and the extreme lengths Smith & Co. went to avoiding even hearing the question.

They're all lying, criminal bastards, and I hope at least some of them wait too long to get out when it all comes down.

Can't they prey on the sick without that mean Michael Moore stirring up trouble?

:eyes:

May have to pass it around in doctors' waiting rooms.

Very few people have any clue how the health system works in this country. If they want fair and balanced, they should have thought of that when they wrote into the prescription bill that the government COULDN'T NEGOTIATE LOWER PRICES. EVER.

Now, was that a logical, rational part of the bill or a GIVEAWAY to huge political donors? That's a rhetorical question.

Beware of Democrats selling "Affordable HealthCare"!

"Affordable HealthCare" is NOT Universal HealhCare, and the implementation of a FOR PROFIT "Affordable HealthCare" system will delay or permanently torpedo a TRUE Universal HealthCare system in the US!!!


"65 percent (of ALL Americans, Democrats AND Republicans) say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes."

http://alternet.org/wiretap/29788/



The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

I got contacted by a Moore producer months ago, and sent her to all the people who ran the fundraiser for Andy, etc. Don't know if they'll include it, but they put the work in.

being interviewed about Andy for this. Don't know if it'll be included...but I can say that the people from Moore's production company that I met were incredibly kind and VERY fired up. Some of the other stories they had heard and shared with me were pretty bad. Whether they include Andy or not I cannot wait to see the finished documentary.

...and pretend that we never saw it- or at least we should agree with media pundits that the movie is "biased", "propaganda" and "hateful."

I vote that we let the media perceptions of this movie stand rather than challenge the detractors- like we did with F 9/11.

This movie sounds "far left" folks- lets pretend it does not exist. I would hate to offend swing voters who watch cable news pundits.

on this one. They have their own issues with HMOs...

Did they even notice that :)

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

...just like his other documentaries." Now, if it were pro-Big Pharma there wouldn't be any "bias".

It was surreal and I tried to do my best. They were really neat guys.

Can't wait till the movie comes out.

Friggin' word manglers.

ttt

and every year the company rewards with them with phenomenal trips. One year they rented an entire cruise ship for their exclusive use in the Mediterranean for several days followed by a week long tour of Italy. Of courses spouses and family got to go along, all of it for free (incl. airfare from the US, all other transportation, money for meals, and hotel). They do that sort of thing every single year. It burns me up. It's just not right.

Insurance companies do this sort of thing, too. My best friend has gone to Ireland, the Caribbean, Hawaii, etc. as part of theses companies' "incentive trips". Spouses are covered on those trips, too.

GO MICHAEL MOORE! Get this sort of info out there!

... a lot of people won't pay a speck of attention to this film BECAUSE it's Michael Moore. Sad.

The subject matter on this one is going to draw a lot of folks who've turned up their noses at Moore in the past. Why? Because it's something that strikes a chord with way, way too many people--they won't have to question the movie's veracity, because they already know the system is fucked up.

bit recently when his step-daughter married my sister-in-law's cousin. So welcome to the extended family, Michael, and I look forward to your latest cinematic effort to expose the bastards who screw the public. Their premature squealing about what you've uncovered speaks volumes!

Just like all the pharma ads on TV that tout drugs on the one hand while offering the adverse side-effects in a smarmy Disney-like voice on the other.

Can't wait for the movie.

. . . .the other side being the olligarchs who almost spray themselves at the thought of bathing in more cash at the cost of the middle class and the Horatio Alger-mindset Randians who think anything less than giving corporations everything they want seventy-googolplex-fold is "COMM'NISM!"

Good for him. I just met a couple that has two small children. The husband has diabetes. He had to have his kidney removed because of it. The kidney operation caused an infection and landed him in the hospital for 8 weeks. They lost everything they owned. It's about time someone stood up for folks like them.