Posted on 08/22/2006 7:38:30 AM PDT by Huntress
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.
No balance from Moore "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."
Several other pharmaceutical makers did not return calls for comment. But Pfizer, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline all advised their employees last year not to speak to Mr. Moore when he began his research for "Sicko." It is not known whether any HMOs or drug companies will appear in the film.
"We were approached, but declined," said a spokeswoman for a second top-10 drugmaker. "Frankly, as much as we felt like we wanted to get our message across, in the end we didn't want to subject ourselves to the editing process."
Academy Award winner Mr. Moore, the Academy Award-winning director of "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- the latter the biggest-grossing documentary in movie history -- recently told Variety that the drug companies have been on to him for some time.
"They're so hip [to me] 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."
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."
Film in flux Mr. Moore didn't return calls for comment. But on his site he said that, like his other films, what he starts with is not necessarily what he ends with.
"That, I can say with certainty, is happening now as we shoot 'Sicko,'" he wrote. "I don't think the country needs a movie that tells you that HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies suck. Everybody knows that. I'd like to show you some things you don't know. So stay tuned for where this movie has led me. I think you might enjoy it."
If we have 10,000,000 illegals, then that means at least 3% of the uninsured aren't here legally.
How does Fat Mike say their costs will be covered by those using the system?
If we nationalize health care, the state (being the one that pays) will make such decisions ultimately (under Hillarycare it would have become criminal to accept payment for medical services, just as prostitution is illegal).
Here's the problem for Mr. Moore: this is 2006. We can fact-check everything he does in his documentaries so fast that he won't know what hit him.
Hillary and all the other socialists, on the other hand, wants desperately for him (or his employer) to be forced to pay that monthly amount to subsidize all those who are draining the system. Image how expensive auto insurance would be if only bad drivers insured themselves.
So what's your plan and how many tax dollars will it cost?
If he were saving for a rainy day, he'd have money for those service "on a rainy day".
If Ted Kennedy didn't stifle medical savings accounts, he could be stashing that money away tax free for his own health care.
Wolfie is almost certainly being sarcastic. He's actually one of this site's best posting contributors and a compassionate fellow.
Unfortunately, I don't have a plan. I wish that there was a way for small business owners and working poor to buy into a group insurance or something of that nature.
I'll bet Moore's conclusion will be something like this: Since I hate the profit based system and love Marxism, the obvious system to replace America is Cuba. Just look at how well my hero Fidel did recently.
Just tell him the U.S. Constitution secures the right to the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself. And that he can pursue happiness while sick with the flu.
One of the biggest problems is our evolving concept of "insurance".
IIRC, insurance was originally conceived as a contingency for low-probability, high-liability items. Now, we use insurance to cover things we KNOW that we're going to use, like dental checkups and annual physicals.
I look at it like student loans.
When the goobermint and everybody else began loaning money for education, our institutions of higher learning realized that there was a huge amount of funds available. That's when colleges began building extravagant facilities and sports complexes and charged insane tuition increases (14% one year at Michigan State University) to pay for them.
Big pharmaceutical, big lies and really Big Michael Moore.
I'm responsible for driving up health care premiums as well.
A couple years back, I hit my head on a concrete staircase. It was a small cut, but I needed treatment. A lapse in my insurance caused it not to be covered. It was Christmas vacation, and my employer paid no premium for the week. I had 45 days to pay the premium, but no one clued me into this fact until day 45, when I got the "we have refused coverage for the following reasons" letter. The bill for 30 minutes of treatment, a tetanus shot, some bandages, and the use of a rotating head stapler was $1500. I paid the bill for the doctor, but not the hospital.
Again, last year, I called my insurer this time to make sure I was covered for an ingrown toenail surgery, to which they replied yes. But they refused that and I was faced legal action or another $450, and this was not from a hospital - it was from family doctor who has the luxury of refusing patients.
My opinion is more that the health care is driven up not only by people receiving free services, but insurers refusing care, refusing payment, paying less than the services cost, haggling with doctors, and creating enough red tape that full time people are forced to come on staff to deal specifically with it.
Am I the only one who has been burned by technicalities? I doubt it. Screw the health care industry. If anyone deserves Michael Moore's fat ass jumping on their back, it's them.
Mikey has already been outed as an owner (at least in the past) of Big Pharma stocks. I don't know if any are in his portfolio currently. This clown has to be one of the biggest lying hypocrites ever, and the moonbats and other idiots just lap it all up and think he's telling them the Gospel truth via his crockumentaries.
The reason our health care costs are so high is because of out of control malpractices suits and insurance fraud. Betcha there isn't any mention of either in Moore's latest lieumentary.
Vast chunk of our health care dollars are spent on elder care during the last 6 months of life. If we just shot them up with morphine, and didn't try to save "lost causes", we would have lower insurance premiums, but I wouldn't like the society we would have become.
I can say the same about Mercedes-Benz.
Can't stress that enough, huh?
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