Posted on 05/20/2007 4:57:39 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
CANNES, France (Reuters) - Director Michael Moore says the U.S. health care system is driven by greed in his new documentary "SiCKO", and asks of Americans in general, "Where is our soul?"
He also said he could go to jail for taking a group of volunteers suffering ill health after helping in the September 11, 2001 rescue efforts on an unauthorized trip to Cuba, where they received exemplary treatment at virtually no cost.
The controversial film maker is back in Cannes, where he won the film festival's highest honor in 2004 with his anti-Bush polemic "Fahrenheit 9/11".
In "SiCKO" he turns his attention to health, asking why 50 million Americans, 9 million of them children, live without cover, while those that are insured are often driven to poverty by spiraling costs or wrongly refused treatment at all.
But the movie, which has taken Cannes by storm, goes further by portraying a country where the government is more interested in personal profit and protecting big business than caring for its citizens, many of whom cannot afford health insurance.
"I'm trying to explore bigger ideas and bigger issues, and in this case the bigger issue in this film is who are we as a people?" Moore told reporters after a press screening.
"Why do we behave the way we behave? What has become of us? Where is our soul?"
"SiCKO" uses humor and tragic personal stories to get the point across, and had a packed audience variously laughing and in tears. There was loud applause at the end of the two-hour documentary, which is out of the main Cannes competition.
Moore was asked by journalists why he painted such a rosy picture of other countries' health systems, including Britain, France, Canada and Cuba, and the implied criticism is likely to be raised again. But he defended his methods.
"I recognize that there are flaws in your system but that's not for me to correct, that's for you to correct," he told a Canadian reporter.
RANGE OF EMOTIONS
One section of the film explains how a U.S. man severed the tip of two fingers in an accident and was told he would have to pay $12,000 to re-attach the end of his ring finger, and $60,000 to re-attach that of his index finger.
"Being a hopeless romantic, Rick chose his ring finger," Moore quipped in a typically sardonic voiceover.
It also follows a woman whose young daughter falls seriously ill but who said she was refused admission to a general hospital and instructed to go to a private one instead. By the time she got to the second hospital, it was too late to save the girl.
One of the most controversial passages of the film, due to be released in the United States on June 29, compares health care in the United States to that which Islamic militant suspects receive at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
"I think when Americans see this they are not going to focus on Cuba or Fidel Castro," Moore said, referring to the controversy surrounding his trip to Cuba, which has prompted a U.S. government investigation.
"They are going to say to themselves, 'You're telling me that the al Qaeda detainees are receiving better health care, the people that helped participate in the attacks of 9/11 are receiving better health care from us than those who went down to rescue those who suffered and died on 9/11?"
Moore added that he was taking the investigation seriously.
"I'm the one who's personally being investigated and I'm the one who's personally liable for potential fines or jail, so I don't take it lightly."
(Please visit our Cannes site, including a link to our blogs, on http://uk.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/cannesFestival)
Next time Moore visits his doctor he needs to ask the doc what he's going to like best about working for the Federal Gubmint. Of the nine Doctors I've asked this question, one of which I use and the others I associate with, not a single one has said they will continue to practice medicine if the Federal Gubmint takes over the health care system.
The bottom line is if health care is socialize, you simply will not get the best and brightest to pursue careers in medicine. That is a fact......
I understand you can get free health care in Zimbabwe too. Well, it might not be exactly free. It might cost you a nickel or two.
Don't we have Ted Kennedy to blame for employer-sponsored health care to begin with? What a losing concept. Guess Moore wouldn't want to dig too deep into that one. It would ruin his thesis.
Take control of your own health care. There's no substitute.
When it comes to health care, there's no WORSE place in the world than the good ol U S of A.
There's no worse place in the world than US when it comes to warmongering, oppressing the downtrodden, responding to natural disasters, polluting the environment or funding the "arts."
To them, the U S as a nation is just one giant festering boil on the globe.
Of course, any fair-minded observer with an IQ above room temperature would find these assertions laughable.
The only thing, to them, that is admirable about America is its surplus of morons willing to spend 8 bucks or more to lap up this drivel for two hours of their miserable lives.
There are 2 healthcare systems in Cuba. One is for government officials and foreigners. This system has fairly modern hospitals and are well maintained. Moore’s traitorous buddies no doubt went to one of these.
The other system is for the rest of Cuba’s people. These hospitals are typical 3rd world cesspools.
You can see photos here...
http://therealcuba.com/Page10.htm
If he believes it is driven by the greed of lawyers and insurance companies, then I agree.
Click on the link in post #25 and see if you’d trade places with the people in Cuba.
What does that have to do with what drives the U.S. healthcare system?
Know what a strawman is?
Michael Moore hatched the straw man, then. He claims that people in Cuba receive better treatment than Americans.
For all it’s faults, we have the best medical system in the world; evidenced by the fact that world leaders, millionaires and elites almost always come here for treatment of major illnesses and injuries.
14:50 and counting, Mr. Moore.
I think that the hospitals in Maine treat more Canadians than locals.
What, the folks at the local DMV and Social Security office are NOT the best and the brightest? Surely you must be joking.
In fact, while I was standing in line at the DMV the other day, I bet I talked for an hour or more about this very topic to the other person in the line.
One of our local HMOs is in trouble for patient dumping. Not that we have a two-tier system or anything.
Then, of course, there was the recent dust up about conditions in building 18 at Walter Reed:
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses. from the Washington Post
From a couple of Cuban refugees descriptions of Castro's Cuba to myself:
If you possessed a DVD of this type, the police would haul you out of your house. Never to be seen again. If you consorted with a foreigner on your own -- such as Moore doing these interviews -- you will be hauled out of your house by the police. Never to be seen again.
How very true. This liberal woman friend of mine, I asked her to show me the pipeline that Halliburton supposedly built in Afghanistan that is the reason that Moore said in his movie F9/11 that Bush and Cheney started the war in Afghanistan. She looked like a deer stuck in the headlights.
I then asked her why Al Gore's movie says that sea levels are going to rise 20 feet in the 21st century and the IPCC report only gives an extreme of 23 inches. She told me I don't understand the principles of global warming. That coming from a non college educated liberal to me, who holds degrees in computer science and mathematics. These people truly cannot think for themselves.
Hospitals in Ohio make big business of performing heart catheritizations, heart bypasses and joint replacement surgeries on wealthy Canadian patients.
He is overweight so he would get put on the botom of all lists for healthcare.
Granted, it serves a large part of the State - but Northern Maine doesn't have *that* many people in it.
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