Sicko - the trailer

Youtube version:

Two things that I reacted to almost immediately: First off, it leads with Bush, which subtly implants the suggestion that even though every President has had a chance to do something and none of them have, it’s Bush’s fault that we don’t have perfect, free, efficient Taxpayer-provided Free Health Care™.  Secondly, the sub-lead, if you will, is Michael Moore.  Not the subject.  Not the American people.  Michael.  Front and center.  It seems like he’s making up for not appearing in the first half of the movie.

Michael, a word of advice: this all goes over so much better without your personality being shoved down everyone’s throats.  You are going to make opposition out of people that might actually support your message.  You’re too divisive and inflammatory and no one trusts you.  If you want to reach more people, cut yourself as much as possible and above all, stick with the truth.

As for the subject matter, the fact is HMOs run health care in this country.  I have some problems with my knee.  My doctor and I both know I need an MRI, but it’s not severe enough to warrant the test.  I had an X-ray, and that gave him some idea, but according ot the “guidelines” (read: rules you damn well better follow) I have to have an X-ray before an MRI, and that X-ray better show something worth firing up the nuclear magnetic tube of claustrophobia or they ain’t paying.

Here’s another anecdote...and I’m sure you all have a million of these as well; I know someone who can’t take the generic of a particular medication.  This has never and will never change.  Something in the generic is wrong...she reacts almost like she’s allergic.  Many people, including doctors, suspect that there are less stringent rules and hence less stringent QC on generic meds.  The HMO makes her re-apply for “authorization” to take the generic every 6 months or they charge her full price, which is very, very high.  Applying for authorization means getting the right forms, which are always changing, bringing them to the doctor, the doctor has to find time to fill them out, fax them to the company and answer any questions they might bring up, and then if you’re lucky, the non-medical paper-pusher on the other end might decide to grant you the payment you need to get name-brand medication.

It’s not the cost to which I object.  It’s the fact that they make it so hard to do what a doctor considers medically necessary.  I know it costs a hell of a lot of money to bring a drug to market, but I also know that there is no shortage of profit for the pharmaceutical industry.  I don’t know what the answer is.  I don’t believe in over-regulating business, but I also don’t believe that a company that provides a thing that keeps a person alive should be allowed to screw around with that person’s health over a few bucks.

I noticed something else in that trailer: Cuba is below the U.S. in the list he uses.  I wonder how that is presented in the movie?  Why go there when your own list says that their health care is worse?  I get the Gitmo joke, and it’s kind of amusing when he pulls up to Gitmo in a boat and says “the same kind of care the evildoers are getting.” Again, though, there’s that subtle suggestion; Bush uses the phrase “evildoers” to describe terrorists.  For now, in the trailer, Moore wants you to associate everything that is wrong with health care with Bush. 

Anyway Mikey, once you’re turned away from Guantanamo bay, what is the point of taking the people with you to Cuba proper?  What the hell is the point?  Wouldn’t it make a million times more sense to take them to a country higher on the list that offers perfect, free, efficient Taxpayer-provided Free Health Care™?  Wouldn’t that make your point?  And how did you get into Cuba without special permission from Castro?  You’re American...did you use an American-registered boat?  Did you sneak in?  People need answers to these questions, Michael, or they simply won’t trust what you tell them about health care.  We know you omitted these details from the movie, because we heard the reporters at Cannes questioning you about it.  You failed to answer the reporters.  Are you ever going to answer these questions?

I do think Moore is on target about the lobbying of Congress.  Four lobbyists for every Congressperson?  Even if he’s wrong by half, that’s too damn many.  One can only hope that he’s fair about the particular Congresspeople he skewers.  Moore tends to talk a big game but in the end, he doesn’t actually do anything.  For example:

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

Michael said that.  He made a promise.  Has he led a single campaign against a single corrupt Democrat?  We have Jack Murtha just last week breaking ethics rules and threatening another Congressman’s projects, and the Dems voted to completely ignore it.  Jack “ABSCAM” Murtha.  One of the old-school when it comes to back room deals and soft money.  William Jefferson, who in the middle of the worst natural disaster in this country, commandeered military vehicles to spirit God knows what out of his New Orleans home, and was caught taking a bribe on video tape, later to be caught with the bribe money hidden in his freezer - he gets re-elected and nary a peep from Michael Moore.

Michael Moore made a promise, in writing, to America and to us, the loyal opposition. “And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST.” He told each of us - you and me, the Moorewatchers and Republicans and Independents, big and small “L” libertarians, conservatives - everyone who isn’t on his side, whatever that may be, that he would lead a charge to go after corrupt politicians on his side first.  He has broken his promise.  Why should we trust him now?  How can we trust him?  Why should we trust him about something as important as health care?

I don’t have all the answers to the health care issue.  I know I don’t trust the Feds to manage a car wash much less my health.  Moore is asking us to place our very lives in the hands of the same people that are managing a war he considers a failure, the people that created the pyramid scheme that is Social Security, the same folks that brought you the Susan B. Anthony and the Sacagawea dollar.

Hell no, dude.  That doesn’t make any sense!