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Op-Eds Discuss Michael Moore's Health Care Documentary 'Sicko'
[Jul 09, 2007]
Several newspapers recently published editorials and opinion pieces discussing "Sicko," filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary about the health care industry. Summaries appear below.

Editorials


Des Moines Register: "Sicko" should "[s]pur Americans, at long last, to demand a system that covers everyone, while providing greater quality and reining in costs," according to a Register editorial. The "best option" for achieving this goal is to create a "government-financed system, much like Medicare" that "wouldn't be 'socialized medicine,'" according to the editorial (Des Moines Register, 7/6).

Long Island Newsday: Moore's "scathing critique of the flaws in the U.S. system is accurate," but his film "brushes off" the ways in which "demographic pressures and rising costs have taken their toll" on health care systems in European nations and Cuba, a Newsday editorial states. Such pressures have caused other countries "to ration their care, some by long waits, others by denial of expensive treatments by age, others by the adoption of stiff copayments," the editorial states, concluding, "There is no simple answer. 'Sicko' pretends there is" (Long Island Newsday, 7/7).

San Jose Mercury News: "Moore's examination of the current system presents a compelling argument that it's both a mess and in desperate need of significant reform," according to a Mercury News editorial. The Mercury News writes that "despite the weaknesses of Moore's film," including a "superficial" examination of the health care systems in Canada, England, France and Cuba, the film "deserves its highest marks for forcing Americans to try to come to grips with the question of whether the current system is meeting our expectations." The editorial concludes, "The sooner we acknowledge our shortcomings and start debating the potential solutions, the better" (San Jose Mercury News, 7/5).
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Hollywood's pre-'Sicko' health care treatments
Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 27, 2007


The Friday opening of "Sicko" prompts the inevitable question: Will people really want to spend 123 minutes of their precious leisure time watching Michael Moore dissect what ails the American health care system?

Health advocates hope movie viewers will embrace the weighty topic, much as they did with Moore efforts such as the pro-gun-control "Bowling for Columbine" and Al Gore's Oscar-winning glorified PowerPoint on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."

But the ability to accurately predict how well "Sicko" will fare at the box office is hampered by the limited number of movies in which the health care industry -- as opposed to the medical field -- features prominently.

As a reporter who writes about health insurance for this paper, I welcome the release of "Sicko" because, if nothing else, it might restore some balance to the glaring lack of pop-culture references on my beat.

Here's a look at some of the health-care-themed flicks Hollywood released in recent years.

Already 10 years old, Oscar-winning "As Good as It Gets," starring Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, may not immediately strike viewers as a health care film. People are more likely to remember the little dog Nicholson's character is forced to care for than the health care angle.

Yet the film serves as a sort of watershed moment demonstrating America's frustration with managed care. Audiences burst into applause during a scene in which Hunt, who plays a waitress struggling to get medical care for her asthmatic son, delivers a scathing diatribe against the evils of managed care and health maintenance organizations.

On the other hand, it's difficult to seriously cite 2002's "John Q," directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Denzel Washington. In this ill-conceived drama, Washington plays a part-time factory worker whose tight-fisted HMO refuses to cover his son's emergency heart transplant operation. Cold, uncaring hospital administrators send the boy home to die. So John Q. does what any sane human being would do under such circumstances: He takes the entire emergency department hostage until doctors agree to perform the surgery.

Not to downplay the impact of insurance denials on patients' access to services, but the scenario depicted in "John Q" is unlikely. Even though the movie shows that the parents make just enough money to be ineligible for Medicaid, it fails to mention there are other options for children who need life-saving treatment if their parents can't afford the costs on their own. A far more plausible problem would be the lack of an available matching organ for the transplant recipient. But that wouldn't make for great drama.

Many movies with health care themes flatlined at the box office.

In 1992's "Article 99," Ray Liotta and Kiefer Sutherland play young, renegade doctors at a Kansas City Veterans Administration hospital who circumvent bureaucratic rules and red tape to treat patients. The movie's title draws from a fictional rule that bars American veterans from treatment unless their illnesses are related to their military service.

I had never even heard of "Critical Care," a 1997 Sidney Lumet film that starred Anne Bancroft, James Spader and Helen Mirren. Billed as a dark comedy, it has a chilling tagline: "At Memorial Hospital no one ever dies ... Until their insurance runs out."

Then there's 2002's "Damaged Care," a Showtime drama that has a direct connection to "Sicko."

Laura Dern plays Dr. Linda Peeno, a former medical reviewer for health insurer Humana who is haunted by a decision she made to deny a patient a transplant, a decision she believes caused the patient's death. The real Dr. Peeno features prominently in "Sicko" as a whistle-blower who testified before Congress 10 years ago that HMOs reward reviewers for denying care.

Ultimately, the box-office success or failure of "Sicko" may have less to do with the subject matter than the public's response to the filmmaker's political reputation. Unlike fictional health care dramas, Moore's film contains real people expressing real frustration with the system. With polls showing health care as Americans' top domestic concern, it's clearly a topic that resonates.

We'll soon find out whether people want to see those frustrations played out before them with a bucket of popcorn and a pack of Jujubes.

E-mail Victoria Colliver at vcolliver@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...DGN8QLLNA1.DTL

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle
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