Sicko

[KCwife]

Sicko is the title of Michael Moores upcoming movie. I think the title is a reflection of the maker. Sure, it sucks when people cannot get the healthcare that they need...but, money has to be made...Michael Moore knows that as he would not be making this movie if he wasn't going to profit from it.

Friday, February 3rd, 2006
Send Me Your Health Care Horror Stories... an appeal from Michael Moore


Friends,

How would you like to be in my next movie? I know you've probably heard I'm making a documentary about the health care industry (but the HMOs don't know this, so don't tell them — they think I'm making a romantic comedy).

If you've followed my work over the years, you know that I keep a pretty low profile while I'm making my movies. I don't give interviews, I don't go on TV and I don't defrost my refrigerator. I do keep my website updated on a daily basis (there's been something like 4,000,000 visitors just this week alone) and the rest of the time I'm... well, I can't tell you what I'm doing, but you can pretty much guess. It gets harder and harder sneaking into corporate headquarters, but I've found that just dying my hair black and wearing a skort really helps.

Back to my invitation to be in my movie. Have you ever found yourself getting ready to file for bankruptcy because you can't pay your kid's hospital bill, and then you say to yourself, "Boy, I sure would like to be in Michael Moore's health care movie!"?

Or, after being turned down for the third time by your HMO for an operation they should be paying for, do you ever think to yourself, "Now THIS travesty should be in that 'Sicko' movie!"?

Or maybe you've just been told that your father is going to have to just, well, die because he can't afford the drugs he needs to get better – and it's then that you say, "Damn, what did I do with Michael Moore's home number?!"

Ok, here's your chance. As you can imagine, we've got the goods on these bastards. All we need now is to put a few of you in the movie and let the world see what the greatest country ever in the history of the universe does to its own people, simply because they have the misfortune of getting sick. Because getting sick, unless you are rich, is a crime – a crime for which you must pay, sometimes with your own life.

About four hundred years from now, historians will look back at us like we were some sort of barbarians, but for now we're just the laughing stock of the Western world.

So, if you'd like me to know what you've been through with your insurance company, or what it's been like to have no insurance at all, or how the hospitals and doctors wouldn't treat you (or if they did, how they sent you into poverty trying to pay their crazy bills) ...if you have been abused in any way by this sick, greedy, grubby system and it has caused you or your loved ones great sorrow and pain, let me know.

Send me a short, factual account of what has happened to you – and what IS happening to you right now if you have been unable to get the health care you need. Send it to michael@michaelmoore.com. I will read every single one of them (even if I can't respond to or help everyone, I will be able to bring to light a few of your stories).

Thank you in advance for sharing them with me and trusting me to try and do something about a very corrupt system that simply has to go.

Oh, and if you happen to work for an HMO or a pharmaceutical company or a profit-making hospital and you have simply seen too much abuse of your fellow human beings and can't take it any longer – and you would like the truth to be told – please write me at michael@michaelmoore.com. I will protect your privacy and I will tell the world what you are unable to tell. I am looking for a few heroes with a conscience. I know you are out there.

Thank you, all of you, for your help and your continued support through the years. I promise you that with "Sicko" we will do our best to give you not only a great movie, but a chance to bring down this evil empire, once and for all.

In the meantime, stay well. I hear fruits and vegetables help.

Yours,
Michael Moore
michael@michaelmoore.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com

I agree that Michael Moore is nutty and oportunistic and absolutely slants and dramatizes things to illustrate his point (and make money, although he's clearly not using the $ on a stylist). I'm also one of those who was entranced and sickened by "Farenheit 9/11" ... I watched it with a Michael Moore sized grain of salt, but still found truth nonetheless.

I'm curious where this came from -- it sounds so fake -- like it couldn't really be him. If it is from him - or his people - it's crude and tacky. There are better ways to find subjects for your documentary than using his sarcasam even in the search.

[KCwife]

It's from his website.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/messa ... 2006-02-03

Because getting sick, unless you are rich, is a crime

Was this on one of those blasted HIPPA forms that I didn't read and just signed anyway?

[Sheherezade]

I agree Michael Moore is over the top, but I honestly don't find the note offensive. I suppose I should keep my own humor under wraps here. Also, I think the healthcare industry (administration, not docs) does some horrible things. Not the docs - but the money making arm/insurance operations. I have no trouble at all going after HMOs. Where is the preventative care they were supposed to usher in? Where is the savings by streamlining the system? Are we all using those primary care docs as portals as promised??? (Seerimary care thread) It's a sham sold to the American public as healthcare reform when it is really just another way to turn a profit. Let's see those CEO salaries. Go Michael.

[mommax3]

I will be interested to see this. I agree, the hospital/insurance CEOs are where to look if you want to follow the money.

Tangent.....DH is under an income guarantee that lasts for eighteen months, and we are rapidly approaching the halfway point of the guarantee. He and his partner are trying to gather information about what kind of work schedule they need to have to keep their current salaries. Here is what it is looking like right now.....they need to bill 160K/month in order to each make 200K a year. That just seems so ridiculous to me! Granted, they are seeing a lot of Medicaid patients, (50% of their OB patients.....) but still! The kicker, to me, is that they bring in perhaps a third or a little more of the money they bill, *and* they feel horrible for their self-pay patients, who (even though they get a discount) pay more for their care than anyone else. It is just wrong, the way the insurance companies have doctors hog-tied.

Sally

I agree Michael Moore is over the top, but I honestly don't find the note offensive. I suppose I should keep my own humor under wraps here. Also, I think the healthcare industry (administration, not docs) does some horrible things. Not the docs - but the money making arm/insurance operations. I have no trouble at all going after HMOs. Where is the preventative care they were supposed to usher in? Where is the savings by streamlining the system? Are we all using those primary care docs as portals as promised??? (Seerimary care thread) It's a sham sold to the American public as healthcare reform when it is really just another way to turn a profit. Let's see those CEO salaries. Go Michael.

I don't have a problem w/the topic - I'm all for it. I thought the sarcastic style of the letter was off-putting (to me - can't say why - it's not as though I don't use sarcasm ALL THE TIME!)

Sicko

Having marketed pharmaceuticals under the guise of "medical education" for a few years, I have a pretty serious dent in my conscience to show for it. I didn’t find the note itself to be offensive. I think Michael Moore has great passion for a broken system, but the execution of “Fahrenheit 9/11” fell short of my expectations, so I have no great hope that "Sicko" will achieve what its predecessor did not. His methods of exposure and their impacts are grand, but there's no "now what?" just culpability and blame. There is a place for that, and maybe it’s in movies, but it's been so disappointing to see only that aspect of the debate with no solutions offered. I wouldn't hold him to the same standard as I would a politician (though I’m reasonably certain he wants to be taken as seriously as one) but I wish he would take full advantage of the opportunity he has to reach so many people. As for him recognizing who the “real” enemy is, I think we may take for granted that he and every bleeding heart liberal absolutely does, but doing a movie exposing Al Qaeda would put more than just his reputation on the line. It would be tremendously difficult to effectively and truthfully depict the horrible depths of their intentions and actions without risking national security, or at least being accused of doing just that. I’d say he’s a breath of fresh air, but I haven’t exhaled yet.

[smiley]

Maybe he should donate all of his earnings from this movie to pay for the health care he's talking about.
I don't like his movies because he pretends like he showing a documentary when really it is more similar to an infomercial.

[SueC]

I wouldn't mind a little extra attention being brought upon the insurance companies, though I sincerely hope they don't cast the doctors and health care providers as the villains. When I was an OT, I worked for a non-profit organization and we treated tons of medicaid patients, and I was often put in the position of discharging a patient before I felt they were ready. It was a tough position to be in--I couldn't really tell the patient they were getting screwed, and had to kind of act like I thought they were ready only because they were getting pushed out the door by their insurance companies. We did take losses when we needed to, but said hospital has had to restructure and now is only open in a limited capacity, so I see where it gets you when you don't think more about the bottom line.