Topic: Michael Moore

Realism required to fix health care system

By Bill Larson | February 4, 2008 |

Health care is a major issue facing Americans today. We as a nation pay the highest price for health care and prescription drugs in the world, and you would assume this would mean we get the best possible medical care. While that might be the case if you are wealthy, if you are not you face some tough choices.

Choices like do you get the prescriptions you need to have a decent quality of life, or do you eat? Do you get regular medical checkups, or do you because you can’t afford the price of a doctor’s visit skip them until a health condition forces you to the doctor, often after it’s too late to treat the condition? Do you look after your dental health, or do you have to let your teeth basically rot in your mouth?

I have personally been forced to make some of these choices, and I have friends and relatives who have been forced to as well. Choices no American should ever have to face.

Lets be realistic. The problem with health care in America is the private for-profit companies currently running it. In order to fix our broken system, we must take the profit motive out of it. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 5 Comments

SiCKO’s Impact

July 6, 2007 |

We’re here today to discuss the impact SiCKO is having on the health care debate in this country.  To date, we have appeared in Congress to discuss the need to get rid of private health insurance.  We testified before the legislature in California in support of a reform effort to protect Californians from for-profit health insurance.  We have done events with mayors, with leading members of Congress, on Wall Street and with progressive groups.  We have stood shoulder to smock with the 2.9 million California Nurses, as well as other working Americans such as the U.S. Steelworkers - the people who have helped build American beam by beam, rivet by rivet, floor by floor.

And to date the public has responded to our collective action.  We opened in over 400 theaters last week and had a great turnout.  More impressive, over the last five days the momentum has continued to grow - while others have gone down in the box office - we have actually gone up - which is virtually unheard of.

However, the most compelling evidence that we are making a difference is found in the response of the health care industry itself.  For the first few weeks after the movie premiered in Cannes, the industry did their best to ignore the film - no doubt at the behest of their lobbyists, the industry’s political muscle - who were likely counseling them not to engage.  Well, over the last three weeks, the industry appears to have changed its strategy as it has become clear that SiCKO poses a real threat. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues | 4 Comments

Ready or not, here comes SiCKO!

By Bill Larson | May 30, 2007 |

Michael Moore is coming out with a new documentary called SiCKO. It is a harsh look at the American health care system. SiCKO opens in theaters everywhere on June 29th.

When asked about SiCKO, Michael Moore responds , “Sicko is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth.” I personally disagree with Michael Moore on that one point, this is not a funny subject.

A reviewer on the Internet Movie Database web site had this to say:

A man without health insurance (companies simply refuse people), whose middle- and ring finger are cut off, had to choose between paying 60.000 dollars for having his middle finger restored and 12.000 dollars for having his ring finger fixed. Being the “romantic” that he is, he chose his ring finger. A woman, formerly with a good job, bankrupted by her medical bills and forced to live in the study of her daughter, has to pay 240 dollars a month for her cancer medication but gets the same pills on Cuba for… 10 cents. 45 Million uninsured Americans live in fear that they might, some day, need medical care. The rest of the world doesn’t know these fears, because for them, medical help is free: paid for by tax money. The United States have become ruthless to it’s own people. It contradicts the image Americans have of themselves and their country, but it’s the awful truth. - Ivo Martijn

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues | No Comments

Orwell Rolls In His Grave The Power Of US Corporate Media

By Bill Larson | February 16, 2007 |

Orwell rolls in his grave is the consummate critical examination of the Fourth Estate, once the bastion of American democracy by Director Robert Kane Pappas. Asking whether America has entered an Orwellian world of doublespeak where outright lies can pass for the truth, Pappas explores what the media doesn’t like to talk about: itself.

Meticulously tracing the process by which media has distorted and often dismissed actual news events, Pappas presents a riveting and eloquent mix of media professionals and leading intellectual voices on the media.

Among the cast of characters in Orwell rolls in his grave are Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, Vincent Bugliosi, former L.A. prosecutor and legal scholar, film director and author Michael Moore, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Danny Schecter, author and former producer for ABC and CNN, and Tony Benn, former member of the British Parliament.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues | No Comments

Non-debates get us no where

By Blayne Clements | August 14, 2006 |

VS

According to Kathleen Parker (August 14), having a blog and expressing a strong political opinion is akin to “Stalinist tactics”. Such words would not apply to any right winger editorialist like herself of course, but only to those such as the “operative” Michael Moore.

Parker describes a recent blog by Moore as a “manifesto…straight out of Stalin’s playbook”. The blog merely states his strong opinion that the next democrat presidential candidate be anti-war. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion | No Comments