Our Man In Havana [Michael Moore Goes Sicko]

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

Just when he was in need of some urgent media oxygen-support for his new documentary, Sicko, (A comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth) showing at Cannes next week, along comes the U.S. Department of the Treasury (see copy of letter below) to unwittingly help kickstart the publicity campaign. Story very shortly coming to a media outlet near you ...

In brief, doc film-maker Michael Moore is currently being investigated by US authorities for a possible violation of the near half-century-old trade embargo against Cuba, as a result of bringing a group of 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba last March to film part of his new documentary, Sicko, [for which Moore has been paid a "fee" of $25m from Weinstein & Co] about the horrors of healthcare provision in the US. Apparently, the party of ten workers were suffering from medical conditions believed to be related to their work examining and removing debris from the site of the World Trade Center bombings on 11 September 2001.

Hilariously sicko indeed. Of course, the publicity about to be generated by this, miraculously just in time for the doc's Cannes outing next week, is priceless. I'm sure Moore will be there sporting the latest line in extra-large, Fidel-endorsed cigars ...

Of course, Americans, as with other nationals, routinely travel to Cuba to conduct "transactions" (in one of the poorest, most set-upon countries in the world, though remarkably having one of the best [and free] healthcare systems in the world, which alone should really be of genuine interest to Americans). Its not long since Oliver Stone was fined around $6,000 for "conducting transactions" while he was in Cuba
shooting his Fidel Castro documentary.

Well, I'm sure Sicko won't do for the healthcare industry what Fahrenheit 911 didn't do for the last US election.

For those still nostalgic about Cold War intrigue, below is a copy of the letter sent to Moore by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, preceded by a statement by Sicko producer Meghan O'Hara.

May 10th, 2007 9:34 am

Statement in Response to Bush Administration's Investigation of 'SiCKO'

'SiCKO,' Michael Moore's new movie, will rip the band-aid off America's health care industry. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in just one week and opening across the U.S. on June 29th, 'SiCKO' will expose the corporations that place profit before care and the politicians who care only about money. Our health care system is broken and, all too often, deadly. The efforts of the Bush Administration to conduct a politically motivated investigation of Michael Moore and 'SiCKO' will not stop us from making sure the American people see this film.

On September 11, 2001 this country was attacked. Thousands of Americans responded with heroism and courage, toiling for days, weeks and months in the ruins at Ground Zero. These 9/11 first responders risked their lives searching for survivors, recovering bodies, and clearing away toxic rubble. Now, many of these heroes face serious health issues -- and far too many of them are not receiving the care they need and deserve. President Bush and the Bush Administration should be spending their time trying to help these heroes get health care instead of abusing the legal process to advance a political agenda.

-- Meghan O'Hara, Producer, SiCKO​

 

[Guybrush]

This is going to be a great flick I’m sure.

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

"I started to walk around the block every day, and I started eating these things that you refer to as fruits and vegetables," Moore said, after losing about 25 pounds since being spurred by the film's subject matter to start taking better care of his anorexically-challenged health. "I'm actually a fairly skinny person from the Midwest," he joked.

[BTW, though unrelated, it seems that filmed music biopics related to the post-punk era are suddenly all the rage once again, with - among others - the Anton Corbijn-directed Control about Joy Division's Ian Curtis, well received at Cannes, and Julian Temple's documentary, The Future Is Unwritten , on The Clash's Joe Strummer, all monochromatically hitting the screens.]

Michael Moore's `Sicko' Slams U.S. Health System; Cannes Claps

By Farah Nayeri

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Rick has sawed off the tops of two of his fingers. He is American and he doesn't have health insurance, one of almost 47 million people in that category. Reattaching the middle finger would cost $60,000, and the ring finger $12,000. In a grim arbitrage, Rick picks the cheaper option.

Across the border in Canada, a man with severed fingers has them all sewn back in a round-the-clock operation involving multiple surgeons. The operation costs him nothing.

That stark juxtaposition is one of many in U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary ``Sicko.'' Unveiled to cheering critics at the Cannes Film Festival today, it is an attack, as grave as it is humorous, on the U.S. health-care system. In his latest motion-picture editorial, Moore lets the episodes and those who lived them do the talking -- more than he has in past works, including the 2004 Cannes winner ``Fahrenheit 9/11.''

``The film is a call to action. The film is meant not for Michael Moore to go and do it, but for the American people to do it,'' Moore told a packed press conference after the screening, with as many reporters inside as were kept out for space reasons. ``I wanted a different tone to the film, and I wanted to say things in a different way.''

``Sicko'' introduces a less hyperbolic and more measured Moore, who descends from his customary soapbox and delivers a work that is more documentary than rant. The film is engaging, by turns sad and funny, and effective throughout.

``I would rather throw my lot down with the majority of Americans who know that something is wrong and want things to change,'' said Moore. He wants the private sector out of the provision of health insurance, he said.

Dapper at Debut

Almost 16 percent of the U.S. population didn't have health insurance in 2005, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report last year.

The director, 53, looked dapper for today's debut. No baseball hat, his hair neatly cut, and a dark suit jacket hiding a less bulky frame. ``Sicko,'' he said, drove him to lose 25 pounds (11 kilos) and eat more fruit and vegetables.

The 123-minute film opens with tales of the uninsured. One couple in late middle age, bankrupt after heart and cancer treatment, move into their adult daughter's cramped computer room. An elderly ex-plumber works as a supermarket janitor to afford his health bills. One young man is denied insurance for being too thin, and one young woman, for being too fat.

Even those with insurance are rejected. A woman's operation is refused upon discovery of a past yeast infection. Another patient is denied a bone-marrow transplant and dies.

Rejected Conditions

Former health-industry employees then take turns in front of Moore's camera. A teary ex-call-center operator recalls turning sick people away on a daily basis. The long list of reject ailments is then filmed by Moore's camera in alphabetical order, accompanied by the main ``Star Wars'' theme music. A repentant medical reviewer recounts how, by denying one patient a $500,000 operation, she caused his death. The scene is set to the poignant strains of Mahler's Symphony No. 5.

``Who invented this system?'' asks Moore, off camera.

The film is less an indictment of individual health insurers and providers than it is of the overall system, although several of the U.S.'s largest medical insurers are mentioned by Moore.

In today's press conference, Moore, referring to health insurers, said he had ``a word in their favor.'' They are ``legally required to maximize the profits of their shareholders,'' he said. ``If they don't do that, their executives could be in huge trouble for violating the law.''

Britain, France

``How do they maximize profits?'' Moore said, resuming his accusatory tone. ``The way to maximize profits is to give as little care as possible to the patients. And that to me is immoral, and in our society, it shouldn't happen.''

In ``Sicko,'' Moore introduces levity by contrasting the U.S. with Europe. The U.K.'s inefficient but free National Health Service is depicted as a health-care haven, where women give birth without charge and cashiers give rather than take, offering up money for extras such as taxi rides.

The most glaring contrast is with France, a place, as Moore notes to accordion music, where people have long lives even as they drink and smoke. Middle-class families are shown getting a range of benefits -- including, in one case, a tax-funded nanny who drops by for four hours a week to help a young mother do her laundry.

Moore doesn't show the coin's flip side. Almost one in 10 French workers is jobless, in part because employers are burdened down by the level of social charges they must pay on every person they hire.

Guantanamo, Havana

Moore being Moore, there are regular references to U.S. President George W. Bush. In the most Moore-esque stunt, the filmmaker takes a team of sick 9/11 rescue workers -- uninsured, as they are not on the government payroll -- to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The prisoners held there, suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, get state-of-the-art medical treatment. The filmmaker says he wants the rescue workers to get ``the same health care as al-Qaeda detainees.''

Moore and his companions are greeted with an ominous siren. They retreat to a Havana hospital instead, where the patients are treated and comforted at no cost. Later, they even get a tribute from rows of Cuban firemen.

The U.S. Treasury has given Moore 20 days -- expiring Tuesday, May 22, he said -- to provide information for an investigation into his trip. U.S. law prohibits trade with or travel to Cuba. Moore says he risks a fine and even a jail term.

Still, as Moore concluded, politician-like, at the press conference, ``It is my profound hope that people will listen this time, with this film, because I don't want to wait 10 or 20 years before we have universal health coverage in America.''

The film is scheduled for U.S. release on June 29, which should allow it plenty of time to become a talking point in the U.S. presidential campaign.

(Farah Nayeri is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)​

 

[Alfons]

saw this last night. Quite liked it, although I can see how people (especially americans) might see him as arrogant. The contrast between America and britain and France really made me see how Iceland is in the middle concerning the political and social view of healthcare.

The cuba visit is funny and touching as well.