A letter from Michael Moore
Thursday, November 25th, 2010
Friends,
As I head off for Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a final thought with you about this past week's news regarding the health care executives who sat around that table in Philadelphia four years ago and decided on a course of action to, if need be, "push Michael Moore off a cliff."
Having spent the week reading all their secret documents (and the book "Deadly Spin"), it's clear that there was something far more scary to these companies than me.
They were, in fact, scared of you. They were afraid YOU would end up pushing them over their own greedy cliff.
Yes, they spied on me and my family in the hopes of finding something with which to smear me and my film, "Sicko." Finding nothing (sorry, guys, I live a pretty boring life), they then resorted to the old chestnuts that have been hurled at me by General Motors, the Bush White House, the National Rifle Association and others since my first film 20 years ago, and they essentially boil down to this:
"Don't listen to him! He hates America! He hates our way of life! He's not telling you the truth! He plays fast and loose with it! Patriots, don't waste your good money to see his movie!"
And it's that last message that's at the epicenter of their biggest fear. Back in 2007, these health insurance companies believed that if you strolled inside a theater showing "Sicko", their golden goose would be cooked.
They knew, according to former health care exec and whistleblower Wendell Potter, that the truth was up there on that screen -- and the LAST thing they wanted was for millions of Americans to be exposed to it.
Why? Well, we need look no further than the document containing their own secret directive on how they should deal with the movie:
"[We Must] Prepare for the Worst Case...SiCKO evolves into a sustained populist movement."
There it is. Their biggest fear. Their "worst case" scenario. That YOU, the American public, would rise up against them. I wasn't their worst nightmare -- you were. Their own research and private polling showed that you were getting fed up with how they were screwing you, gouging you, ripping you off, denying you coverage and flat out just kicking you off the insurance. They knew, according to Potter, that they were killing 45,000 of you every year simply by denying you coverage.
We Americans don't like people who kill us. We're the kind of people who will throw billions of dollars and the mightiest military on earth at just one guy because he killed just 2,977 people. What would we do if we discovered who's killing 45,000 of us every year? How fast would we act to sever the head of that beast?
You don't need to answer that question because the executives of the country's health insurance conglomerates already know it -- it's their big "What If", followed by an even bigger "Holy Shit." "What If the millions of average Joes and Janes ever got it together enough to bring us all down, to end our profiting off the misery of others? What If the citizenry one day begin electing representatives who couldn't be bought and who would end our for-profit health insurance racket?" Holy shit, indeed.
Yes, they feared that day more than anything else, and a movie coming out before a big election year with two popular Democrats pushing for some vague version of universal heath care was all that was needed to get Big Insurance to spend millions of dollars to attack me. These corporate kingpins knew they had pushed their luck too far and now they were worried that a movie -- a movie! -- could ignite a "populist movement."
All that money spent smearing me because they thought you would get up from your theater seat and start a revolution.
It's a great compliment to you. They fear the power you have. But that's 'cause they're good at math. They know there will always be more of us than there are of them. And unless they can repeal "one person, one vote," they know they are doomed. In the meantime they will try to maintain the power they have by buying off politicians, dumbing us down, distracting us with Dancing/Ice Skating/Drinking with the Stars and getting us so scared we'll acquiesce to having naked pictures taken of us at airports this Thanksgiving weekend. Over the river and through the body scan, to grandmother's house we go...
So let us give thanks today that the richest 1% begrudgingly know that we are still, on paper at least, in charge. It is, I believe, a glimmer of hope of what we could possibly accomplish in the coming new year.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
Showing posts with label Sicko. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sicko. Show all posts
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
How Corporate America Is Pushing Us All Off a Cliff...
a letter from Michael Moore
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Friends,
When someone talks about pushing you off a cliff, it's just human nature to be curious about them. Who are these people, you wonder, and why would they want to do such a thing?
That's what I was thinking when corporate whistleblower Wendell Potter revealed that, when "Sicko" was being released in 2007, the health insurance industry's PR firm, APCO Worldwide, discussed their Plan B: "Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff."
But after looking into it, it turns out, it's nothing personal! APCO wants to push everyone off a cliff.
APCO was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter -- best known for its years of representing the giant tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake "grassroots" organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. All of a sudden, "normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris Americans" were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were outraged -- outraged! -- by exactly the things APCO's clients hated (such as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do). In particular, they were "furious" that regular people had the right to sue big corporations...you know, like Philip Morris. (For details, see the 2000 report "The CALA Files" by my friends and colleagues Carl Deal and Joanne Doroshow.)
Right about now you may be wondering: how many Americans get pushed off a cliff by Big Tobacco every year? The answer is 443,000 Americans die every year due to smoking. That's a big cliff.
With this success under their belts, APCO created "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition." TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt about global warming. The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global warming, according to the campaign's own leaked documents, was that the public could see the "vested interest" that oil companies had in opposing environmental laws. APCO's job was to help conceal those oil company interests.
And boy, have they ever succeeded. Polls now show that, as the world gets hotter, Americans are getting less and less worried about it.
How big is this particular cliff? According to the World Health Organization, climate change contributes -- right now -- to the deaths of 150,000 people every year. By 2030 it may be double that. And after that...well, the sky is literally the limit! I don't think it's crazy to say APCO may rack up even bigger numbers here than they have with tobacco.
With this track record, you can see why, when the health insurance industry wanted to come after "Sicko," they went straight to APCO. The "worst case," as their leaked documents say, was that "Sicko evolves into a sustained populist movement." That simply could not be allowed to happen. Something obviously had to be done.
As Wendell Potter explains, APCO ran their standard playbook, setting up something called "Health Care America." Health Care America, according to Potter, "was received by mainstream reporters, including the New York Times, as a legitimate organization when it was nothing but a front group set up by APCO Worldwide. It was not anything approaching what it was reporting to be: a 'grassroots organization.' It was a sham group."
Health Care America showed up online in 2007 (the year "Sicko" was released) and disappeared quickly by early 2008. You can still find their website archived here. As you'll see, their "moderated forum" allowed normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-the-insurance-industry Americans to speak out. For instance, here's something Nicole felt very strongly about:
"Moore shouldn't be allowed to call his film a 'documentary.' It should be called a political commercial. We need to fix our health care system, but we shouldn’t accept a Hollywood moviemaker’s political views as the starting point."
Here's what Wendell Potter revealed about the insurance industry's media strategy:
"As we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer to him as 'Hollywood entertainer' or 'Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.' They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth."
Thanks for your perspective, "Nicole"!
Now, how big was THAT cliff? A pretty good size -- according to a recent study, 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance.
And here we are in 2010. A lesser PR firm might be resting on its laurels at this point, content to sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of people continue to be pushed off the various cliffs they've built. But not APCO! Right now they've taken on their biggest challenge yet: leading a giant, multi-million dollar effort to help Wall Street "earn back the trust of the American people."
We may never know the size of this particular cliff. But we can be sure it's gigantic. According to the New York Times, one of the things Wall Street's recession gave us is "the crippling of the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to Americans with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them." Internationally, organizations fighting AIDS and other diseases are "hugely afraid" of cutbacks in funding.
Of course, there are the 101 ways recessions kill quietly. For instance, children's hospitals are seeing a sharp 55% rise in the abuse of babies by parents.
And that's just the previous cliff. If APCO and its Wall Street co-conspirators lull us into turning our backs on them again, we can be sure the next cliff -- the next crash -- will be much bigger.
Anyway, this is all just a way for me to say to APCO: No hard feelings! My getting mad at you would be like a chicken who's still happily pecking away getting mad at McDonald's. Compared to the millions you've already turned into McNuggets, you've actually treated me much, much BETTER! Spying on my family, planting smears and lies about me, privately badgering movie critics to give the film a poor review, scaring Americans into believing they'd be committing a near-act of treason were they to go to the theater and see my movie -- hey, ya done good, health insurance companies of America. And, most important, you stopped the nation from getting true universal health care. Good job!
There's only one problem -- I'm not one of those "liberals" you fund in Congress, the ones who fear your power.
I'm me. And that, sadly, is not good for you.
Yours in good health,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. It seems to me that APCO's discussion of pushing me off a cliff should legitimately be part of their Wikipedia page. And why not something about their role in Wall Street's new PR offensive? So I'm asking everyone interested to write something up that meets Wikipedia's guidelines and help bring the APCO Worldwide entry up to date. Post it somewhere online and send a tweet about it to @mmflint. I'll award a signed copy of "Sicko" by noon Sunday to the best entry...and then deputize you to post it on Wikipedia for real and make sure APCO's minions don't take it down. Just be sure afterward not to walk near any cliffs!
P.P.S. The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had some thoughts about marketing and the people who do it.
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Friends,
When someone talks about pushing you off a cliff, it's just human nature to be curious about them. Who are these people, you wonder, and why would they want to do such a thing?
That's what I was thinking when corporate whistleblower Wendell Potter revealed that, when "Sicko" was being released in 2007, the health insurance industry's PR firm, APCO Worldwide, discussed their Plan B: "Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff."
But after looking into it, it turns out, it's nothing personal! APCO wants to push everyone off a cliff.
APCO was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter -- best known for its years of representing the giant tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake "grassroots" organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. All of a sudden, "normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris Americans" were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were outraged -- outraged! -- by exactly the things APCO's clients hated (such as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do). In particular, they were "furious" that regular people had the right to sue big corporations...you know, like Philip Morris. (For details, see the 2000 report "The CALA Files" by my friends and colleagues Carl Deal and Joanne Doroshow.)
Right about now you may be wondering: how many Americans get pushed off a cliff by Big Tobacco every year? The answer is 443,000 Americans die every year due to smoking. That's a big cliff.
With this success under their belts, APCO created "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition." TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt about global warming. The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global warming, according to the campaign's own leaked documents, was that the public could see the "vested interest" that oil companies had in opposing environmental laws. APCO's job was to help conceal those oil company interests.
And boy, have they ever succeeded. Polls now show that, as the world gets hotter, Americans are getting less and less worried about it.
How big is this particular cliff? According to the World Health Organization, climate change contributes -- right now -- to the deaths of 150,000 people every year. By 2030 it may be double that. And after that...well, the sky is literally the limit! I don't think it's crazy to say APCO may rack up even bigger numbers here than they have with tobacco.
With this track record, you can see why, when the health insurance industry wanted to come after "Sicko," they went straight to APCO. The "worst case," as their leaked documents say, was that "Sicko evolves into a sustained populist movement." That simply could not be allowed to happen. Something obviously had to be done.
As Wendell Potter explains, APCO ran their standard playbook, setting up something called "Health Care America." Health Care America, according to Potter, "was received by mainstream reporters, including the New York Times, as a legitimate organization when it was nothing but a front group set up by APCO Worldwide. It was not anything approaching what it was reporting to be: a 'grassroots organization.' It was a sham group."
Health Care America showed up online in 2007 (the year "Sicko" was released) and disappeared quickly by early 2008. You can still find their website archived here. As you'll see, their "moderated forum" allowed normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-the-insurance-industry Americans to speak out. For instance, here's something Nicole felt very strongly about:
"Moore shouldn't be allowed to call his film a 'documentary.' It should be called a political commercial. We need to fix our health care system, but we shouldn’t accept a Hollywood moviemaker’s political views as the starting point."
Here's what Wendell Potter revealed about the insurance industry's media strategy:
"As we would do the media training, we would always have someone refer to him as 'Hollywood entertainer' or 'Hollywood moviemaker Michael Moore.' They don't want you to think that it was a documentary that had some truth."
Thanks for your perspective, "Nicole"!
Now, how big was THAT cliff? A pretty good size -- according to a recent study, 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance.
And here we are in 2010. A lesser PR firm might be resting on its laurels at this point, content to sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of people continue to be pushed off the various cliffs they've built. But not APCO! Right now they've taken on their biggest challenge yet: leading a giant, multi-million dollar effort to help Wall Street "earn back the trust of the American people."
We may never know the size of this particular cliff. But we can be sure it's gigantic. According to the New York Times, one of the things Wall Street's recession gave us is "the crippling of the government program that provides life-sustaining antiretroviral drugs to Americans with H.I.V. or AIDS who cannot afford them." Internationally, organizations fighting AIDS and other diseases are "hugely afraid" of cutbacks in funding.
Of course, there are the 101 ways recessions kill quietly. For instance, children's hospitals are seeing a sharp 55% rise in the abuse of babies by parents.
And that's just the previous cliff. If APCO and its Wall Street co-conspirators lull us into turning our backs on them again, we can be sure the next cliff -- the next crash -- will be much bigger.
Anyway, this is all just a way for me to say to APCO: No hard feelings! My getting mad at you would be like a chicken who's still happily pecking away getting mad at McDonald's. Compared to the millions you've already turned into McNuggets, you've actually treated me much, much BETTER! Spying on my family, planting smears and lies about me, privately badgering movie critics to give the film a poor review, scaring Americans into believing they'd be committing a near-act of treason were they to go to the theater and see my movie -- hey, ya done good, health insurance companies of America. And, most important, you stopped the nation from getting true universal health care. Good job!
There's only one problem -- I'm not one of those "liberals" you fund in Congress, the ones who fear your power.
I'm me. And that, sadly, is not good for you.
Yours in good health,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. It seems to me that APCO's discussion of pushing me off a cliff should legitimately be part of their Wikipedia page. And why not something about their role in Wall Street's new PR offensive? So I'm asking everyone interested to write something up that meets Wikipedia's guidelines and help bring the APCO Worldwide entry up to date. Post it somewhere online and send a tweet about it to @mmflint. I'll award a signed copy of "Sicko" by noon Sunday to the best entry...and then deputize you to post it on Wikipedia for real and make sure APCO's minions don't take it down. Just be sure afterward not to walk near any cliffs!
P.P.S. The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had some thoughts about marketing and the people who do it.
Friday, August 28, 2009
‘I made this movie as if it was going to be the last’
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/21/michael-moores-latest-film-i-made-this-movie-as-if-it-was-going-to-be-the-last-movie-i-was-allowed-to-make/
Michael Moore’s latest: ‘I made this movie as if it was going to be the last’
Diana Sweet
August 21, 2009
Two years after his last critique of the nation’s governing bodies in 2007’s ‘Sicko,’ agitprop documentarian Michael Moore is back with a new movie — and this time, his target is the economy. In a just-released teaser clip for Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore puts on his trademark baseball cap to go after corporate America.
“It’s a crime story,” Michael Moore says of his latest documentary, in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “But it’s also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. And, of course, it’s also a love story. Only it’s about an abusive relationship.”
“I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make,” the Michigan native concluded before adding “Oh, and by the way, it’s a comedy.”
The film is already up for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, which takes place Sept. 2-12 in Venice, Italy.
Moore’s latest will also headline at the Toronto film fest in September.
Michael Moore’s latest: ‘I made this movie as if it was going to be the last’
Diana Sweet
August 21, 2009
Two years after his last critique of the nation’s governing bodies in 2007’s ‘Sicko,’ agitprop documentarian Michael Moore is back with a new movie — and this time, his target is the economy. In a just-released teaser clip for Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore puts on his trademark baseball cap to go after corporate America.
“It’s a crime story,” Michael Moore says of his latest documentary, in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “But it’s also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. And, of course, it’s also a love story. Only it’s about an abusive relationship.”
“I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make,” the Michigan native concluded before adding “Oh, and by the way, it’s a comedy.”
The film is already up for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, which takes place Sept. 2-12 in Venice, Italy.
Moore’s latest will also headline at the Toronto film fest in September.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Insurance lobby's secret plan to attack 'Sicko'
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/video-insurance-lobbys-secret-plan-to-attack-sicko-and-michael-moore/
Insurance lobby's secret plan to attack 'Sicko' and Michael Moore
Diane Sweet
Saturday, July 11th, 2009
In an interview with PBS's Bill Moyers, a former insurance executive reveals a secret plan by the insurance industry to discredit Michael Moore's health care documentary, 'Sicko,' that also included lobbyists threatening negative, attack-style ads aimed at politicians supporting the formation of a government sponsored public health care option during election campaigns.
Michael Moore alerted us to Friday evening's PBS Bill Moyer's Show interview with Wendall Potter, a former executive with insurance giant CIGNA:
We've just been informed that Bill Moyers, on his show tonight, will expose for the first time the health insurance industry's secret campaign against Michael Moore and his film, "Sicko." It contains a stunning revelation and admission by a top health insurance executive -- the former head of publicity for CIGNA, one of the top health insurance companies in the country -- that the disinformation and attacks on Michael and the film were extensive and well-planned. Their job was to stop the movie from reaching a wide audience (and, more importantly, from having the widespread political impact the industry feared "Sicko" would have).
Wendell Potter, former Head of Corporate Communications at CIGNA (which provides health insurance to nearly 70 percent of the Fortune 100 companies) admits that, in fact, "Sicko" "hit the nail on the head" and told the real truth about how much better people in other countries have it when it comes to their health care.
From PBS's website:
In his first television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation's largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. "I didn't intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years, and particularly back in the early '90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan."
Potter began his trip from health care spokesperson to reform advocate while back home in Tennessee. Potter attended a "health care expedition," a makeshift health clinic set up at a fairgrounds, and he tells Bill Moyers, "It was absolutely stunning. When I walked through the fairground gates, I saw hundreds of people lined up, in the rain. It was raining that day. Lined up, waiting to get care, in animal stalls. Animal stalls."
Looking back over his long career, Potter sees an industry corrupted by Wall Street expectations and greed. According to Potter, insurers have every incentive to deny coverage — every dollar they don't pay out to a claim is a dollar they can add to their profits, and Wall Street investors demand they pay out less every year. Under these conditions, Potter says, "You don't think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you're going to meet Wall Street's expectations."
Insurance lobby's secret plan to attack 'Sicko' and Michael Moore
Diane Sweet
Saturday, July 11th, 2009
In an interview with PBS's Bill Moyers, a former insurance executive reveals a secret plan by the insurance industry to discredit Michael Moore's health care documentary, 'Sicko,' that also included lobbyists threatening negative, attack-style ads aimed at politicians supporting the formation of a government sponsored public health care option during election campaigns.
Michael Moore alerted us to Friday evening's PBS Bill Moyer's Show interview with Wendall Potter, a former executive with insurance giant CIGNA:
We've just been informed that Bill Moyers, on his show tonight, will expose for the first time the health insurance industry's secret campaign against Michael Moore and his film, "Sicko." It contains a stunning revelation and admission by a top health insurance executive -- the former head of publicity for CIGNA, one of the top health insurance companies in the country -- that the disinformation and attacks on Michael and the film were extensive and well-planned. Their job was to stop the movie from reaching a wide audience (and, more importantly, from having the widespread political impact the industry feared "Sicko" would have).
Wendell Potter, former Head of Corporate Communications at CIGNA (which provides health insurance to nearly 70 percent of the Fortune 100 companies) admits that, in fact, "Sicko" "hit the nail on the head" and told the real truth about how much better people in other countries have it when it comes to their health care.
From PBS's website:
In his first television interview since leaving the health insurance industry, Wendell Potter tells Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation's largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. "I didn't intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they've used over the years, and particularly back in the early '90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan."
Potter began his trip from health care spokesperson to reform advocate while back home in Tennessee. Potter attended a "health care expedition," a makeshift health clinic set up at a fairgrounds, and he tells Bill Moyers, "It was absolutely stunning. When I walked through the fairground gates, I saw hundreds of people lined up, in the rain. It was raining that day. Lined up, waiting to get care, in animal stalls. Animal stalls."
Looking back over his long career, Potter sees an industry corrupted by Wall Street expectations and greed. According to Potter, insurers have every incentive to deny coverage — every dollar they don't pay out to a claim is a dollar they can add to their profits, and Wall Street investors demand they pay out less every year. Under these conditions, Potter says, "You don't think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you're going to meet Wall Street's expectations."
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Michael Moore making '9/11' sequel
http://www.variety.com/VR1117985577.html
Tue., May 13, 2008
Michael Moore making '9/11' sequel
Documentary to be released in 2009
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK, ANNE THOMPSON
Michael Moore is making a sequel to "Fahrenheit 9/11" for Overture Films and Paramount Vantage, which will shop the project to international buyers when the Cannes Film Festival and market get under way today.
The two companies are co-financing and co-producing the untitled doc, which will be released next year. Overture will distribute the film domestically, while Vantage will handle international.
Moore may be leaving the Weinstein Co. -- where he made his last two films, including "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- but Overture and Vantage are no strangers to the filmmaker. Overture CEO Chris McGurk and chief operating officer Danny Rosett were both at MGM and United Artists, home of Moore's "Bowling for Columbine."
Moore also knows Vantage topper Nick Meyer, former president of Lionsgate's international arm. Lionsgate teamed with Bob and Harvey Weinstein and distributed "Fahrenheit 9/11" after Disney refused to let Miramax do so. Lionsgate again teamed with the Weinsteins to distribute Moore's most recent docu, "Sicko."
"Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing indictment of George W. Bush's war on terrorism and a hit at the worldwide box office, won the coveted Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2004. "Bowling for Columbine" also played at Cannes, and "Sicko" preemed at the fest last year.
Moore's new doc could play at Cannes next year, if it isn't released earlier in the spring. He's already at work on the film.
"Clearly, we have a movie of global appeal here. Michael Moore is a very talented filmmaker, and this is a branded property," Meyer said, adding that the Weinsteins helped build that brand.
Sequel will pick up where "Fahrenheit 9/11" left off. In the time since, Bush's popularity has plummeted, while the Iraq war continues and the economy falters.
"It's a vote of confidence on Michael's part and a great partnership for all of us," Rosett said. "There is a voracious appetite for this kind of commentary."
Moore has made three of the five top-grossing documentaries of all time. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the highest-grossing docu ever domestically, earning $119.1 million. It grossed another $100 million at the international box office.
Moore's decision not to make his next film with the Weinstein Co. comes after "Sicko" failed to ignite at the box office. The film, which took on the U.S. health care system, grossed $24.5 million domestically and $11.2 million internationally. Topically, the film didn't resonate with overseas auds.
Deal strengthens the relationship between Vantage and Overture. Last year, the two entered into an exclusive international distribution deal that gives Overture access to Vantage's international sales division, as well as the distrib arm of Paramount Pictures Intl.
Vantage will likely keep distribution rights to certain overseas territories after selling off the rest.
Bob and Harvey Weinstein will get an exec producing credit.
Tue., May 13, 2008
Michael Moore making '9/11' sequel
Documentary to be released in 2009
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK, ANNE THOMPSON
Michael Moore is making a sequel to "Fahrenheit 9/11" for Overture Films and Paramount Vantage, which will shop the project to international buyers when the Cannes Film Festival and market get under way today.
The two companies are co-financing and co-producing the untitled doc, which will be released next year. Overture will distribute the film domestically, while Vantage will handle international.
Moore may be leaving the Weinstein Co. -- where he made his last two films, including "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- but Overture and Vantage are no strangers to the filmmaker. Overture CEO Chris McGurk and chief operating officer Danny Rosett were both at MGM and United Artists, home of Moore's "Bowling for Columbine."
Moore also knows Vantage topper Nick Meyer, former president of Lionsgate's international arm. Lionsgate teamed with Bob and Harvey Weinstein and distributed "Fahrenheit 9/11" after Disney refused to let Miramax do so. Lionsgate again teamed with the Weinsteins to distribute Moore's most recent docu, "Sicko."
"Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing indictment of George W. Bush's war on terrorism and a hit at the worldwide box office, won the coveted Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2004. "Bowling for Columbine" also played at Cannes, and "Sicko" preemed at the fest last year.
Moore's new doc could play at Cannes next year, if it isn't released earlier in the spring. He's already at work on the film.
"Clearly, we have a movie of global appeal here. Michael Moore is a very talented filmmaker, and this is a branded property," Meyer said, adding that the Weinsteins helped build that brand.
Sequel will pick up where "Fahrenheit 9/11" left off. In the time since, Bush's popularity has plummeted, while the Iraq war continues and the economy falters.
"It's a vote of confidence on Michael's part and a great partnership for all of us," Rosett said. "There is a voracious appetite for this kind of commentary."
Moore has made three of the five top-grossing documentaries of all time. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the highest-grossing docu ever domestically, earning $119.1 million. It grossed another $100 million at the international box office.
Moore's decision not to make his next film with the Weinstein Co. comes after "Sicko" failed to ignite at the box office. The film, which took on the U.S. health care system, grossed $24.5 million domestically and $11.2 million internationally. Topically, the film didn't resonate with overseas auds.
Deal strengthens the relationship between Vantage and Overture. Last year, the two entered into an exclusive international distribution deal that gives Overture access to Vantage's international sales division, as well as the distrib arm of Paramount Pictures Intl.
Vantage will likely keep distribution rights to certain overseas territories after selling off the rest.
Bob and Harvey Weinstein will get an exec producing credit.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Obama's Plan To Privatize Social Security
http://rense.com/general80/d2es.htm
Obama's Plan To Privatize Social Security
Jeffrey Liebman Of Harvard, Top Economics Advisor To Obama, Wants To Privatize Social Security - Just Like The Sinister Bush Plan Americans Resoundingly Rejected In 2005. Benefits Cuts And Higher Payroll Taxes Are Also On Obama's Agenda.
By Webster Tarpley
2-6-8
Liebman has supported partial PRIVATIZATION of the government-run retirement system, an idea that is rejected by many Democrats and bears a similarity to a proposal for so-called "personal investment accounts" that Bush promoted in 2005.
"Liebman has been open to private accounts," said Michael Tanner, a Social Security expert at the Cato Institute in Washington, a think tank in Washington that advocates "free markets" and often backs Republicans.
The Liebman-MacGuineas-Samwick plan to loot Social Security also promises raising regressive payroll taxes, cutting benefits, or a combination of both.
OBAMA'S DOUBLE TALK ON SOCIAL SECURITY: "Everything should be on the table." (May 2007) This leaves the door wide open to Liebman's privatization plan.
WARN OLDER PEOPLE AND RETIREES THAT OBAMA AND HIS CLIQUE OF WEALTHY ELITIST BACKERS WANT TO TAKE THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY PENSIONS AWAY
* OBAMA ECONOMIC ADVISER DAVID CUTLER ARGUES THAT HIGH HEALTH CARE COSTS ARE ECONOMICALLY DESIRABLE
Another Obama adviser who targets health care is David Cutler, a Harvard economist. Cutler wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 asserting that "The rising cost ... of health care has been the source of a lot of saber rattling in the media and the public square, without anyone seriously analyzing the benefits gained."
Cutler advocates improving healthcare through financial incentives, meaning that he wants to increase cash flow into the hands of rapacious pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
* OBAMA'S TOP ECONOMICS GURU: AUSTAN "THE GHOUL" GOOLSBEE SKULL AND BONES ALUM, FRIEDMANITE CHICAGO BOY, FANATICAL FREE TRADE GLOBALIZER
Barack Obama's top economics adviser is a member of the super-secret Skull & Bones society of Yale University (Class of 1991), of which George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and failed elitist John Kerry are also members. Goolsbee is widely reported to have told Obama not to back a compulsory freeze on home mortgage foreclosures to help the struggling middle class in the current depression crisis, as demanded by former candidate John Edwards. Hillary Clinton has advocated a one-year voluntary freeze on foreclosures. Obama has offered counselors to comfort mortgage victims as they are dispossessed, citing the "moral hazard" of protecting the public interest from Wall Street sharks.
George Will, in an October 2007 Washington Post column saluted Goolsbee's "nuanced understanding" of traditional Democratic issues like globalization and income inequality; he "seems to be the sort of fellow -- amiable, empirical, and reasonable--you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be," wrote the arch-oligarchical apologist Will.
Austan Goolsbee (Obama's likely Secretary of the Treasury): "I'm a University of Chicago economist and no one is ever going to be more in favor of open markets and free trade than an economist, so you would presume I'd be for anything that has the words 'free trade agreement' in it and all I'll tell you is this: I do believe there's no one more in favor of open markets than me . . ."
As one reactionary Yale alum gushed: ". . .voters who usually lean Republican should take a second look at Obama ... Although some of his centrist economic prescriptions may disenchant liberals who distrust the benefits of globalization, Goolsbee said economic data indicate that free trade leads to higher wages."Goolsbee is almost certainly the unnamed advisor Paul Krugman refers to when he scores Obama's stimulus plan as "disreputable". Goolsbee is a bitter opponent of a single-payer system, and has attacked Michael Moore's movie Sicko on this issue.
Krugman: "The Obama campaign's initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I'm sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama's top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from "morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending." Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure - doesn't that sound familiar?...Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right. " (NYT, Jan. 14, 2008)
DON'T BE FOOLED BY OBAMA'S SOARING RHETORIC CHECK OUT HIS RIGHT-WING ADVISORS
Obama's Plan To Privatize Social Security
Jeffrey Liebman Of Harvard, Top Economics Advisor To Obama, Wants To Privatize Social Security - Just Like The Sinister Bush Plan Americans Resoundingly Rejected In 2005. Benefits Cuts And Higher Payroll Taxes Are Also On Obama's Agenda.
By Webster Tarpley
2-6-8
Liebman has supported partial PRIVATIZATION of the government-run retirement system, an idea that is rejected by many Democrats and bears a similarity to a proposal for so-called "personal investment accounts" that Bush promoted in 2005.
"Liebman has been open to private accounts," said Michael Tanner, a Social Security expert at the Cato Institute in Washington, a think tank in Washington that advocates "free markets" and often backs Republicans.
The Liebman-MacGuineas-Samwick plan to loot Social Security also promises raising regressive payroll taxes, cutting benefits, or a combination of both.
OBAMA'S DOUBLE TALK ON SOCIAL SECURITY: "Everything should be on the table." (May 2007) This leaves the door wide open to Liebman's privatization plan.
WARN OLDER PEOPLE AND RETIREES THAT OBAMA AND HIS CLIQUE OF WEALTHY ELITIST BACKERS WANT TO TAKE THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY PENSIONS AWAY
* OBAMA ECONOMIC ADVISER DAVID CUTLER ARGUES THAT HIGH HEALTH CARE COSTS ARE ECONOMICALLY DESIRABLE
Another Obama adviser who targets health care is David Cutler, a Harvard economist. Cutler wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 asserting that "The rising cost ... of health care has been the source of a lot of saber rattling in the media and the public square, without anyone seriously analyzing the benefits gained."
Cutler advocates improving healthcare through financial incentives, meaning that he wants to increase cash flow into the hands of rapacious pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
* OBAMA'S TOP ECONOMICS GURU: AUSTAN "THE GHOUL" GOOLSBEE SKULL AND BONES ALUM, FRIEDMANITE CHICAGO BOY, FANATICAL FREE TRADE GLOBALIZER
Barack Obama's top economics adviser is a member of the super-secret Skull & Bones society of Yale University (Class of 1991), of which George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and failed elitist John Kerry are also members. Goolsbee is widely reported to have told Obama not to back a compulsory freeze on home mortgage foreclosures to help the struggling middle class in the current depression crisis, as demanded by former candidate John Edwards. Hillary Clinton has advocated a one-year voluntary freeze on foreclosures. Obama has offered counselors to comfort mortgage victims as they are dispossessed, citing the "moral hazard" of protecting the public interest from Wall Street sharks.
George Will, in an October 2007 Washington Post column saluted Goolsbee's "nuanced understanding" of traditional Democratic issues like globalization and income inequality; he "seems to be the sort of fellow -- amiable, empirical, and reasonable--you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be," wrote the arch-oligarchical apologist Will.
Austan Goolsbee (Obama's likely Secretary of the Treasury): "I'm a University of Chicago economist and no one is ever going to be more in favor of open markets and free trade than an economist, so you would presume I'd be for anything that has the words 'free trade agreement' in it and all I'll tell you is this: I do believe there's no one more in favor of open markets than me . . ."
As one reactionary Yale alum gushed: ". . .voters who usually lean Republican should take a second look at Obama ... Although some of his centrist economic prescriptions may disenchant liberals who distrust the benefits of globalization, Goolsbee said economic data indicate that free trade leads to higher wages."Goolsbee is almost certainly the unnamed advisor Paul Krugman refers to when he scores Obama's stimulus plan as "disreputable". Goolsbee is a bitter opponent of a single-payer system, and has attacked Michael Moore's movie Sicko on this issue.
Krugman: "The Obama campaign's initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I'm sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama's top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from "morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending." Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure - doesn't that sound familiar?...Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right. " (NYT, Jan. 14, 2008)
DON'T BE FOOLED BY OBAMA'S SOARING RHETORIC CHECK OUT HIS RIGHT-WING ADVISORS
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2007
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3235
Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2007
Media Beat (12/22/07)
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
Many journalists qualified for the sixteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, but only a few were able to win recognition for turning in one of the truly stinkiest media performances of the year. As the judges for this un-coveted award, we have done our best to confer this honor on the most deserving.
And now, the winners of the P.U.-litzers for 2007:
SPINNING FOR ANOTHER WAR AWARD -- Michael Gordon of The New York Times
Continuing where he left off before the Iraq invasion, when he used unnamed official sources to produce wildly inaccurate page-one articles on Iraq’s alleged weapons threat, Gordon in February wrote a front-page story with the stunning claim that Iran’s Supreme Leader had approved sending lethal explosives into Iraq to attack U.S. soldiers. (Even President Bush soon backed away from the claim.) Readers might have had trouble assessing Gordon’s charges -- which were, as usual, almost entirely based on anonymous sources: “United States intelligence asserts ... Administration officials said ... Some American intelligence experts believe ...” After analyzing the article, blogger Jonathan Schwarz speculated that “Gordon is not an actual person, but rather a voice-activated tape recorder.”
“SOMETHING ABOUT A RETRO MACHO MAN” AWARD -- Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball
With a worshipful media wind pushing actor and former senator Fred Thompson toward the presidential race in June, Matthews lauded Thompson’s “sex appeal” and “star quality.” The hardballer was nearly rapturous as he said: “Can you smell the English Leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man`s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.”
Four years earlier, when George Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, Matthews had gushed at length about the president’s looks and how Americans love “a guy who has a little swagger. We like having a hero as president. We’re not like the Brits.”
“AMERICANS DON’T WANT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE” AWARD -- Jeff Greenfield of CBS, et al.
Reflecting what became mainstream media’s conventional wisdom in the wake of Michael Moore’s SiCKO documentary, CBS correspondent Greenfield explained that the U.S. lacks a universal healthcare system not because of the powerful insurance lobby -- but because “Americans are just different.” He quoted an academic who said Americans, unlike Canadians and Europeans, don’t want government involvement in healthcare: “It’s a cultural difference.”
Actually, CBS’s own poll of Americans had found 64 percent supporting the view that the federal government should “guarantee health insurance for all” -- with 60 percent approving of higher taxes to pay for it. A CNN poll found 64 percent American support for the idea that “government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes.”
“3-H CLUB” PRIZE -- Too Many to Name
At the same time they’re imposing their own fixations on candidates, elite political reporters like to pretend that they have absolutely no idea why the candidates are struggling to overcome those fixations. A Dec. 11 Washington Post article deadpanned: “[John] Edwards has faced challenges of his own, namely ‘the three H’s’ -- his expensive haircut, his hedge fund work after the 2004 election, and his sprawling homestead.”
Dozens of news reports in major outlets have deployed the “three H’s” shorthand, many implying that Edwards -- unlike the wealthy candidates who never mention the poor -- is a hypocrite when he discusses poverty. In July, the Post’s John Solomon devoted an entire investigative article to Edwards’ pricey haircuts: “It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned,” mused the reporter, “his hair seems to have attracted as much attention, as say, his position on healthcare.” Gee, how did that happen?
RISKY DEMOCRATS AWARD -- L.A. Times, Washington Post
If you believe certain political pundits and reporters, Democrats are continuously pushing “risky” proposals that are off-putting to the American public. In November, a Los Angeles Times report -- headlined “Democrats Calculate Risk on Tax Hikes” -- called proposed Democratic tax hikes on wealthier Americans “a major political gamble.” (Unmentioned was the fact that Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and was re-elected, or that a Gallup poll shows 66 percent of Americans think “upper income people” don’t currently pay enough taxes.) Days later, a Washington Post report was headlined “Climate is a Risky Issue for Democrats; Candidates Back Costly Proposals.” (Unmentioned was the Post’s own poll showing that 70 percent of Americans think the federal government “should do more” on global warming; only 7 percent said “it should do less.”) Listening to press corps cautions may heighten Democratic timidity -- but it hasn’t won many national elections.
SPINNING HAWKS INTO DOVES AWARD -- ABC, CNN, Fox, CBS and others
There’d be little news value in Iraq war boosters returning from a brief trip to Iraq and endorsing troop escalation. But by presenting two self-acknowledged Iraq war supporters -- Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon -- as doves, national outlets created a fictitious story line and major media push this summer in support of the war.
Few media “experts” had argued more relentlessly for war in 2002 than Pollack, author of “The Case for Invading Iraq.” Yet here was ABC anchor Charles Gibson this July: “A bit of a surprise today on Iraq. Two long and persistent critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the war today wrote a column in The New York Times saying that after a recent eight-day visit to Iraq, they find significant changes taking place.” CNN called them “two fierce critics.” A Fox reporter claimed the duo had “changed their views after seeing some of the military successes first-hand.” CBS spoke of how O’Hanlon “now believes [the troop surge] should be continued” -- even though he’d written a national column seven months earlier: “A Skeptic’s Case for the Surge.”
PUTTING CLOTHES ON THE EMPEROR PRIZE -- New York Times
After numerous inside accounts of the Iraq invasion and other policies had exposed Vice President Cheney as a true believer who often put ideology ahead of data and facts, readers may have thought The New York Times was joking when it reported in February on the impact that the perjury trial of Cheney’s chief of staff would have on the vice president. According to the newspaper of record: “The trial has chipped away at the public image of Mr. Cheney as a sober-minded policy architect.”
“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE WE SAID IT” AWARD -- CNN’s Lou Dobbs
To prove his claim that illegal immigrants were bringing “once eradicated diseases” into our country, Dobbs featured a CNN reporter in 2005 who claimed that the U.S. had seen only 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years -- but that “there have been 7,000 in the past three years.” This year, in May, Dobbs was challenged on the shocking statistic by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, who cited a federal report saying there were 7,000 leprosy cases over the last 30 years. Dobbs response: “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”
Stahl: “How can you guarantee that to me?”
Dobbs: “Because I’m the managing editor, and that’s the way we do business. We don’t make up numbers, Lesley. Do we?”
You do, Lou. The Centers for Disease Control report that new leprosy cases in the U.S. have been on the decline for close to 20 years (with 166 cases in 2005).
THE LOU DOBBS US-vs.-THEM AWARD -- Bill O’Reilly of Fox News
Talking to Sen. John McCain in May, O’Reilly said: “But do you understand what The New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part of, and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right.”
“WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLFOWITZ” AWARD -- Newsweek
As he was being forced out of his job as World Bank president in May, Paul Wolfowitz was described by Newsweek as “a man whose managerial talents do not appear to rise to the level of his analytical prowess. By most accounts, Wolfowitz is a genteel, brilliant figure ...” The Newsweek piece -- headlined “With the Best of Intentions” -- didn’t mention how the brilliant and analytical former Deputy Defense Secretary had insisted just before invading Iraq that the country had no history of ethnic strife, that the U.S. would not need to deploy more than 100,000 troops, or that the war might cost as little as $10 billion. (So far it has cost about $500 billion.)
Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2007
Media Beat (12/22/07)
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
Many journalists qualified for the sixteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, but only a few were able to win recognition for turning in one of the truly stinkiest media performances of the year. As the judges for this un-coveted award, we have done our best to confer this honor on the most deserving.
And now, the winners of the P.U.-litzers for 2007:
SPINNING FOR ANOTHER WAR AWARD -- Michael Gordon of The New York Times
Continuing where he left off before the Iraq invasion, when he used unnamed official sources to produce wildly inaccurate page-one articles on Iraq’s alleged weapons threat, Gordon in February wrote a front-page story with the stunning claim that Iran’s Supreme Leader had approved sending lethal explosives into Iraq to attack U.S. soldiers. (Even President Bush soon backed away from the claim.) Readers might have had trouble assessing Gordon’s charges -- which were, as usual, almost entirely based on anonymous sources: “United States intelligence asserts ... Administration officials said ... Some American intelligence experts believe ...” After analyzing the article, blogger Jonathan Schwarz speculated that “Gordon is not an actual person, but rather a voice-activated tape recorder.”
“SOMETHING ABOUT A RETRO MACHO MAN” AWARD -- Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball
With a worshipful media wind pushing actor and former senator Fred Thompson toward the presidential race in June, Matthews lauded Thompson’s “sex appeal” and “star quality.” The hardballer was nearly rapturous as he said: “Can you smell the English Leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man`s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.”
Four years earlier, when George Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, Matthews had gushed at length about the president’s looks and how Americans love “a guy who has a little swagger. We like having a hero as president. We’re not like the Brits.”
“AMERICANS DON’T WANT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE” AWARD -- Jeff Greenfield of CBS, et al.
Reflecting what became mainstream media’s conventional wisdom in the wake of Michael Moore’s SiCKO documentary, CBS correspondent Greenfield explained that the U.S. lacks a universal healthcare system not because of the powerful insurance lobby -- but because “Americans are just different.” He quoted an academic who said Americans, unlike Canadians and Europeans, don’t want government involvement in healthcare: “It’s a cultural difference.”
Actually, CBS’s own poll of Americans had found 64 percent supporting the view that the federal government should “guarantee health insurance for all” -- with 60 percent approving of higher taxes to pay for it. A CNN poll found 64 percent American support for the idea that “government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes.”
“3-H CLUB” PRIZE -- Too Many to Name
At the same time they’re imposing their own fixations on candidates, elite political reporters like to pretend that they have absolutely no idea why the candidates are struggling to overcome those fixations. A Dec. 11 Washington Post article deadpanned: “[John] Edwards has faced challenges of his own, namely ‘the three H’s’ -- his expensive haircut, his hedge fund work after the 2004 election, and his sprawling homestead.”
Dozens of news reports in major outlets have deployed the “three H’s” shorthand, many implying that Edwards -- unlike the wealthy candidates who never mention the poor -- is a hypocrite when he discusses poverty. In July, the Post’s John Solomon devoted an entire investigative article to Edwards’ pricey haircuts: “It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned,” mused the reporter, “his hair seems to have attracted as much attention, as say, his position on healthcare.” Gee, how did that happen?
RISKY DEMOCRATS AWARD -- L.A. Times, Washington Post
If you believe certain political pundits and reporters, Democrats are continuously pushing “risky” proposals that are off-putting to the American public. In November, a Los Angeles Times report -- headlined “Democrats Calculate Risk on Tax Hikes” -- called proposed Democratic tax hikes on wealthier Americans “a major political gamble.” (Unmentioned was the fact that Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and was re-elected, or that a Gallup poll shows 66 percent of Americans think “upper income people” don’t currently pay enough taxes.) Days later, a Washington Post report was headlined “Climate is a Risky Issue for Democrats; Candidates Back Costly Proposals.” (Unmentioned was the Post’s own poll showing that 70 percent of Americans think the federal government “should do more” on global warming; only 7 percent said “it should do less.”) Listening to press corps cautions may heighten Democratic timidity -- but it hasn’t won many national elections.
SPINNING HAWKS INTO DOVES AWARD -- ABC, CNN, Fox, CBS and others
There’d be little news value in Iraq war boosters returning from a brief trip to Iraq and endorsing troop escalation. But by presenting two self-acknowledged Iraq war supporters -- Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon -- as doves, national outlets created a fictitious story line and major media push this summer in support of the war.
Few media “experts” had argued more relentlessly for war in 2002 than Pollack, author of “The Case for Invading Iraq.” Yet here was ABC anchor Charles Gibson this July: “A bit of a surprise today on Iraq. Two long and persistent critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the war today wrote a column in The New York Times saying that after a recent eight-day visit to Iraq, they find significant changes taking place.” CNN called them “two fierce critics.” A Fox reporter claimed the duo had “changed their views after seeing some of the military successes first-hand.” CBS spoke of how O’Hanlon “now believes [the troop surge] should be continued” -- even though he’d written a national column seven months earlier: “A Skeptic’s Case for the Surge.”
PUTTING CLOTHES ON THE EMPEROR PRIZE -- New York Times
After numerous inside accounts of the Iraq invasion and other policies had exposed Vice President Cheney as a true believer who often put ideology ahead of data and facts, readers may have thought The New York Times was joking when it reported in February on the impact that the perjury trial of Cheney’s chief of staff would have on the vice president. According to the newspaper of record: “The trial has chipped away at the public image of Mr. Cheney as a sober-minded policy architect.”
“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE WE SAID IT” AWARD -- CNN’s Lou Dobbs
To prove his claim that illegal immigrants were bringing “once eradicated diseases” into our country, Dobbs featured a CNN reporter in 2005 who claimed that the U.S. had seen only 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years -- but that “there have been 7,000 in the past three years.” This year, in May, Dobbs was challenged on the shocking statistic by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, who cited a federal report saying there were 7,000 leprosy cases over the last 30 years. Dobbs response: “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”
Stahl: “How can you guarantee that to me?”
Dobbs: “Because I’m the managing editor, and that’s the way we do business. We don’t make up numbers, Lesley. Do we?”
You do, Lou. The Centers for Disease Control report that new leprosy cases in the U.S. have been on the decline for close to 20 years (with 166 cases in 2005).
THE LOU DOBBS US-vs.-THEM AWARD -- Bill O’Reilly of Fox News
Talking to Sen. John McCain in May, O’Reilly said: “But do you understand what The New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part of, and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right.”
“WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLFOWITZ” AWARD -- Newsweek
As he was being forced out of his job as World Bank president in May, Paul Wolfowitz was described by Newsweek as “a man whose managerial talents do not appear to rise to the level of his analytical prowess. By most accounts, Wolfowitz is a genteel, brilliant figure ...” The Newsweek piece -- headlined “With the Best of Intentions” -- didn’t mention how the brilliant and analytical former Deputy Defense Secretary had insisted just before invading Iraq that the country had no history of ethnic strife, that the U.S. would not need to deploy more than 100,000 troops, or that the war might cost as little as $10 billion. (So far it has cost about $500 billion.)
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
BUSHIES WANT TO HEAR FROM MOORE
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2007/07/bushies_want_to_hear_from_moor.html
Mouth of the Potomac
BUSHIES WANT TO HEAR FROM MOORE ON CUBA TRIP
This just in from "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," where Michael Moore is a guest this evening:
The Bush administration has subpoenaed Moore over his trip to Cuba with 9/11 rescue workers, which he included in his new documentary film, "Sicko."
- Ken Bazinet
MICHAEL MOORE ANNOUNCES THAT HE’S BEEN SUBPOENAED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION ON “THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO”
BURBANK-July 26, 2007 – Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore announced that the Bush Administration has subpoenaed him in the wake of his recent trip to Cuba on the July 26 episode of NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (Monday-Friday, 11:35 p.m. - 12:37 a.m. ET). "I haven't even told my own family yet." Moore began, "I was just informed when I was back there with Jay that the Bush administration has now issued a subpoena for me."
The trip was part of his new film "Sicko" which tackles the question of affordable health care in the United States. Moore, who brought 9/11 rescue workers with him on his excursion, explains the reason for his trip, saying: "Took them to Guantanamo Bay because I heard the Al Qaeda Terrorists we have in the camps there, detained, are receiving free dental, medical, eye care, the whole deal, and our own 9/11 rescue workers can't get that in New York City."
In a continued effort to help the 9/11 rescue workers, Moore stated that on August 11, the Weinstein Company will be donating 11 percent of the box office receipts from "Sicko" to "help these workers and the other workers who need help," said Moore.
Also Moore told Leno on the show how his studio asked him to cut a certain segment out of his film. "I just tell the truth in our film. (Hillary Clinton) did something very courageous 14-years ago, saying all American's should be covered. She got beat up badly for it. Now she's the second-largest recipient of health care industry money in the U.S. Senate."
Moore continued: "In fact, I don't know if I should really talk about this on national television, but you know the head of the studio that's releasing this film...Harvey Weinstein is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton. For the months leading up to the release of the film, he kept calling me every day saying, 'I want you to take that scene out of the film, attacking Hillary.' I said, 'I'm no attacking her, I'm just telling the truth.'"
Moore explained, "I'm going to go after whoever is in power, doesn't matter if they are Democrat or Republican I'm going to try to be a voice for people that don't have a voice."
The segment remains in the film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007.
"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" is from Big Dog Productions in association with Universal Media Studios. Debbie Vickers is the executive producer.
Mouth of the Potomac
BUSHIES WANT TO HEAR FROM MOORE ON CUBA TRIP
This just in from "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," where Michael Moore is a guest this evening:
The Bush administration has subpoenaed Moore over his trip to Cuba with 9/11 rescue workers, which he included in his new documentary film, "Sicko."
- Ken Bazinet
MICHAEL MOORE ANNOUNCES THAT HE’S BEEN SUBPOENAED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION ON “THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO”
BURBANK-July 26, 2007 – Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore announced that the Bush Administration has subpoenaed him in the wake of his recent trip to Cuba on the July 26 episode of NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (Monday-Friday, 11:35 p.m. - 12:37 a.m. ET). "I haven't even told my own family yet." Moore began, "I was just informed when I was back there with Jay that the Bush administration has now issued a subpoena for me."
The trip was part of his new film "Sicko" which tackles the question of affordable health care in the United States. Moore, who brought 9/11 rescue workers with him on his excursion, explains the reason for his trip, saying: "Took them to Guantanamo Bay because I heard the Al Qaeda Terrorists we have in the camps there, detained, are receiving free dental, medical, eye care, the whole deal, and our own 9/11 rescue workers can't get that in New York City."
In a continued effort to help the 9/11 rescue workers, Moore stated that on August 11, the Weinstein Company will be donating 11 percent of the box office receipts from "Sicko" to "help these workers and the other workers who need help," said Moore.
Also Moore told Leno on the show how his studio asked him to cut a certain segment out of his film. "I just tell the truth in our film. (Hillary Clinton) did something very courageous 14-years ago, saying all American's should be covered. She got beat up badly for it. Now she's the second-largest recipient of health care industry money in the U.S. Senate."
Moore continued: "In fact, I don't know if I should really talk about this on national television, but you know the head of the studio that's releasing this film...Harvey Weinstein is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton. For the months leading up to the release of the film, he kept calling me every day saying, 'I want you to take that scene out of the film, attacking Hillary.' I said, 'I'm no attacking her, I'm just telling the truth.'"
Moore explained, "I'm going to go after whoever is in power, doesn't matter if they are Democrat or Republican I'm going to try to be a voice for people that don't have a voice."
The segment remains in the film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007.
"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" is from Big Dog Productions in association with Universal Media Studios. Debbie Vickers is the executive producer.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Michael Moore breaks his silence
Thanks to Rense.com for forwarding the following...
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/123.html
Michael Moore breaks his silence
An obvious, common sense question that no one will answer
Michael Moore, the maker of "Sicko" and "Fahrenheit 911," has been widely criticized for his apparent lack of interest in examining the details of the 9/11 cover story.
This may have been the case in the past, but things have clearly changed. In this short video, Moore asks an obvious common sense question that no one seems to be able to answer:
"Why can't we see the Pentagon videos from 9/11?"
The Pentagon is surrounded by dozens of video security cameras and yet except for one useless clip, none of this footage has ever been released. Why not?
What struck the Pentagon on 9/11? Whatever it was it failed to leave the wreckage of an airliner.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/123.html
Michael Moore breaks his silence
An obvious, common sense question that no one will answer
Michael Moore, the maker of "Sicko" and "Fahrenheit 911," has been widely criticized for his apparent lack of interest in examining the details of the 9/11 cover story.
This may have been the case in the past, but things have clearly changed. In this short video, Moore asks an obvious common sense question that no one seems to be able to answer:
"Why can't we see the Pentagon videos from 9/11?"
The Pentagon is surrounded by dozens of video security cameras and yet except for one useless clip, none of this footage has ever been released. Why not?
What struck the Pentagon on 9/11? Whatever it was it failed to leave the wreckage of an airliner.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Dr. Gupta's Bias
http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/dr_guptas_bias?tx=3
Dr. Gupta's Bias
Submitted by Bill Scher on July 11, 2007
Michael Moore and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta faced off yesterday on Larry King Live, following Moore's on-air criticism of Gupta's anti-SiCKO piece which accused Moore of "fudg[ing] some facts."
Moore, on his website, is ably taking Gupta to task on the factual points.
And as Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar notes, during Larry King Live, “Moore cites his source for every statistic offered ... yet Gupta ignores it, all of it, including Moore restating, again, that all of this was available in this email [sent by Moore’s team to CNN] from June 28, 2007.”
But what was most striking was when Gupta showed the heart of his bias, a bias against having our government guarantee universal health care.
Gupta says to Moore, “You criticize the government so soundly. But you're willing to hand over one of our most precious commodities, our health care in this country, to the government.”
Moore rebutted, “I actually love our government ... It does a great job of administrating Social Security ... the problem is who we've put in power who holds office.”
Then in response, Gupta made a completely misleading attack on Medicare:
Michael, one of the best examples of health care, at least some sort of universal health care, would be Medicare. I think you would agree with that.
It's going to go bankrupt by 2019. It's going to be $28 trillion in debt by 2075...would you say that this is going to be still a working system 20 years from now?
Is this some evidence that our government can’t be directed to fix our broken health care system? Economist-blogger Dean Baker doesn’t think so:
CNN’s health care analyst is now telling people that Medicare is going bankrupt. What does this mean?
Medicare’s costs are projected to exceed its revenue and drain the surplus from its trust fund in a bit over a decade, but this has been true at several points in the past. Did Congress tell tens of millions of beneficiaries to get lost? No, Congress appropriated the money needed to keep the program going...
...If Dr. Gupta meant to imply that Medicare, as a government program is uniquely inefficient, then he is way off the mark. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Table 13) per beneficiary costs have risen in nominal dollars by 519.5 percent since 1980. By contrast, the cost per enrollee of private insurance has risen by 676.6 percent over this same period.
That gets at the heart of Gupta’s bias.
The pressures on Medicare’s finances are not the fault of our government, but of skyrocketing health care costs across the board.
Yet Gupta’s cherry-picks his facts to attack a government guarantee of universal care, and raise the prospect of dismantling Medicare, just like how conservatives sought to do the same with Social Security.
Health care costs are a major problem, but as Baker notes, “Eliminating Medicare would raise health care costs, not lower them.”
Whereas directing our government to ensure universal health care, as Medicare already does for seniors, can contain costs by pooling risk and maximizing bargaining power.
In the Health Care for America plan -- a Medicare-style public plan for those under 65 which would compete with private insurance – policy architect Jacob Hacker writes:
Because Medicare and the Health Care for America Plan would bargain jointly for lower prices and join forces to improve quality, they would have enormous combined leverage to hold down costs. Cross-national evidence and the historical experience of Medicare show conclusively that concentrated purchasing power is by far the most effective means by which to restrain the price of medical services...
...Other nations spend much less for the same medical services than we do because their insurance systems bargain for lower prices. And though Medicare covers less than a seventh of the U.S. population, it has still controlled costs substantially better than the private sector, especially since the introduction of payment controls in the mid-1980s.
When was the last time you saw a mainstream media report that merely raised the possibility that our government’s Medicare plan does a better job at containing costs than private insurance companies?
There is one thing said by Gupta that I have no disagreement with: “It makes it very hard to advance the argument if you're not getting the numbers right.”
Dr. Gupta's Bias
Submitted by Bill Scher on July 11, 2007
Michael Moore and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta faced off yesterday on Larry King Live, following Moore's on-air criticism of Gupta's anti-SiCKO piece which accused Moore of "fudg[ing] some facts."
Moore, on his website, is ably taking Gupta to task on the factual points.
And as Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar notes, during Larry King Live, “Moore cites his source for every statistic offered ... yet Gupta ignores it, all of it, including Moore restating, again, that all of this was available in this email [sent by Moore’s team to CNN] from June 28, 2007.”
But what was most striking was when Gupta showed the heart of his bias, a bias against having our government guarantee universal health care.
Gupta says to Moore, “You criticize the government so soundly. But you're willing to hand over one of our most precious commodities, our health care in this country, to the government.”
Moore rebutted, “I actually love our government ... It does a great job of administrating Social Security ... the problem is who we've put in power who holds office.”
Then in response, Gupta made a completely misleading attack on Medicare:
Michael, one of the best examples of health care, at least some sort of universal health care, would be Medicare. I think you would agree with that.
It's going to go bankrupt by 2019. It's going to be $28 trillion in debt by 2075...would you say that this is going to be still a working system 20 years from now?
Is this some evidence that our government can’t be directed to fix our broken health care system? Economist-blogger Dean Baker doesn’t think so:
CNN’s health care analyst is now telling people that Medicare is going bankrupt. What does this mean?
Medicare’s costs are projected to exceed its revenue and drain the surplus from its trust fund in a bit over a decade, but this has been true at several points in the past. Did Congress tell tens of millions of beneficiaries to get lost? No, Congress appropriated the money needed to keep the program going...
...If Dr. Gupta meant to imply that Medicare, as a government program is uniquely inefficient, then he is way off the mark. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Table 13) per beneficiary costs have risen in nominal dollars by 519.5 percent since 1980. By contrast, the cost per enrollee of private insurance has risen by 676.6 percent over this same period.
That gets at the heart of Gupta’s bias.
The pressures on Medicare’s finances are not the fault of our government, but of skyrocketing health care costs across the board.
Yet Gupta’s cherry-picks his facts to attack a government guarantee of universal care, and raise the prospect of dismantling Medicare, just like how conservatives sought to do the same with Social Security.
Health care costs are a major problem, but as Baker notes, “Eliminating Medicare would raise health care costs, not lower them.”
Whereas directing our government to ensure universal health care, as Medicare already does for seniors, can contain costs by pooling risk and maximizing bargaining power.
In the Health Care for America plan -- a Medicare-style public plan for those under 65 which would compete with private insurance – policy architect Jacob Hacker writes:
Because Medicare and the Health Care for America Plan would bargain jointly for lower prices and join forces to improve quality, they would have enormous combined leverage to hold down costs. Cross-national evidence and the historical experience of Medicare show conclusively that concentrated purchasing power is by far the most effective means by which to restrain the price of medical services...
...Other nations spend much less for the same medical services than we do because their insurance systems bargain for lower prices. And though Medicare covers less than a seventh of the U.S. population, it has still controlled costs substantially better than the private sector, especially since the introduction of payment controls in the mid-1980s.
When was the last time you saw a mainstream media report that merely raised the possibility that our government’s Medicare plan does a better job at containing costs than private insurance companies?
There is one thing said by Gupta that I have no disagreement with: “It makes it very hard to advance the argument if you're not getting the numbers right.”
An Open Letter to CNN from Michael Moore
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=216
Saturday, July 14th, 2007
An Open Letter to CNN from Michael Moore
Dear CNN,
Well, the week is over -- and still no apology, no retraction, no correction of your glaring mistakes.
I bet you thought my dust-up with Wolf Blitzer was just a cool ratings coup, that you really wouldn't have to correct the false statements you made about "Sicko." I bet you thought I was just going to go quietly away.
Think again. I'm about to become your worst nightmare. 'Cause I ain't ever going away. Not until you set the record straight, and apologize to your viewers. "The Most Trusted Name in News?" I think it's safe to say you can retire that slogan.
You have an occasional segment called "Keeping Them Honest." But who keeps you honest? After what the public saw with your report on "Sicko," and how many inaccuracies that report contained, how can anyone believe anything you say on your network? In the old days, before the Internet, you could get away with it. Your victims had no way to set the record straight, to show the viewers how you had misrepresented the truth. But now, we can post the truth -- and back it up with evidence and facts -- on the web, for all to see. And boy, judging from the mail both you and I have been receiving, the evidence I have posted on my site about your "Sicko" piece has led millions now to question your honesty.
I won't waste your time rehashing your errors. You know what they are. What I want to do is help you come clean. Admit you were wrong. What is the shame in that? We all make mistakes. I know it's hard to admit it when you've screwed up, but it's also liberating and cathartic. It not only makes you a better person, it helps prevent you from screwing up again. Imagine how many people will be drawn to a network that says, "We made a mistake. We're human. We're sorry. We will make mistakes in the future -- but we will always correct them so that you know you can trust us." Now, how hard would that really be?
As you know, I hold no personal animosity against you or any of your staff. You and your parent company have been very good to me over the years. You distributed my first film, "Roger & Me" and you published "Dude, Where's My Country?" Larry King has had me on twice in the last two weeks. I couldn't ask for better treatment.
That's why I was so stunned when you let a doctor who knows a lot about brain surgery -- but apparently very little about public policy -- do a "fact check" story, not on the medical issues in "Sicko," but rather on the economic and political information in the film. Is this why there has been a delay in your apology, because you are trying to get a DOCTOR to say he was wrong? Please tell him not to worry, no one is filing a malpractice claim against him. Dr. Gupta does excellent and compassionate stories on CNN about people's health and how we can take better care of ourselves. But when it came time to discuss universal health care, he rushed together a bunch of sloppy -- and old -- research. When his producer called us about his report the day before it aired, we sent to her, in an email, all the evidence so that he wouldn't make any mistakes on air. He chose to ignore ALL the evidence, and ran with all his falsehoods -- even though he had been given the facts a full day before! How could that happen? And now, for 5 days, I have posted on my website, for all to see, every mistake and error he made.
You, on the other hand, in the face of this overwhelming evidence and a huge public backlash, have chosen to remain silent, probably praying and hoping this will all go away.
Well it isn't. We are now going to start looking into the veracity of other reports you have aired on other topics. Nothing you say now can be believed. In 2002, the New York Times busted you for bringing celebrities on your shows and not telling your viewers they were paid spokespeople for the pharmaceutical companies. You promised never to do it again. But there you were, in 2005, talking to Joe Theismann, on air, as he pushed some drug company-sponsored website on prostate health. You said nothing about about his affiliation with GlaxoSmithKline.
Clearly, no one is keeping you honest, so I guess I'm going to have to do that job, too. $1.5 billion is spent each year by the drug companies on ads on CNN and the other four networks. I'm sure that has nothing to do with any of this. After all, if someone gave me $1.5 billion, I have to admit, I might say a kind word or two about them. Who wouldn't?!
I expect CNN to put this matter to rest. Say you're sorry and correct your story -- like any good journalist would.
Then we can get back to more important things. Like a REAL discussion about our broken health care system. Everything else is a distraction from what really matters.
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
P.S. If you also want to apologize for not doing your job at the start of the Iraq War, I'm sure most Americans would be very happy to accept your apology. You and the other networks were willing partners with Bush, flying flags all over the TV screens and never asking the hard questions that you should have asked. You might have prevented a war. You might have saved the lives of those 3,610 soldiers who are no longer with us. Instead, you blew air kisses at a commander in chief who clearly was making it all up. Millions of us knew that -- why didn't you? I think you did. And, in my opinion, that makes you responsible for this war. Instead of doing the job the founding fathers wanted you to do -- keeping those in power honest (that's why they made it the FIRST amendment) -- you and much of the media went on the attack against the few public figures like myself who dared to question the nightmare we were about to enter. You've never thanked me or the Dixie Chicks or Al Gore for doing your job for you. That's OK. Just tell the truth from this point on.
Saturday, July 14th, 2007
An Open Letter to CNN from Michael Moore
Dear CNN,
Well, the week is over -- and still no apology, no retraction, no correction of your glaring mistakes.
I bet you thought my dust-up with Wolf Blitzer was just a cool ratings coup, that you really wouldn't have to correct the false statements you made about "Sicko." I bet you thought I was just going to go quietly away.
Think again. I'm about to become your worst nightmare. 'Cause I ain't ever going away. Not until you set the record straight, and apologize to your viewers. "The Most Trusted Name in News?" I think it's safe to say you can retire that slogan.
You have an occasional segment called "Keeping Them Honest." But who keeps you honest? After what the public saw with your report on "Sicko," and how many inaccuracies that report contained, how can anyone believe anything you say on your network? In the old days, before the Internet, you could get away with it. Your victims had no way to set the record straight, to show the viewers how you had misrepresented the truth. But now, we can post the truth -- and back it up with evidence and facts -- on the web, for all to see. And boy, judging from the mail both you and I have been receiving, the evidence I have posted on my site about your "Sicko" piece has led millions now to question your honesty.
I won't waste your time rehashing your errors. You know what they are. What I want to do is help you come clean. Admit you were wrong. What is the shame in that? We all make mistakes. I know it's hard to admit it when you've screwed up, but it's also liberating and cathartic. It not only makes you a better person, it helps prevent you from screwing up again. Imagine how many people will be drawn to a network that says, "We made a mistake. We're human. We're sorry. We will make mistakes in the future -- but we will always correct them so that you know you can trust us." Now, how hard would that really be?
As you know, I hold no personal animosity against you or any of your staff. You and your parent company have been very good to me over the years. You distributed my first film, "Roger & Me" and you published "Dude, Where's My Country?" Larry King has had me on twice in the last two weeks. I couldn't ask for better treatment.
That's why I was so stunned when you let a doctor who knows a lot about brain surgery -- but apparently very little about public policy -- do a "fact check" story, not on the medical issues in "Sicko," but rather on the economic and political information in the film. Is this why there has been a delay in your apology, because you are trying to get a DOCTOR to say he was wrong? Please tell him not to worry, no one is filing a malpractice claim against him. Dr. Gupta does excellent and compassionate stories on CNN about people's health and how we can take better care of ourselves. But when it came time to discuss universal health care, he rushed together a bunch of sloppy -- and old -- research. When his producer called us about his report the day before it aired, we sent to her, in an email, all the evidence so that he wouldn't make any mistakes on air. He chose to ignore ALL the evidence, and ran with all his falsehoods -- even though he had been given the facts a full day before! How could that happen? And now, for 5 days, I have posted on my website, for all to see, every mistake and error he made.
You, on the other hand, in the face of this overwhelming evidence and a huge public backlash, have chosen to remain silent, probably praying and hoping this will all go away.
Well it isn't. We are now going to start looking into the veracity of other reports you have aired on other topics. Nothing you say now can be believed. In 2002, the New York Times busted you for bringing celebrities on your shows and not telling your viewers they were paid spokespeople for the pharmaceutical companies. You promised never to do it again. But there you were, in 2005, talking to Joe Theismann, on air, as he pushed some drug company-sponsored website on prostate health. You said nothing about about his affiliation with GlaxoSmithKline.
Clearly, no one is keeping you honest, so I guess I'm going to have to do that job, too. $1.5 billion is spent each year by the drug companies on ads on CNN and the other four networks. I'm sure that has nothing to do with any of this. After all, if someone gave me $1.5 billion, I have to admit, I might say a kind word or two about them. Who wouldn't?!
I expect CNN to put this matter to rest. Say you're sorry and correct your story -- like any good journalist would.
Then we can get back to more important things. Like a REAL discussion about our broken health care system. Everything else is a distraction from what really matters.
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
P.S. If you also want to apologize for not doing your job at the start of the Iraq War, I'm sure most Americans would be very happy to accept your apology. You and the other networks were willing partners with Bush, flying flags all over the TV screens and never asking the hard questions that you should have asked. You might have prevented a war. You might have saved the lives of those 3,610 soldiers who are no longer with us. Instead, you blew air kisses at a commander in chief who clearly was making it all up. Millions of us knew that -- why didn't you? I think you did. And, in my opinion, that makes you responsible for this war. Instead of doing the job the founding fathers wanted you to do -- keeping those in power honest (that's why they made it the FIRST amendment) -- you and much of the media went on the attack against the few public figures like myself who dared to question the nightmare we were about to enter. You've never thanked me or the Dixie Chicks or Al Gore for doing your job for you. That's OK. Just tell the truth from this point on.
'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight -- Again
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10026
July 11th, 2007 8:44 pm
'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight -- Again
[In response to Sanjay Gupta's appearance with Michael Moore on the July 10th broadcast of Larry King Live (VIDEO: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)]
GUPTA: "Well, I mean, he pulls $251 from this BBC unsourced report ... Where you pulled the $251 number was a BBC report, which, by the way, stated that the per capita spending in the United States was $5,700. You chose not to use the $5,700 from one report and chose to go to a totally different report and you're sort of cherry picking data from different reports ... Well, why didn't you use the $5,700 number from the BBC report?"
THE TRUTH:
Actually, the number 'Sicko' cited for per capita Cuban spending on health care - $251, a number widely cited by the BBC and other outlets - comes from the United Nations Human Development Report, helpfully linked on our website. Here it is again:
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html.
That UN report does list American health care spending as only $5,700, but it's a few years old. Since then, the U.S. government has updated it's projections for health care spending, to $7,498 in 2007. So we used that number. It's the most recent, and comes right from the Department of Health and Human Services. If the Cuban government gave a figure on 2007 projected health spending, we'd have used it.
GUPTA: "Medicare is going to go bankrupt by 2019, and is going to be $28 trillion in debt by 2075 ... Look, I believe the very measure of a great society is in how we take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. But would you say that this is going to be still a working system 20 years from now?"
THE TRUTH:
Medicare indeed has enough money to cover all seniors until 2019. At that time, it will simply need more funding. That shouldn't be hard to find in a nation spending trillions of dollars to invade other countries.
Medicare is not in trouble because it is socialized medicine. Medicare faces the same economic problem private health plans do - health care inflation is out of control, far outpacing inflation for other goods and services. And in fact, Medicare is much more efficient at dealing with this inflation than is private insurance. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Table 13), per beneficiary costs have risen in nominal dollars by 519.5 percent since 1980. By contrast, the cost per enrollee of private insurance has risen by 676.6 percent over this same period. So Gupta should instead be pointing his finger at the inefficiency of private insurance. (Social Security and Medicare Myths, Lies, and Realities. Institute for America's Future. http://www.globalaging.org/health/us/myths.pdf; "Gupta Says Medicare is Going Bankrupt," Dean Baker, Beat the Press blog. http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press)
There is a clear way to make our health economy more efficient. We waste $400 billion dollars per year administering our mess of a private, profit-driven system. The answer is switching to a single-payer, Medicare-style system and taking absurd profits and administrative costs out of the equation. (Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., Terry Campbell, M.H.A., and David U. Himmelstein, M.D., Costs of Health Care Administration, N Engl J Med 2003;349:768-75 )
GUPTA: "The point is, though, and I think you would have to concede this point, Michael, that you are trying to lead people to believe, again, people who are really concerned about this issue, that it is free in these other countries. And that is what I think is - (MOORE): It is free. (GUPTA) It's not, Michael."
THE TRUTH:
'Sicko' doesn't hide from the obvious fact that higher taxes are needed to pay for free, universal health care. Former UK MP Tony Benn reads from the National Health Service founding pamphlet, which explicitly states that "this is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers." And 'SiCKO' also acknowledges that the French are "drowning in taxes," a line that clearly stuck with Gupta since he used it himself during the broadcast.
The medical care in countries with socialized medicine is still free. Gupta doesn't seem to grasp that. Here in America, when you go to the library and check out a book, it's free. When the fire department puts out a fire at your house, it's free. In Canada, when you go into the hospital for chemotherapy, it's free. You don't walk out with a bill. Yes, citizens pay higher taxes in countries with socialized medicine, but they don't pay the premiums, co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket medical costs that we face in America. Moreover, in other industrialized countries citizens are not bankrupted by huge bills during a medical crisis – as is the case in America, where the leading cause of bankruptcy is medical bills. (Medical Bills Make up Half of Bankruptcies. Feb. 2005, MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/)
GUPTA: (On the lone expert shown in the original piece, Paul Keckley). "His only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University. We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions."
THE TRUTH:
Keckley left Vanderbilt in October, 2006 to become the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. The chyron on CNN even notes his new position. ('Vandy administrator to head Deloitte research center,' Nashville Business Journal. Nov. 1, 2006. http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2006/10/30/daily20.html).
The independent chairman of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions is Tommy Thompson, who was George W. Bush's Health and Human Services Secretary from 2001 to 2005 and is currently running for president as a Republican. ('Meet Tommy G. Thompson, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/employee_profile/0,1007,sid=80772&cid=86217,00.html)
Keckley has made large contributions to Republican candidates and organizations. He gave $1,000 to GOP Senator Bob Corker in 2006, $1,000 to the Tennessee GOP in 2002, along with $1,500 to two GOP Congressional candidates, and $1,000 to the Tennessee GOP in 2000. (www.fecinfo.com)
Keckley was also the CEO and Founder of EBM Solutions Inc., of Nashville, Tennessee, which counted among it's customers Blue Cross of Tennessee, the drug company Aventis, and others. Considering Keckley makes his living in the for-profit health care world – a world 'Sicko' argues should be abolished – viewers should have been told exactly where Keckley was coming from.
When will "the most trusted name in news" correct these many factual errors?
July 11th, 2007 8:44 pm
'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight -- Again
[In response to Sanjay Gupta's appearance with Michael Moore on the July 10th broadcast of Larry King Live (VIDEO: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)]
GUPTA: "Well, I mean, he pulls $251 from this BBC unsourced report ... Where you pulled the $251 number was a BBC report, which, by the way, stated that the per capita spending in the United States was $5,700. You chose not to use the $5,700 from one report and chose to go to a totally different report and you're sort of cherry picking data from different reports ... Well, why didn't you use the $5,700 number from the BBC report?"
THE TRUTH:
Actually, the number 'Sicko' cited for per capita Cuban spending on health care - $251, a number widely cited by the BBC and other outlets - comes from the United Nations Human Development Report, helpfully linked on our website. Here it is again:
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html.
That UN report does list American health care spending as only $5,700, but it's a few years old. Since then, the U.S. government has updated it's projections for health care spending, to $7,498 in 2007. So we used that number. It's the most recent, and comes right from the Department of Health and Human Services. If the Cuban government gave a figure on 2007 projected health spending, we'd have used it.
GUPTA: "Medicare is going to go bankrupt by 2019, and is going to be $28 trillion in debt by 2075 ... Look, I believe the very measure of a great society is in how we take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. But would you say that this is going to be still a working system 20 years from now?"
THE TRUTH:
Medicare indeed has enough money to cover all seniors until 2019. At that time, it will simply need more funding. That shouldn't be hard to find in a nation spending trillions of dollars to invade other countries.
Medicare is not in trouble because it is socialized medicine. Medicare faces the same economic problem private health plans do - health care inflation is out of control, far outpacing inflation for other goods and services. And in fact, Medicare is much more efficient at dealing with this inflation than is private insurance. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Table 13), per beneficiary costs have risen in nominal dollars by 519.5 percent since 1980. By contrast, the cost per enrollee of private insurance has risen by 676.6 percent over this same period. So Gupta should instead be pointing his finger at the inefficiency of private insurance. (Social Security and Medicare Myths, Lies, and Realities. Institute for America's Future. http://www.globalaging.org/health/us/myths.pdf; "Gupta Says Medicare is Going Bankrupt," Dean Baker, Beat the Press blog. http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press)
There is a clear way to make our health economy more efficient. We waste $400 billion dollars per year administering our mess of a private, profit-driven system. The answer is switching to a single-payer, Medicare-style system and taking absurd profits and administrative costs out of the equation. (Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., Terry Campbell, M.H.A., and David U. Himmelstein, M.D., Costs of Health Care Administration, N Engl J Med 2003;349:768-75 )
GUPTA: "The point is, though, and I think you would have to concede this point, Michael, that you are trying to lead people to believe, again, people who are really concerned about this issue, that it is free in these other countries. And that is what I think is - (MOORE): It is free. (GUPTA) It's not, Michael."
THE TRUTH:
'Sicko' doesn't hide from the obvious fact that higher taxes are needed to pay for free, universal health care. Former UK MP Tony Benn reads from the National Health Service founding pamphlet, which explicitly states that "this is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers." And 'SiCKO' also acknowledges that the French are "drowning in taxes," a line that clearly stuck with Gupta since he used it himself during the broadcast.
The medical care in countries with socialized medicine is still free. Gupta doesn't seem to grasp that. Here in America, when you go to the library and check out a book, it's free. When the fire department puts out a fire at your house, it's free. In Canada, when you go into the hospital for chemotherapy, it's free. You don't walk out with a bill. Yes, citizens pay higher taxes in countries with socialized medicine, but they don't pay the premiums, co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket medical costs that we face in America. Moreover, in other industrialized countries citizens are not bankrupted by huge bills during a medical crisis – as is the case in America, where the leading cause of bankruptcy is medical bills. (Medical Bills Make up Half of Bankruptcies. Feb. 2005, MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/)
GUPTA: (On the lone expert shown in the original piece, Paul Keckley). "His only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University. We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions."
THE TRUTH:
Keckley left Vanderbilt in October, 2006 to become the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. The chyron on CNN even notes his new position. ('Vandy administrator to head Deloitte research center,' Nashville Business Journal. Nov. 1, 2006. http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2006/10/30/daily20.html).
The independent chairman of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions is Tommy Thompson, who was George W. Bush's Health and Human Services Secretary from 2001 to 2005 and is currently running for president as a Republican. ('Meet Tommy G. Thompson, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/employee_profile/0,1007,sid=80772&cid=86217,00.html)
Keckley has made large contributions to Republican candidates and organizations. He gave $1,000 to GOP Senator Bob Corker in 2006, $1,000 to the Tennessee GOP in 2002, along with $1,500 to two GOP Congressional candidates, and $1,000 to the Tennessee GOP in 2000. (www.fecinfo.com)
Keckley was also the CEO and Founder of EBM Solutions Inc., of Nashville, Tennessee, which counted among it's customers Blue Cross of Tennessee, the drug company Aventis, and others. Considering Keckley makes his living in the for-profit health care world – a world 'Sicko' argues should be abolished – viewers should have been told exactly where Keckley was coming from.
When will "the most trusted name in news" correct these many factual errors?
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Sicko "fact check"
http://mediamatters.org/items/200707120001?f=h_latest
In Sicko "fact check," CNN's Gupta falsely claimed his source's "only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University"
Wednesday July 11, 2007
Summary: After Sicko director Michael Moore said that CNN's Sicko fact-check "healthcare expert" Paul Keckley is "a person from a think tank group who is a big Republican contributor," CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta asserted that Keckley's "only affiliation" is with Vanderbilt University. Gupta continued, "We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions." In fact, as a caption accompanying Gupta's original report stated, Keckley is a "Deloitte Healthcare Expert."
On the July 10 edition of CNN's Larry King Live, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta falsely asserted that the "only affiliation" of Paul Keckley, whom Gupta had quoted criticizing the national health care systems of France, Canada, and Cuba during a July 9 "fact check" of filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, was "with Vanderbilt University." Gupta was responding to Moore's claim that Keckley was "a person from a think tank group who is a big Republican contributor." Moore also said that Keckley "has done business with [health insurance provider] Blue Cross, with [pharmaceutical firm] Aventis, with these other groups," and claimed that Keckley was affiliated "with a think tank that's connected to [presidential candidate and former Wisconsin Gov.] Tommy Thompson [R]." In denying Moore's allegations, Gupta asserted: "We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions." In fact, in Gupta's original report -- which King excerpted during his show -- the caption identified Keckley not as affiliated "with Vanderbilt University," but rather as a "Deloitte Healthcare Expert." Indeed, in addition to serving on the faculty of Vanderbilt University, Keckley is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
During the July 9 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, Gupta presented a segment billed as a "fact check" of Moore's film, describing how Moore "fudged the facts." During the segment, he played two clips of Keckley, identified in the caption as a "Deloitte Healthcare Expert." During the first clip, following Gupta's statement that "[a] survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem," Keckley asserted: "That's the reality of those systems. There are quotas. There are planned wait times. The concept that care is free in France, in Canada and Cuba, and it's not." Keckley continued: "Those citizens pay for health services out of taxes. And as a proportion of their household income, it's a significant number." During the second clip, which followed Gupta's statement that while citizens of countries with universal health care are subject to higher taxes than in the United States, "even higher taxes don't give all the coverage everyone wants," Keckley said: "Fifteen to 20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government."
Gupta and Moore then appeared on the July 10 edition of Larry King Live to discuss Gupta's "fact check." After appearing on Larry King Live, Moore put several links on his website to back up his assertions to Gupta.
Contrary to Gupta's assertion on Larry King Live that Keckley's "only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University," Keckley is affiliated with Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, part of a global audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services group of firms. Keckley is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions states on its website that "it delivers research on and develops solutions to some of our nation's most pressing health care and public health related challenges." As Moore noted on Larry King Live, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions is also "connected" to Tommy Thompson. The center's website lists Thompson as the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions' independent chairman.
Keckley is also a Republican contributor, as Moore claimed. According OpenSecrets.org, Keckley has donated $8,500 to Republican candidates or party committees since 1990, including $1,000 to Sen. Bob Corker (TN), $2,000 to the Republican Party of Tennessee, $2,000 to Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN), and $500 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (TN). During that period, he has made no donations to Democratic candidates or party committees that have been reported to the Federal Election Commission.
Moore's assertion that Keckley "has done business with Blue Cross, with Aventis, with these other groups," is also accurate. According to Keckley's curriculum vitae, posted on Vanderbilt's website, from 1998 to 2002 Keckley served as chief executive officer of EBM Solutions Inc., which licensed software applications to "32 healthcare organizations in 2002 including Health Net of California, Blue Cross of Tennessee, Aventis and others." Keckley's curriculum vitae also lists him as a member of the Aventis Health Outcomes Measurement Committee. Further, Keckley's biography on the website of the Vanderbilt Center for Evidence-Based Medicine notes that he is "a frequent keynote speaker for national healthcare organizations including the AMA House of Delegates, National Quality Forum, The Medical Group Management Association, Disease Management Association, Blue Cross Association, American Association of Health Plans and others."
From the July 9 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:
GUPTA: A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem.
KECKLEY: That's the reality of those systems. There are quotas. There are planned wait times. The concept that care is free in France, in Canada and Cuba, and it's not. Those citizens pay for health services out of taxes. And as a proportion of their household income, it's a significant number.
GUPTA: It's true that the French pay higher taxes -- and so does nearly every country ahead of the United States on that list. But even higher taxes don't give all the coverage everyone wants.
KECKLEY: Fifteen to 20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government.
GUPTA: So there's no perfect system anywhere. But no matter how much Moore fudged the facts -- and he did fudge some facts -- there's one everyone agrees on: The system here should be far better.
From the July 10 edition of CNN's Larry King Live:
KING: Dr. Gupta, we have less than a minute, and we should clear up -- have you ever had an effect by the fact of who the sponsor is on what you report?
GUPTA: No. I, I -- have no -- no contact at all with the sponsors. They've never affected my judgment. We did the story, the Sicko fact check piece -- it was completely just -- just our own editorial pursuits on this.
MOORE: Except --
GUPTA: And --
MOORE: Except -- except, let me say this, the one expert that you had in the piece is a person from a think tank group who is a big Republican contributor. He's done business with Blue Cross, with Aventis, with these other groups.
I mean don't you have a right as a journalist -- or a responsibility, actually, to tell the public when you're using an expert, this person is a Republican, he's with a think tank that's connected to [presidential candidate and former Governor] Tommy Thompson [R-WI] --
KING: OK, we're --
[crosstalk]
KING: Sanjay, we have 20 seconds.
MOORE: He's with a think tank --
GUPTA: You know, his only affiliation --
KING: Hold it, Michael.
GUPTA: His only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University. We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions.
MOORE: I'll --
GUPTA: Whether or not we disclose it to you on the [inaudible] --
MOORE: I'll put that all up on the site, too.
[crosstalk]
KING: I'll tell you what, guys --
GUPTA: Please do. You can talk to me directly.
— M.G.
In Sicko "fact check," CNN's Gupta falsely claimed his source's "only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University"
Wednesday July 11, 2007
Summary: After Sicko director Michael Moore said that CNN's Sicko fact-check "healthcare expert" Paul Keckley is "a person from a think tank group who is a big Republican contributor," CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta asserted that Keckley's "only affiliation" is with Vanderbilt University. Gupta continued, "We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions." In fact, as a caption accompanying Gupta's original report stated, Keckley is a "Deloitte Healthcare Expert."
On the July 10 edition of CNN's Larry King Live, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta falsely asserted that the "only affiliation" of Paul Keckley, whom Gupta had quoted criticizing the national health care systems of France, Canada, and Cuba during a July 9 "fact check" of filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, was "with Vanderbilt University." Gupta was responding to Moore's claim that Keckley was "a person from a think tank group who is a big Republican contributor." Moore also said that Keckley "has done business with [health insurance provider] Blue Cross, with [pharmaceutical firm] Aventis, with these other groups," and claimed that Keckley was affiliated "with a think tank that's connected to [presidential candidate and former Wisconsin Gov.] Tommy Thompson [R]." In denying Moore's allegations, Gupta asserted: "We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions." In fact, in Gupta's original report -- which King excerpted during his show -- the caption identified Keckley not as affiliated "with Vanderbilt University," but rather as a "Deloitte Healthcare Expert." Indeed, in addition to serving on the faculty of Vanderbilt University, Keckley is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
During the July 9 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, Gupta presented a segment billed as a "fact check" of Moore's film, describing how Moore "fudged the facts." During the segment, he played two clips of Keckley, identified in the caption as a "Deloitte Healthcare Expert." During the first clip, following Gupta's statement that "[a] survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem," Keckley asserted: "That's the reality of those systems. There are quotas. There are planned wait times. The concept that care is free in France, in Canada and Cuba, and it's not." Keckley continued: "Those citizens pay for health services out of taxes. And as a proportion of their household income, it's a significant number." During the second clip, which followed Gupta's statement that while citizens of countries with universal health care are subject to higher taxes than in the United States, "even higher taxes don't give all the coverage everyone wants," Keckley said: "Fifteen to 20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government."
Gupta and Moore then appeared on the July 10 edition of Larry King Live to discuss Gupta's "fact check." After appearing on Larry King Live, Moore put several links on his website to back up his assertions to Gupta.
Contrary to Gupta's assertion on Larry King Live that Keckley's "only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University," Keckley is affiliated with Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, part of a global audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services group of firms. Keckley is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions states on its website that "it delivers research on and develops solutions to some of our nation's most pressing health care and public health related challenges." As Moore noted on Larry King Live, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions is also "connected" to Tommy Thompson. The center's website lists Thompson as the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions' independent chairman.
Keckley is also a Republican contributor, as Moore claimed. According OpenSecrets.org, Keckley has donated $8,500 to Republican candidates or party committees since 1990, including $1,000 to Sen. Bob Corker (TN), $2,000 to the Republican Party of Tennessee, $2,000 to Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN), and $500 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (TN). During that period, he has made no donations to Democratic candidates or party committees that have been reported to the Federal Election Commission.
Moore's assertion that Keckley "has done business with Blue Cross, with Aventis, with these other groups," is also accurate. According to Keckley's curriculum vitae, posted on Vanderbilt's website, from 1998 to 2002 Keckley served as chief executive officer of EBM Solutions Inc., which licensed software applications to "32 healthcare organizations in 2002 including Health Net of California, Blue Cross of Tennessee, Aventis and others." Keckley's curriculum vitae also lists him as a member of the Aventis Health Outcomes Measurement Committee. Further, Keckley's biography on the website of the Vanderbilt Center for Evidence-Based Medicine notes that he is "a frequent keynote speaker for national healthcare organizations including the AMA House of Delegates, National Quality Forum, The Medical Group Management Association, Disease Management Association, Blue Cross Association, American Association of Health Plans and others."
From the July 9 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:
GUPTA: A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem.
KECKLEY: That's the reality of those systems. There are quotas. There are planned wait times. The concept that care is free in France, in Canada and Cuba, and it's not. Those citizens pay for health services out of taxes. And as a proportion of their household income, it's a significant number.
GUPTA: It's true that the French pay higher taxes -- and so does nearly every country ahead of the United States on that list. But even higher taxes don't give all the coverage everyone wants.
KECKLEY: Fifteen to 20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government.
GUPTA: So there's no perfect system anywhere. But no matter how much Moore fudged the facts -- and he did fudge some facts -- there's one everyone agrees on: The system here should be far better.
From the July 10 edition of CNN's Larry King Live:
KING: Dr. Gupta, we have less than a minute, and we should clear up -- have you ever had an effect by the fact of who the sponsor is on what you report?
GUPTA: No. I, I -- have no -- no contact at all with the sponsors. They've never affected my judgment. We did the story, the Sicko fact check piece -- it was completely just -- just our own editorial pursuits on this.
MOORE: Except --
GUPTA: And --
MOORE: Except -- except, let me say this, the one expert that you had in the piece is a person from a think tank group who is a big Republican contributor. He's done business with Blue Cross, with Aventis, with these other groups.
I mean don't you have a right as a journalist -- or a responsibility, actually, to tell the public when you're using an expert, this person is a Republican, he's with a think tank that's connected to [presidential candidate and former Governor] Tommy Thompson [R-WI] --
KING: OK, we're --
[crosstalk]
KING: Sanjay, we have 20 seconds.
MOORE: He's with a think tank --
GUPTA: You know, his only affiliation --
KING: Hold it, Michael.
GUPTA: His only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University. We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions.
MOORE: I'll --
GUPTA: Whether or not we disclose it to you on the [inaudible] --
MOORE: I'll put that all up on the site, too.
[crosstalk]
KING: I'll tell you what, guys --
GUPTA: Please do. You can talk to me directly.
— M.G.
'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10017
July 10th, 2007
'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN: "(Moore says) the United States slipped to number 37 in the world's health care systems. It's true. ... Moore brings a group of patients, including 9/11 workers, to Cuba and marvels at their free treatment and quality of care. But hold on - that WHO list puts Cuba's health care system even lower than the United States, coming in at #39."
THE TRUTH:
"But hold on?" 'SiCKO' clearly shows the WHO list, with the United States at number #37, and Cuba at #39. Right up on the screen in big five-foot letters. It's even in the trailer! CNN should have its reporter see his eye doctor. The movie isn't hiding from this fact. Just the opposite:
CNN hides the facts on Cuba
But 'SiCKO' has the facts right up front
The fact that the healthcare system in an impoverished nation crippled by our decades-old blockade (including medical supplies and drugs) ranks so closely to ours is more an indictment of the American system than the Cuban system.
Although Cuba ranks lower overall than the United States, it still has a lower infant mortality rate and longer life span.
(see below)
And unlike the United States, Cuba offers healthcare to absolutely everyone. In an independent Gallup poll conducted in Cuba, "a near unanimous 96 percent of respondents say that health care in Cuba is accessible to everyone." ("Cubans Show Little Satisfaction with Opportunities and Individual Freedom Rare Independent Survey Finds Large Majorities Are Still Proud of Island's Health Care and Education," January 10,2007. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brlatinamericara/300.php?nid=&id=&pnt=300&lb=brla)
CNN: "Moore asserts that the American health care system spends $7,000 per person on health. Cuba spends $25 dollars per person. Not true. But not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 per person, versus $229 per person in Cuba."
THE TRUTH:
According to our own government – the Department of Health and Human Services' National Health Expenditures Projections – the United States will spend $7,092 per capita on health in 2006 and $7,498 in 2007. (Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures, National Health Expenditures Projections 2006-2016. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/proj2006.pdf)
As for Cuba – Dr. Gupta and CNN need to watch 'SiCKO' first before commenting on it. 'SiCKO' says Cuba spends $251 per person on health care, not $25, as Gupta reports. And the BBC reports that Cuba's per capita health expenditure is… $251! (Keeping Cuba Healthy, BBC, Aug. 1 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5232628.stm ) This is confirmed by the United Nations Human Development Report, 2006. Yup, Cuba spends $251 per person on health care. (http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html) As Gupta points out, the World Health Organization does calculate Cuba's per capita health expenditure at $229 per person. We chose to use the UN numbers, a minor difference - and $229 is a lot closer to $251 than $25.
CNN: In fact, Americans live just a little bit longer than Cubans on average.
THE TRUTH:
Just the opposite. The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5 years. It is 77.6 years in Cuba. (Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf)
CNN: The United States ranks highest in patient satisfaction.
THE TRUTH:
True, but even when the WHO took patient satisfaction into account in its comprehensive review of the world's health systems, we still came in at #37. ("World Health Organization Assesses The World's Health Systems," Press Release, WHO/44, June 21, 2000. http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html).
Patients may be satisfied in America, but not everyone gets to be a patient. 47 million are uninsured and are rarely patients - until it's too late. In the rest of the Western world, everyone and anyone can be a patient because everyone is covered. (And don't face exclusions for pre-existing conditions, co-pays, deductibles, and costly monthly premiums).
It's not that other countries are unhappy with their health care – for example, "70 to 80 percent of Canadians find their waiting times acceptable." ("Access to health care services in Canada, Waiting times for specialized services (January to December 2005)," Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-575-XIE/82-575-XIE2006002.htm )
CNN: Americans have shorter wait times than everyone but Germans when seeking non-emergency elective procedures, like hip replacement, cataract surgery, or knee repair.
THE TRUTH:
This isn't the whole truth. CNN pulled out a statistic about elective procedures. Of the six countries surveyed in that study (United States, Canada, New Zealand, UK, Germany, Australia) only Canada had longer waiting times than America for sick adults waiting to schedule a doctor's appointment for a medical problem. 81% of patients in New Zealand got a same or next-day appointment for a non-routine visit, 71% in Britain, 69% in Germany, 66% in Australia, 47% in the U.S., and 36% in Canada. (The Doc's in, but It'll be AWhile. Catherine Arnst, Business Week. June 22, 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070621_716260_page_2.htm)
"Gerard Anderson, a Johns Hopkins health policy professor who has spent his career examining the world's healthcare, said there are delays, but not as many as conservatives state. In Canada, the United Kingdom and France, 'three percent of hospital discharges had delays in treatment,' Anderson told The Miami Herald. 'That's a relatively small number, and they're all elective surgeries, such as hip and knee replacement.' (John Dorschner, "'SiCKO' film is set to spark debate; Reformers are gearing up for 'Sicko,' the first major movie to examine America's often maligned healthcare system," Miami Herald, June 29, 2007.)
One way America is able to achieve decent waiting times is that it leaves 47 million people out of the health care system entirely, unlike any other Western country. When you remove 47 million people from the line, your wait should be shorter. So why is the U.S. second to last in wait times?
And there are even more Americans who keep themselves out of the system because of cost - in the United States, 24 percent of the population did not get medical care due to cost. That number is 5 percent in Canada, and 3 percent in the UK. (Inequities in Health Care: A Five-Country Survey. Robert Blendon et al, Health Affairs. Exhibit 5. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/182)
CNN: (PAUL KECKLEY-Deloitte Health Care Analyst): "The concept that care is free in France, in Canada, in Cuba - and it's not. Those citizens pay for health services out of taxes. As a proportion of their household income, it's a significant number … (GUPTA): It's true that the French pay higher taxes, and so does nearly every country ahead of the United States on that list."
THE TRUTH:
'SiCKO' never claims that health care is provided absolutely for free in other countries, without tax contributions from citizens. Former MP Tony Benn reads from the NHS founding pamphlet, which explicitly states that "this is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers." 'SiCKO' also acknowledges that the French are "drowning in taxes." Comparatively, many Americans are drowning in insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays and medical debt and the resulting threat of bankruptcy – half of all bankruptcies in the United States are triggered by medical bills. (Medical Bills Make up Half of Bankruptcies. Feb. 2005, MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/)
CNN: "But even higher taxes don't guarantee the coverage everyone wants … (KECKLEY): 15 to 20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government."
THE TRUTH:
It's not clear what country Keckley is referring to. In the United Kingdom, only 11.5 percent of the population has supplementary insurance, but it doesn't take the place of NHS insurance. Nobody in France buys insurance that replaces government insurance either, although a substantial amount buys some form of complimentary insurance. ( Private health insurance and access to health care in the European Union. Spring 2004. http://www.euro.who.int/document/Obs/EuroObserver6_1.pdf)
CNN: "But no matter how much Moore fudged the facts, and he did fudge some facts…"
This is libel. There is not a single fact that is "fudged" in the film. No one has proven a single fact in the film wrong. We expect CNN to correct their mistakes on the air and to apologize to their viewers.
July 10th, 2007
'SiCKO' Truth Squad Sets CNN Straight
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN: "(Moore says) the United States slipped to number 37 in the world's health care systems. It's true. ... Moore brings a group of patients, including 9/11 workers, to Cuba and marvels at their free treatment and quality of care. But hold on - that WHO list puts Cuba's health care system even lower than the United States, coming in at #39."
THE TRUTH:
"But hold on?" 'SiCKO' clearly shows the WHO list, with the United States at number #37, and Cuba at #39. Right up on the screen in big five-foot letters. It's even in the trailer! CNN should have its reporter see his eye doctor. The movie isn't hiding from this fact. Just the opposite:
CNN hides the facts on Cuba
But 'SiCKO' has the facts right up front
The fact that the healthcare system in an impoverished nation crippled by our decades-old blockade (including medical supplies and drugs) ranks so closely to ours is more an indictment of the American system than the Cuban system.
Although Cuba ranks lower overall than the United States, it still has a lower infant mortality rate and longer life span.
(see below)
And unlike the United States, Cuba offers healthcare to absolutely everyone. In an independent Gallup poll conducted in Cuba, "a near unanimous 96 percent of respondents say that health care in Cuba is accessible to everyone." ("Cubans Show Little Satisfaction with Opportunities and Individual Freedom Rare Independent Survey Finds Large Majorities Are Still Proud of Island's Health Care and Education," January 10,2007. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brlatinamericara/300.php?nid=&id=&pnt=300&lb=brla)
CNN: "Moore asserts that the American health care system spends $7,000 per person on health. Cuba spends $25 dollars per person. Not true. But not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 per person, versus $229 per person in Cuba."
THE TRUTH:
According to our own government – the Department of Health and Human Services' National Health Expenditures Projections – the United States will spend $7,092 per capita on health in 2006 and $7,498 in 2007. (Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare and Medicaid Expenditures, National Health Expenditures Projections 2006-2016. http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/proj2006.pdf)
As for Cuba – Dr. Gupta and CNN need to watch 'SiCKO' first before commenting on it. 'SiCKO' says Cuba spends $251 per person on health care, not $25, as Gupta reports. And the BBC reports that Cuba's per capita health expenditure is… $251! (Keeping Cuba Healthy, BBC, Aug. 1 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5232628.stm ) This is confirmed by the United Nations Human Development Report, 2006. Yup, Cuba spends $251 per person on health care. (http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html) As Gupta points out, the World Health Organization does calculate Cuba's per capita health expenditure at $229 per person. We chose to use the UN numbers, a minor difference - and $229 is a lot closer to $251 than $25.
CNN: In fact, Americans live just a little bit longer than Cubans on average.
THE TRUTH:
Just the opposite. The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5 years. It is 77.6 years in Cuba. (Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf)
CNN: The United States ranks highest in patient satisfaction.
THE TRUTH:
True, but even when the WHO took patient satisfaction into account in its comprehensive review of the world's health systems, we still came in at #37. ("World Health Organization Assesses The World's Health Systems," Press Release, WHO/44, June 21, 2000. http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html).
Patients may be satisfied in America, but not everyone gets to be a patient. 47 million are uninsured and are rarely patients - until it's too late. In the rest of the Western world, everyone and anyone can be a patient because everyone is covered. (And don't face exclusions for pre-existing conditions, co-pays, deductibles, and costly monthly premiums).
It's not that other countries are unhappy with their health care – for example, "70 to 80 percent of Canadians find their waiting times acceptable." ("Access to health care services in Canada, Waiting times for specialized services (January to December 2005)," Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-575-XIE/82-575-XIE2006002.htm )
CNN: Americans have shorter wait times than everyone but Germans when seeking non-emergency elective procedures, like hip replacement, cataract surgery, or knee repair.
THE TRUTH:
This isn't the whole truth. CNN pulled out a statistic about elective procedures. Of the six countries surveyed in that study (United States, Canada, New Zealand, UK, Germany, Australia) only Canada had longer waiting times than America for sick adults waiting to schedule a doctor's appointment for a medical problem. 81% of patients in New Zealand got a same or next-day appointment for a non-routine visit, 71% in Britain, 69% in Germany, 66% in Australia, 47% in the U.S., and 36% in Canada. (The Doc's in, but It'll be AWhile. Catherine Arnst, Business Week. June 22, 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070621_716260_page_2.htm)
"Gerard Anderson, a Johns Hopkins health policy professor who has spent his career examining the world's healthcare, said there are delays, but not as many as conservatives state. In Canada, the United Kingdom and France, 'three percent of hospital discharges had delays in treatment,' Anderson told The Miami Herald. 'That's a relatively small number, and they're all elective surgeries, such as hip and knee replacement.' (John Dorschner, "'SiCKO' film is set to spark debate; Reformers are gearing up for 'Sicko,' the first major movie to examine America's often maligned healthcare system," Miami Herald, June 29, 2007.)
One way America is able to achieve decent waiting times is that it leaves 47 million people out of the health care system entirely, unlike any other Western country. When you remove 47 million people from the line, your wait should be shorter. So why is the U.S. second to last in wait times?
And there are even more Americans who keep themselves out of the system because of cost - in the United States, 24 percent of the population did not get medical care due to cost. That number is 5 percent in Canada, and 3 percent in the UK. (Inequities in Health Care: A Five-Country Survey. Robert Blendon et al, Health Affairs. Exhibit 5. http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/182)
CNN: (PAUL KECKLEY-Deloitte Health Care Analyst): "The concept that care is free in France, in Canada, in Cuba - and it's not. Those citizens pay for health services out of taxes. As a proportion of their household income, it's a significant number … (GUPTA): It's true that the French pay higher taxes, and so does nearly every country ahead of the United States on that list."
THE TRUTH:
'SiCKO' never claims that health care is provided absolutely for free in other countries, without tax contributions from citizens. Former MP Tony Benn reads from the NHS founding pamphlet, which explicitly states that "this is not a charity. You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers." 'SiCKO' also acknowledges that the French are "drowning in taxes." Comparatively, many Americans are drowning in insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays and medical debt and the resulting threat of bankruptcy – half of all bankruptcies in the United States are triggered by medical bills. (Medical Bills Make up Half of Bankruptcies. Feb. 2005, MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/)
CNN: "But even higher taxes don't guarantee the coverage everyone wants … (KECKLEY): 15 to 20 percent of the population will purchase services outside the system of care run by the government."
THE TRUTH:
It's not clear what country Keckley is referring to. In the United Kingdom, only 11.5 percent of the population has supplementary insurance, but it doesn't take the place of NHS insurance. Nobody in France buys insurance that replaces government insurance either, although a substantial amount buys some form of complimentary insurance. ( Private health insurance and access to health care in the European Union. Spring 2004. http://www.euro.who.int/document/Obs/EuroObserver6_1.pdf)
CNN: "But no matter how much Moore fudged the facts, and he did fudge some facts…"
This is libel. There is not a single fact that is "fudged" in the film. No one has proven a single fact in the film wrong. We expect CNN to correct their mistakes on the air and to apologize to their viewers.
CNN vs. SiCKO
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3135
Action Alert
CNN vs. SiCKO
7/11/07
Filmmaker Michael Moore appeared on CNN's Situation Room on July 9 to talk about his new film Sicko—but ended up having an animated discussion with host Wolf Blitzer about a CNN "fact check" of the film that made several embarrassing errors.
The piece--dubbed a "Reality Check" by senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta--claimed that Moore "fudged the facts" when critiquing the U.S. health care system. Gupta starts by acknowledging that the U.S. healthcare system placed 37th in the World Health Organization's rankings. The fact that Moore contrasts this with the Cuban system led Gupta to "catch" him: "But hold on. That WHO list puts Cuba's healthcare system even lower than the United States, coming in at number 39."
The fact that the U.S.'s healthcare system does about as well as a Third World island that's been under economic sanctions for the past five decades isn't much of a catch to begin with. But Cuba's WHO ranking actually appears in Moore's film. (As Moore's website pointed out, when CNN aired the relevant clip from his film, a CNN logo covered up Cuba on the list.)
Gupta's next fact check:
"Moore asserts that the American healthcare system spends $7,000 per person on health, whereas Cuba spends $25 per person. Not true, but not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 a year per person versus $229 a year in Cuba."
Actually, Moore was much closer than Gupta: according to the Department of Health & Human Services, U.S. per capita healthcare spending was projected to reach $7,092 in 2006, and $7,498 for this year.
On a July 10 debate with Moore on CNN's Larry King Live, Gupta tried to claim that these projected numbers were somehow invalid, as if the continuously rising costs of healthcare should not be taken into account when discussing healthcare expenditures. Ironically, during the same discussion, Gupta cited Medicare's looming insolvency as a reason not to support expanding the program--a financial crunch that of course is also based on projections of steadily rising healthcare costs.
What's more—Gupta's "reality check" got the film's claims wrong: Moore said Cuba spent $251 per person, not $25.
Gupta went on to claim that Sicko portrays "medical utopia elsewhere," when in fact studies show the U.S. system is better in some respects:
"The film is filled with content Canadians and Brits sitting in waiting rooms, confident care will come. In Canada, you can be waiting for a long time. A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem."
This is a grossly misleading characterization of the Commonwealth Fund's survey; instead of stressing that the study found that the United States did better than one country with universal care in terms of waiting time, Gupta could more relevantly have focused on the fact that four out of five of the universal healthcare countries studied (including Britain) outperformed the U.S. on the very measure that he singled out to show that you don't find "medical utopia elsewhere."
It's worth noting that the study that Gupta cited placed the U.S. as the worst overall of all the healthcare system studied, placing it last or next to last in all but one of eight criteria, while spending almost twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. Gupta's example was a clear case of cherry-picking--selecting only the data that fits your argument--something he accused Moore of doing.
When Moore confronted CNN's Blitzer about the inaccuracies in their "reality check" segment, he responded: "Well, if we get that confirmed, obviously, we'll correct the record." And CNN did correct one thing — Gupta acknowledged his error about Cuba's per capita spending ($25 versus $251). On CNN's Newsroom (7/10/07), Gupta seemed taken aback by the whole thing, saying, "Yesterday there was a lot said by Michael, quite frankly, lots of numbers thrown around, and it can get admittedly somewhat confusing."
He did not apologize for criticizing Moore for using current healthcare figures rather than outdated ones, or for implying that Moore concealed Cuba's healthcare ranking, or for misleading viewers about the findings of the survey on waiting times. "We're comfortable with what we presented," Gupta said, aside from misrepresenting what Moore reported about Cuban healthcare costs by a factor of 10, which Gupta attributed to "an error of transcribing the number down incorrectly."
"As a journalist and a doctor the facts are extremely important to me," Gupta claimed. That priority is not at all evident from his report on Sicko, which instead suggested that his chief goal was discrediting Moore's film. In pursuit of that mission he ended up making more serious factual errors than any he actually found in Moore's film. Gupta's failure to retract the other falsehoods, beyond his "transcribing" error, suggests that facts are actually of little importance to him compared to maintaining the pretense that he is an expert and that activist/journalists like Moore are not to be trusted.
The tendency for mainstream journalists to resist criticism is not surprising. Gupta's CNN colleague Kyra Phillips perhaps said it best when she referred to the second part of Moore's interview with Blitzer: "You can tune in to the Situation Room at 4:00 Eastern for a little more unedited Moore interview, if you can stomach it."
The implication couldn't be clearer: If we make false claims about your work, it's downright rude of you to say something about it.
ACTION: Contact CNN's Situation Room and demand that they correct the other mistakes in Gupta's "fact check" on Michael Moore's film.
CONTACT:
CNN
Situation Room
situationroom@cnn.com
Comment page:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?65
CNN President
Jonathan Klein
Phone: (212) 275-7800
For more background, go to:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php
Action Alert
CNN vs. SiCKO
7/11/07
Filmmaker Michael Moore appeared on CNN's Situation Room on July 9 to talk about his new film Sicko—but ended up having an animated discussion with host Wolf Blitzer about a CNN "fact check" of the film that made several embarrassing errors.
The piece--dubbed a "Reality Check" by senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta--claimed that Moore "fudged the facts" when critiquing the U.S. health care system. Gupta starts by acknowledging that the U.S. healthcare system placed 37th in the World Health Organization's rankings. The fact that Moore contrasts this with the Cuban system led Gupta to "catch" him: "But hold on. That WHO list puts Cuba's healthcare system even lower than the United States, coming in at number 39."
The fact that the U.S.'s healthcare system does about as well as a Third World island that's been under economic sanctions for the past five decades isn't much of a catch to begin with. But Cuba's WHO ranking actually appears in Moore's film. (As Moore's website pointed out, when CNN aired the relevant clip from his film, a CNN logo covered up Cuba on the list.)
Gupta's next fact check:
"Moore asserts that the American healthcare system spends $7,000 per person on health, whereas Cuba spends $25 per person. Not true, but not too far off. The United States spends $6,096 a year per person versus $229 a year in Cuba."
Actually, Moore was much closer than Gupta: according to the Department of Health & Human Services, U.S. per capita healthcare spending was projected to reach $7,092 in 2006, and $7,498 for this year.
On a July 10 debate with Moore on CNN's Larry King Live, Gupta tried to claim that these projected numbers were somehow invalid, as if the continuously rising costs of healthcare should not be taken into account when discussing healthcare expenditures. Ironically, during the same discussion, Gupta cited Medicare's looming insolvency as a reason not to support expanding the program--a financial crunch that of course is also based on projections of steadily rising healthcare costs.
What's more—Gupta's "reality check" got the film's claims wrong: Moore said Cuba spent $251 per person, not $25.
Gupta went on to claim that Sicko portrays "medical utopia elsewhere," when in fact studies show the U.S. system is better in some respects:
"The film is filled with content Canadians and Brits sitting in waiting rooms, confident care will come. In Canada, you can be waiting for a long time. A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the United States when it came to waiting for a doctor's appointment for a medical problem."
This is a grossly misleading characterization of the Commonwealth Fund's survey; instead of stressing that the study found that the United States did better than one country with universal care in terms of waiting time, Gupta could more relevantly have focused on the fact that four out of five of the universal healthcare countries studied (including Britain) outperformed the U.S. on the very measure that he singled out to show that you don't find "medical utopia elsewhere."
It's worth noting that the study that Gupta cited placed the U.S. as the worst overall of all the healthcare system studied, placing it last or next to last in all but one of eight criteria, while spending almost twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. Gupta's example was a clear case of cherry-picking--selecting only the data that fits your argument--something he accused Moore of doing.
When Moore confronted CNN's Blitzer about the inaccuracies in their "reality check" segment, he responded: "Well, if we get that confirmed, obviously, we'll correct the record." And CNN did correct one thing — Gupta acknowledged his error about Cuba's per capita spending ($25 versus $251). On CNN's Newsroom (7/10/07), Gupta seemed taken aback by the whole thing, saying, "Yesterday there was a lot said by Michael, quite frankly, lots of numbers thrown around, and it can get admittedly somewhat confusing."
He did not apologize for criticizing Moore for using current healthcare figures rather than outdated ones, or for implying that Moore concealed Cuba's healthcare ranking, or for misleading viewers about the findings of the survey on waiting times. "We're comfortable with what we presented," Gupta said, aside from misrepresenting what Moore reported about Cuban healthcare costs by a factor of 10, which Gupta attributed to "an error of transcribing the number down incorrectly."
"As a journalist and a doctor the facts are extremely important to me," Gupta claimed. That priority is not at all evident from his report on Sicko, which instead suggested that his chief goal was discrediting Moore's film. In pursuit of that mission he ended up making more serious factual errors than any he actually found in Moore's film. Gupta's failure to retract the other falsehoods, beyond his "transcribing" error, suggests that facts are actually of little importance to him compared to maintaining the pretense that he is an expert and that activist/journalists like Moore are not to be trusted.
The tendency for mainstream journalists to resist criticism is not surprising. Gupta's CNN colleague Kyra Phillips perhaps said it best when she referred to the second part of Moore's interview with Blitzer: "You can tune in to the Situation Room at 4:00 Eastern for a little more unedited Moore interview, if you can stomach it."
The implication couldn't be clearer: If we make false claims about your work, it's downright rude of you to say something about it.
ACTION: Contact CNN's Situation Room and demand that they correct the other mistakes in Gupta's "fact check" on Michael Moore's film.
CONTACT:
CNN
Situation Room
situationroom@cnn.com
Comment page:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?65
CNN President
Jonathan Klein
Phone: (212) 275-7800
For more background, go to:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Health care wars and the lies
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2165.shtml
Health care wars and the lies the for-profit racketeers tell us
By Warren Pease
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 6, 2007
As Michael Moore’s “Sicko” continues to draw crowds and spawn spontaneous health care reform advocacy groups across the country, the health care industry is planning to hit back hard.
They’ll attack Moore’s credibility, discredit the movie’s core thesis, conduct endless push polls, create case studies detailing the horrors of other countries’ health care systems, and build a phony but cogent case for continuing the American way of for-profit medicine, along with its disgracefully inequitable delivery system.
For-profit medicine -- insurance, medical facilities, specialized equipment manufacturers and the like -- was a $1.3 trillion business as far back as 2000, and it’s safe to say that figure has only increased in the seven intervening years. The companies that have a stake in maintaining that massive revenue stream will do whatever it takes to convince Americans that they would be crazy to modify or dismantle “the best health care system in the world.” As always, PR and advertising will be the preferred weapons of mass disinformation.
Back in the early ‘90s, the “we’re number one” myth’s public faces were a folksy old couple named Harry and Louise, who polluted TV advertising every evening for months reciting industry propaganda and spreading fear of “radical” change that could place our very lives in jeopardy. All this as the ill-fated Clinton health care plan gradually sank beneath the combined weight of its own complexity and the groundswell of public opinion, taught to them by Harry and Louise, against reforming such a perfect system.
This time though, things are a bit different. Anger is everywhere and sharply focused on the source of the problem. `Many have had their own personal HMO moment by now, and it’s likely going to take more than the estimated $100 million Harry and Louise campaign to sway public opinion industry’s way. But never underestimate the vast amounts of money the health care racket is willing to spend to keep its first class seat on the gravy train. They could 10, 20, 30 times the $100 million Harry and Louise cost and still consider it a bargain, given that they retain their ability to bilk consumers out of trillions for another decade and a half. And that kind of money buys some very clever, skillful media strategists and professional opinion manipulators.
Observers of the fine art of manufacturing consent are eagerly waiting to see how the health care industry slithers its way out of this latest assault on its revenue stream. One thing is certain, as the ponderous purveyors of mass media claptrap like to say: If things get serious enough that Congress actually moves Dennis Kucinich’s HR 676 single-payer, universal access plan out of committee and onto the floor for a vote, we will be the targets and/or victims of the most egregious assault on critical thinking and common sense since the Supreme Court ordered the Florida recount stopped because the results might be prejudicial to Bush’s contention that he had won the state’s electoral votes. And that’s a tough one to beat.
The “S” word
Might as well get it out in the open, because as soon as somebody raises the topic of a taxpayer-funded universal access health care system for the U.S., the chorus starts bleating “socialized medicine, socialized medicine” like a combination of Chicken Little and the last Cold Warrior, until everybody starts looking under the bed for Commies and subversives.
Fact is, we’ve already got socialized medicine. It’s called Medicare, and it’s absolutely astounding how the subversive evils of socialized medicine for people aged 64 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds are magically transformed into an untouchable entitlement program when the clock ticks one more time.
It’s both comic and tragic to watch our elected representatives fall all over themselves in an effort to defend Medicare while denying its very nature. Comic because only a clown would try so hard to avoid the taint of socialized anything while advocating tirelessly for that very thing. And tragic because the rest of the world doesn’t have to do the free market orthodoxy dance, and gets better and far more affordable health care as a result. We can only look beyond our borders with appreciation and envy as other populations get healthier and ours gets more sickly and desperate by the year.
And here's the crowning insult: The US taxpayer already foots the bill for the bulk of all health care expenditures in this country. A seminal Harvard Medical School study shows that, in 1999, the US taxpayer shouldered the burden for just under 60 percent of all health care costs nationwide. That percentage represented $2,604 per capita at the time, which means government spending on health care in the US is higher than total per capita health care expenditures in any other country -- including those with single-payer, universal access national health care systems. So we're paying for national health care; we're just not getting it.
More of the usual scare tactics
In late 1993, during the alleged U.S. health care debate, a conservative academic and columnist named Thomas V. DiBacco wrote an article that was picked up by a number of daily newspapers and whose headline read, “Health Reform Could Kill Individualism.” This is in sharp contrast, one supposes, to the current system, which only kills actual people while leaving prevailing free market ideological mythology in place.
But this is the kind of inane argument advanced by privatized health care apologists, as if anyone in his or her right mind gives a tinker’s damn about the merits of individualism, American-style, while they’re busy dying on a feces-stained, urine-soaked mattress because they exceeded their lifetime benefits cap and couldn’t afford a hospital bed where they might get treatment, or even a hospice where they might at least die with dignity.
Other phantom phobias and industry favorites include:
Single-payer will force us to ration health care. Nonsense. Health care is already rationed in this country. Or more accurately, it’s auctioned off to the highest bidder. To the shock of no one, study after study shows that the rich tend to recover from illness far faster and far more completely than the middle class, who in turn are doing way better than the poor. A single-payer plan erases those class distinctions, which may well offend the 4 or 5 percent of the population able to pay out-of-pocket for premium medical care, but will put the rest of us on an equal footing.
Poverty as health risk is borne out by a late-‘90s Tufts University study, which concludes that poverty is the single most dangerous risk factor in America -- ahead of genetic predisposition, bad habits, dangerous jobs, extreme sports and poor diet combined.
Which leads us to the inevitable: According to a study released in May 2002 by the Minnesota-based research firm Institute of Medicine, approximately 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack the basic medical coverage necessary to get proper health care. Only in America is lack of private health insurance a capital crime.
Single-payer will cost too much. Nonsense. The current debacle costs each American more than anyone else, anywhere else in the industrialized world. And payment doesn’t end at the pocketbook; there are some things you simply can’t put a price tag on, like recovering from an illness because you had the right care from the right people at the right time. Managed care, by making sure that none of the above happens without throwing a huge bureaucratic hissy fit, is simply a cruel hoax. After all, if they were so effective at controlling costs, health insurance premiums wouldn’t be rising by double-digit percentages each year.
Single-payer will kill choice of physicians. Nonsense. Managed care killed your freedom to choose a long time ago. If your doc is in the plan, great. If not, you’re paying a fair percentage of your own medical bills along with your bloated premiums. Single-payer, on the other hand, doesn’t place any restrictions on who you see, despite industry propaganda to the contrary. And logically, if all docs are operating under the same rules and are paid by the same entity, why should there be any questions about freedom of choice? The argument makes no sense.
Single-payer will create an army of government bureaucrats who will have control over our health care needs. Nonsense. There’s already an army of bureaucrats in charge of our health care. The difference is private health care industry bureaucrats advance up the corporate food chain largely on the basis of how well they control costs -- which is code for how often they’re able to deny coverage without incurring lawsuits. Public bureaucrats, such as Medicare administrators, are also graded on how well they measure up to their job descriptions, although those descriptions rarely include how effective they are at killing off their clientele.
Single-payer will turn over our health care to the people who run the post office. Nonsense. For all their well-documented inefficiency, the fact is the feds do many things pretty well -- one of which is the Medicare system, which only takes about two or three cents on the dollar to administer, as opposed to the 25 to 40 percent overhead we pay the industry parasites so they can deny us coverage.
Moreover, many things are just too important to be subjected to the bottom-line mentality. For example, would anyone really want the air traffic control system privatized? There you are suspended seven miles in the air when the captain comes on the intercom and tells you that Glutco Air Traffic Solutions, Inc., has just laid off 40 percent of its workforce, including most of the people who staffed the operation at the airport you're heading to.
So we’ll eventually be presented with a clear choice: Continue to squander huge sums of money on a scam that is systemically incapable of providing decent health care for all. Or follow the lead of every single other industrialized country -- and quite a few who aren’t even close to industrialization -- and create a fair, universal access, single-payer system that doesn’t limit its services to those with the fattest wallets. Health care is either a right or a privilege: Ultimately, that’s going to be the central question regarding any efforts at health care reform.
Most of the rest of the world has decided in favor of the former. Thus far, the US has taken the latter position. It’s up to us, the tens of millions of individuals most affected by this hideous, malevolent, soulless system, to force our representatives to obey their constituents, because other than a few gutsy people like Kucinich, Congress certainly isn’t going to do this on its own. After all, when has altruism ever been a property of governments, particularly when so many of our alleged representatives are so well paid by the health care racketeers to look the other way.
On the other hand, if anyone wants the kind of guys who ran Enron (absent the dearly departed Mr. Lay), WorldCom, Dynegy, Qwest, Harken, Arbusto, Peregrine, Andersen, Britsol Meyers Squibb, Merck, Adelphia and the rest of the indicted corporate criminals to oversee their health care needs, great. I understand all of them are now looking for jobs and may even be had for a little less than their usual multi-million-dollar salaries. In some cases, paying their legal fees may suffice.
Comments? Email the author at war_on_peas@yahoo.com and gladden his lonely old heart (which may even be a covered procedure in my usuriously expensive PPO plan).
Health care wars and the lies the for-profit racketeers tell us
By Warren Pease
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jul 6, 2007
As Michael Moore’s “Sicko” continues to draw crowds and spawn spontaneous health care reform advocacy groups across the country, the health care industry is planning to hit back hard.
They’ll attack Moore’s credibility, discredit the movie’s core thesis, conduct endless push polls, create case studies detailing the horrors of other countries’ health care systems, and build a phony but cogent case for continuing the American way of for-profit medicine, along with its disgracefully inequitable delivery system.
For-profit medicine -- insurance, medical facilities, specialized equipment manufacturers and the like -- was a $1.3 trillion business as far back as 2000, and it’s safe to say that figure has only increased in the seven intervening years. The companies that have a stake in maintaining that massive revenue stream will do whatever it takes to convince Americans that they would be crazy to modify or dismantle “the best health care system in the world.” As always, PR and advertising will be the preferred weapons of mass disinformation.
Back in the early ‘90s, the “we’re number one” myth’s public faces were a folksy old couple named Harry and Louise, who polluted TV advertising every evening for months reciting industry propaganda and spreading fear of “radical” change that could place our very lives in jeopardy. All this as the ill-fated Clinton health care plan gradually sank beneath the combined weight of its own complexity and the groundswell of public opinion, taught to them by Harry and Louise, against reforming such a perfect system.
This time though, things are a bit different. Anger is everywhere and sharply focused on the source of the problem. `Many have had their own personal HMO moment by now, and it’s likely going to take more than the estimated $100 million Harry and Louise campaign to sway public opinion industry’s way. But never underestimate the vast amounts of money the health care racket is willing to spend to keep its first class seat on the gravy train. They could 10, 20, 30 times the $100 million Harry and Louise cost and still consider it a bargain, given that they retain their ability to bilk consumers out of trillions for another decade and a half. And that kind of money buys some very clever, skillful media strategists and professional opinion manipulators.
Observers of the fine art of manufacturing consent are eagerly waiting to see how the health care industry slithers its way out of this latest assault on its revenue stream. One thing is certain, as the ponderous purveyors of mass media claptrap like to say: If things get serious enough that Congress actually moves Dennis Kucinich’s HR 676 single-payer, universal access plan out of committee and onto the floor for a vote, we will be the targets and/or victims of the most egregious assault on critical thinking and common sense since the Supreme Court ordered the Florida recount stopped because the results might be prejudicial to Bush’s contention that he had won the state’s electoral votes. And that’s a tough one to beat.
The “S” word
Might as well get it out in the open, because as soon as somebody raises the topic of a taxpayer-funded universal access health care system for the U.S., the chorus starts bleating “socialized medicine, socialized medicine” like a combination of Chicken Little and the last Cold Warrior, until everybody starts looking under the bed for Commies and subversives.
Fact is, we’ve already got socialized medicine. It’s called Medicare, and it’s absolutely astounding how the subversive evils of socialized medicine for people aged 64 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds are magically transformed into an untouchable entitlement program when the clock ticks one more time.
It’s both comic and tragic to watch our elected representatives fall all over themselves in an effort to defend Medicare while denying its very nature. Comic because only a clown would try so hard to avoid the taint of socialized anything while advocating tirelessly for that very thing. And tragic because the rest of the world doesn’t have to do the free market orthodoxy dance, and gets better and far more affordable health care as a result. We can only look beyond our borders with appreciation and envy as other populations get healthier and ours gets more sickly and desperate by the year.
And here's the crowning insult: The US taxpayer already foots the bill for the bulk of all health care expenditures in this country. A seminal Harvard Medical School study shows that, in 1999, the US taxpayer shouldered the burden for just under 60 percent of all health care costs nationwide. That percentage represented $2,604 per capita at the time, which means government spending on health care in the US is higher than total per capita health care expenditures in any other country -- including those with single-payer, universal access national health care systems. So we're paying for national health care; we're just not getting it.
More of the usual scare tactics
In late 1993, during the alleged U.S. health care debate, a conservative academic and columnist named Thomas V. DiBacco wrote an article that was picked up by a number of daily newspapers and whose headline read, “Health Reform Could Kill Individualism.” This is in sharp contrast, one supposes, to the current system, which only kills actual people while leaving prevailing free market ideological mythology in place.
But this is the kind of inane argument advanced by privatized health care apologists, as if anyone in his or her right mind gives a tinker’s damn about the merits of individualism, American-style, while they’re busy dying on a feces-stained, urine-soaked mattress because they exceeded their lifetime benefits cap and couldn’t afford a hospital bed where they might get treatment, or even a hospice where they might at least die with dignity.
Other phantom phobias and industry favorites include:
Single-payer will force us to ration health care. Nonsense. Health care is already rationed in this country. Or more accurately, it’s auctioned off to the highest bidder. To the shock of no one, study after study shows that the rich tend to recover from illness far faster and far more completely than the middle class, who in turn are doing way better than the poor. A single-payer plan erases those class distinctions, which may well offend the 4 or 5 percent of the population able to pay out-of-pocket for premium medical care, but will put the rest of us on an equal footing.
Poverty as health risk is borne out by a late-‘90s Tufts University study, which concludes that poverty is the single most dangerous risk factor in America -- ahead of genetic predisposition, bad habits, dangerous jobs, extreme sports and poor diet combined.
Which leads us to the inevitable: According to a study released in May 2002 by the Minnesota-based research firm Institute of Medicine, approximately 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack the basic medical coverage necessary to get proper health care. Only in America is lack of private health insurance a capital crime.
Single-payer will cost too much. Nonsense. The current debacle costs each American more than anyone else, anywhere else in the industrialized world. And payment doesn’t end at the pocketbook; there are some things you simply can’t put a price tag on, like recovering from an illness because you had the right care from the right people at the right time. Managed care, by making sure that none of the above happens without throwing a huge bureaucratic hissy fit, is simply a cruel hoax. After all, if they were so effective at controlling costs, health insurance premiums wouldn’t be rising by double-digit percentages each year.
Single-payer will kill choice of physicians. Nonsense. Managed care killed your freedom to choose a long time ago. If your doc is in the plan, great. If not, you’re paying a fair percentage of your own medical bills along with your bloated premiums. Single-payer, on the other hand, doesn’t place any restrictions on who you see, despite industry propaganda to the contrary. And logically, if all docs are operating under the same rules and are paid by the same entity, why should there be any questions about freedom of choice? The argument makes no sense.
Single-payer will create an army of government bureaucrats who will have control over our health care needs. Nonsense. There’s already an army of bureaucrats in charge of our health care. The difference is private health care industry bureaucrats advance up the corporate food chain largely on the basis of how well they control costs -- which is code for how often they’re able to deny coverage without incurring lawsuits. Public bureaucrats, such as Medicare administrators, are also graded on how well they measure up to their job descriptions, although those descriptions rarely include how effective they are at killing off their clientele.
Single-payer will turn over our health care to the people who run the post office. Nonsense. For all their well-documented inefficiency, the fact is the feds do many things pretty well -- one of which is the Medicare system, which only takes about two or three cents on the dollar to administer, as opposed to the 25 to 40 percent overhead we pay the industry parasites so they can deny us coverage.
Moreover, many things are just too important to be subjected to the bottom-line mentality. For example, would anyone really want the air traffic control system privatized? There you are suspended seven miles in the air when the captain comes on the intercom and tells you that Glutco Air Traffic Solutions, Inc., has just laid off 40 percent of its workforce, including most of the people who staffed the operation at the airport you're heading to.
So we’ll eventually be presented with a clear choice: Continue to squander huge sums of money on a scam that is systemically incapable of providing decent health care for all. Or follow the lead of every single other industrialized country -- and quite a few who aren’t even close to industrialization -- and create a fair, universal access, single-payer system that doesn’t limit its services to those with the fattest wallets. Health care is either a right or a privilege: Ultimately, that’s going to be the central question regarding any efforts at health care reform.
Most of the rest of the world has decided in favor of the former. Thus far, the US has taken the latter position. It’s up to us, the tens of millions of individuals most affected by this hideous, malevolent, soulless system, to force our representatives to obey their constituents, because other than a few gutsy people like Kucinich, Congress certainly isn’t going to do this on its own. After all, when has altruism ever been a property of governments, particularly when so many of our alleged representatives are so well paid by the health care racketeers to look the other way.
On the other hand, if anyone wants the kind of guys who ran Enron (absent the dearly departed Mr. Lay), WorldCom, Dynegy, Qwest, Harken, Arbusto, Peregrine, Andersen, Britsol Meyers Squibb, Merck, Adelphia and the rest of the indicted corporate criminals to oversee their health care needs, great. I understand all of them are now looking for jobs and may even be had for a little less than their usual multi-million-dollar salaries. In some cases, paying their legal fees may suffice.
Comments? Email the author at war_on_peas@yahoo.com and gladden his lonely old heart (which may even be a covered procedure in my usuriously expensive PPO plan).
Dr. Feelgood
http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-06-27/film/dr-feelgood/
Dr. Feelgood
Michael Moore's pill goes down easy, but his diagnosis of U.S. healthcare still devastates
By J. HOBERMAN
Published: June 27, 2007
"We're Americans. We go into other countries when we need to. It's tricky, but it works." So declares Michael Moore in the midst of his new documentary, Sicko. Moore may be riffing on the war in Iraq, to name only our most recent intervention, but he's actually referring to U.S. citizens crossing the border into Canada for cheap meds and free healthcare.
There hasn't been a comparable joker in the left-wing deck since Abbie Hoffman went underground. But while Hoffman played the media, Moore uses it to play fast and loose. Still, Sicko, which had its world premiere last month at Cannes (where mainstream Moore is romanticized as the subversive maker of celluloid samizdats), shows America's preeminent cinemuckraker in a seriously polemical mode. The Weinstein Brothers, who produced and are co-distributing Sicko, might have ripped off the title of one of their greatest hits and called it Scary Movie.
Sicko's opening gross-out features a guy suturing his own wound — but, as Moore points out, this movie isn't about him or the 50 million other Americans without health insurance. It's about the 250 million Americans who do have coverage — like the 79-year-old guy working in a supermarket to maintain his prescription-drug benefits. The movie's first half-hour is a virtual sideshow: Step right up and see the medically bankrupt couple forced to live in their daughter's basement trophy room, the woman whose insurance carrier told her that she failed to get an emergency ambulance "pre-approved," the employee who lost her benefits because she didn't report an ancient yeast infection as a preexisting condition.
Annotating these and other, more ghastly human-interest stories, Moore — who for much of Sicko is narrator rather than participant — adopts a tone dripping with treacle and sarcasm. He's the P.T. Barnum of human misery who, going back to Roger & Me, has never been one to let details interfere with a good story. And yet, as Moore builds his case that health insurance in America is essentially a profit-making enterprise based on bilking the afflicted, the cumulative effect of this material is devastating.
Expert witnesses are called. Dr. Linda Peeno tearfully testifies that in fulfilling her mandate as an HMO medical director, she's withheld services that have cost lives. Politicians are produced — not just Bush, always available for some idiotic comment, but even Hillary Clinton, whom Moore dresses down with the fury of a jilted lover, pointing out that, after the debacle of her 1994 bid for universal health coverage, she is now the No. 2 recipient of HMO donations.
After demonstrating the state of healthcare in America, Moore visits those industrial societies that enjoy universal coverage — Canada, Great Britain (where even an American nincompoop who threw out his back trying to cross Abbey Road on his hands gets free hospitalization), and, above all, France. This love letter — fawning enough to add the suffix "phant" to the movie's title — inspired a smattering of embarrassed applause at Cannes. But really, it should embarrass us. When Moore jokes that the wonders of the French healthcare system were "enough to make me put away my freedom fries," he's obviously thinking about the health of the body politic rather than that of his own.
As filmmaking, Sicko sometimes resembles an infomercial for Ozark real estate and elsewhere demonstrates a Kenneth Anger-like flare for vertical montage — as when Moore mischievously uses a jolly harvest hymn from the Stalinist musical Cossacks of the Kuban to Sovietize our own marching firemen, heroic teachers, and indomitable mail carriers. In any case, it's as a rhetorician that Moore is most original and effectively demagogic. (In his most shameless stunt, the filmmaker "anonymously" bails out an anti-Moore Web site, paying the proprietor's medical bills.)
Are Bush and Giuliani the only ones allowed to dial 9/11? Cleverer than either, Moore plays that card himself. In an already notorious PR provocation, he rounds up a crew of volunteer emergency workers with untreated respiratory problems and, in answer to some C-SPAN bragging about the excellent healthcare available to Gitmo prisoners, organizes a flotilla to the one place on "American soil" with free universal healthcare. The expedition never gets closer than the edge of the base, but they do get to experience the wonders of Cuban medicine — $120 inhalers for five cents, free dental implants, a people's hospital of cathedral-like splendor — complete with a fraternal lecture from Che Guevara's daughter.
Sicko has the clearest agenda of any Moore film, albeit one that dares not speak its name. Is there a more vivid image of human garbage than the spectacle of a Los Angeles hospital dumping indigent patients on Skid Row? What manner of system is this? If the American health-insurance industry is Moore's unspoken metaphor for capital (feeding vampire-like on human labor), Cuba is his unconvincing socialist paradise. Dr. Moore reveals all manner of symptoms — but is it impossible for him to diagnose the disaster we live without offering another sort of drug?
Dr. Feelgood
Michael Moore's pill goes down easy, but his diagnosis of U.S. healthcare still devastates
By J. HOBERMAN
Published: June 27, 2007
"We're Americans. We go into other countries when we need to. It's tricky, but it works." So declares Michael Moore in the midst of his new documentary, Sicko. Moore may be riffing on the war in Iraq, to name only our most recent intervention, but he's actually referring to U.S. citizens crossing the border into Canada for cheap meds and free healthcare.
There hasn't been a comparable joker in the left-wing deck since Abbie Hoffman went underground. But while Hoffman played the media, Moore uses it to play fast and loose. Still, Sicko, which had its world premiere last month at Cannes (where mainstream Moore is romanticized as the subversive maker of celluloid samizdats), shows America's preeminent cinemuckraker in a seriously polemical mode. The Weinstein Brothers, who produced and are co-distributing Sicko, might have ripped off the title of one of their greatest hits and called it Scary Movie.
Sicko's opening gross-out features a guy suturing his own wound — but, as Moore points out, this movie isn't about him or the 50 million other Americans without health insurance. It's about the 250 million Americans who do have coverage — like the 79-year-old guy working in a supermarket to maintain his prescription-drug benefits. The movie's first half-hour is a virtual sideshow: Step right up and see the medically bankrupt couple forced to live in their daughter's basement trophy room, the woman whose insurance carrier told her that she failed to get an emergency ambulance "pre-approved," the employee who lost her benefits because she didn't report an ancient yeast infection as a preexisting condition.
Annotating these and other, more ghastly human-interest stories, Moore — who for much of Sicko is narrator rather than participant — adopts a tone dripping with treacle and sarcasm. He's the P.T. Barnum of human misery who, going back to Roger & Me, has never been one to let details interfere with a good story. And yet, as Moore builds his case that health insurance in America is essentially a profit-making enterprise based on bilking the afflicted, the cumulative effect of this material is devastating.
Expert witnesses are called. Dr. Linda Peeno tearfully testifies that in fulfilling her mandate as an HMO medical director, she's withheld services that have cost lives. Politicians are produced — not just Bush, always available for some idiotic comment, but even Hillary Clinton, whom Moore dresses down with the fury of a jilted lover, pointing out that, after the debacle of her 1994 bid for universal health coverage, she is now the No. 2 recipient of HMO donations.
After demonstrating the state of healthcare in America, Moore visits those industrial societies that enjoy universal coverage — Canada, Great Britain (where even an American nincompoop who threw out his back trying to cross Abbey Road on his hands gets free hospitalization), and, above all, France. This love letter — fawning enough to add the suffix "phant" to the movie's title — inspired a smattering of embarrassed applause at Cannes. But really, it should embarrass us. When Moore jokes that the wonders of the French healthcare system were "enough to make me put away my freedom fries," he's obviously thinking about the health of the body politic rather than that of his own.
As filmmaking, Sicko sometimes resembles an infomercial for Ozark real estate and elsewhere demonstrates a Kenneth Anger-like flare for vertical montage — as when Moore mischievously uses a jolly harvest hymn from the Stalinist musical Cossacks of the Kuban to Sovietize our own marching firemen, heroic teachers, and indomitable mail carriers. In any case, it's as a rhetorician that Moore is most original and effectively demagogic. (In his most shameless stunt, the filmmaker "anonymously" bails out an anti-Moore Web site, paying the proprietor's medical bills.)
Are Bush and Giuliani the only ones allowed to dial 9/11? Cleverer than either, Moore plays that card himself. In an already notorious PR provocation, he rounds up a crew of volunteer emergency workers with untreated respiratory problems and, in answer to some C-SPAN bragging about the excellent healthcare available to Gitmo prisoners, organizes a flotilla to the one place on "American soil" with free universal healthcare. The expedition never gets closer than the edge of the base, but they do get to experience the wonders of Cuban medicine — $120 inhalers for five cents, free dental implants, a people's hospital of cathedral-like splendor — complete with a fraternal lecture from Che Guevara's daughter.
Sicko has the clearest agenda of any Moore film, albeit one that dares not speak its name. Is there a more vivid image of human garbage than the spectacle of a Los Angeles hospital dumping indigent patients on Skid Row? What manner of system is this? If the American health-insurance industry is Moore's unspoken metaphor for capital (feeding vampire-like on human labor), Cuba is his unconvincing socialist paradise. Dr. Moore reveals all manner of symptoms — but is it impossible for him to diagnose the disaster we live without offering another sort of drug?
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