fayfreethinkers.com

DAR
I have been looking forward to this one for some time.

***
Controversial Michael Moore Flick "Sicko" Will Compare U.S. Health Care with Cuba's

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted April 23, 2007.

Moore's new film, debuting in Cannes this May, tackles the failures of the U.S. health care system, and includes a segment where 9/11 rescue workers visit Cuba for treatment they couldn't get in America.
...

Sicko, which will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is a comic broadside against the state of American health care, including the mental health system. The film targets drug companies and the HMOS in the richest country in the world -- where the most money is spent on health care, but where the U.S. ranks 21st in life expectancy among the 30 most developed nations, obviously in part due to the fact that 47 million people are without health insurance.

The timing of Moore's film is propitious. Twenty-two percent of Americans say that health care is the most pressing issue in America. Health care will clearly be a major issue in the upcoming presidential campaign, as the problems with America's health care system have mushroomed during the Bush administration. For example, between 2001 and 2005 the number of people without health insurance rose 16.6 percent. The average health insurance premiums for a family of four are $10,880, which exceeds the annual gross income of $10,712 for a full-time, minimum-wage worker.

snip...

America's second-class health care system

Clearly one of the themes of Moore's films, highlighted by the trip to Cuba, is to challenge the myth that the U.S. has superior health care when compared with other countries. In a recent AlterNet article, attorney Guy Saperstein explained,

"The World Health Organization ranks health care systems based on objective measures of medical outcomes: The United States' health care system currently ranks 37th in the world, behind Colombia and Portugal; the United States ranks 44th in the world in infant mortality, behind many impoverished Latin American countries. While infant mortality in the United States is skewed toward poor people, who have rates double the wealthy, the top quintile of the U.S. population has infant mortality rates higher than Canadians in the lowest quintile of wealth."

"The United States has fewer physicians, nurses and hospital beds than most developed nations. In the United States, 28 percent say it is "difficult to get care"; in most European countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, 15 percent say that. In terms of continuity of care (i.e., five-plus years with the same doctor), the United States is the worst of all developed nations. By every objective measure, the United States has a second-rate health care system."

Calling the U.S. healthcare system "second rate" is praising it. I call it "piss poor" and don't trust most doctors as far as I could throw a horse. They are trained to diagnose disease and not to recognize, much less encourage, health. Most of them have less nuitritional knowledge than I do (with my piddly 3 college hours, plus numerous seminars) - how can you prevent disease if you don't know what builds tissue or makes the immune system strong? When they talk about "prevention" they are talking about medication - from vaccines to "an aspirin a day" (great way to trash your liver, by the way). And most of what they are handing out is based on drug-company advertizing blurb/samples. If I get hit by a truck (which should it happen I'd prefer to be DOA, thank you) I'd trust a doctor to put my body back together, but if I've got anything else - no way. As to maternal and infant mortality - the best I can figure out is the U.S. healthcare system is part of the neocon war on women. The greatest sin John Paul II ever committed was selling off the "Mercy system" - the non-profit hospitals/clinics to the for-profit industry (and letting them keep the names, so it looks to the uninformed as if those "religious" folks who dedicated their lives to the health of other are still running it - and ripping everybody off. I'm not a catholic any longer, but I still don't like the pope betraying the medical priests and nuns that way.)

Thanks for posting this Dar. One thing I think we will see is that in nations where pharmies don't control most medical practices much more meaningful research has been done.

I once had a neighbor (20 yrs ago) who was board certified Md. He told me it didn't much matter what you ate because your body needed so many calories and would convert cals to needed chemicals. His kid had twinkies and soda pop for breakfast and had attention deficit disorder. His wife was obese.

I recall reading a story about Am doctors calling early hypodermics "evil" when European physicians began using them. Then sterilization of operating rooms became commonplace in Europe but Am physicians called it nonsense and had not yet recognized the germ theory of disease which (if memory serves me correctly) was less than 120 years ago. Actually I didn't read these stories I saw them on pbs in the mid 80s. Today such stories would never make it past the censors.
_

Bush starts an INVESTIGATION of MICHAEL MOORE

Award-winning film-maker Michael Moore is being investigated by US authorities for a possible violation of the trade embargo against Cuba, he has announced.

Mr Moore took a group of 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba in March to film part of his new documentary about healthcare provision in the US.

The US Treasury has sent him a letter asking him to explain himself.

Mr Moore is a long-time critic of the Bush administration and has campaigned against the war in Iraq.

The US imposed an economic embargo on Cuba more than 40 years ago in a bid to isolate Fidel Castro's communist government.

Ailing workers

Mr Moore made the trip to Cuba to film part of Sicko,..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6644845.stm

DAR
America brags incessantly about how free it is but won't let it's citizens go to that terribly threatening country, Cuba. How pathetic.

DAR
Michael Moore, ever the genius at getting a little controversy to boost a new movie debut:

***
Michael Moore Blasts President Bush Over Federal Probe Into "Sicko" Documentary's Cuba Trip

The Associated Press
Friday 11 May 2007

Los Angeles - Filmmaker Michael Moore has asked the Bush administration to call off an investigation of his trip to Cuba to get treatment for ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers for a segment in his upcoming health-care expose, "Sicko."

Moore, who made the hit documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" assailing President Bush's handling of Sept. 11, said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday that the White House may have opened the investigation for political reasons.

"For five and a half years, the Bush administration has ignored and neglected the heroes of the 9/11 community," Moore said in the letter, which he posted on the liberal Web site Daily Kos. "These heroic first responders have been left to fend for themselves, without coverage and without care.

"I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me - I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."

The health-care industry Moore skewers in "Sicko" was a major contributor to Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and to Republican candidates over the last four years, Moore wrote.

"I can understand why that industry's main recipient of its contributions - President Bush - would want to harass, intimidate and potentially prevent this film from having its widest possible audience," Moore wrote.

Treasury officials did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment on Moore's letter to Paulson.

The department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.

Moore questioned the timing of the investigation, noting that "Sicko" premieres May 19 at the Cannes Film Festival and debuts in U.S. theaters June 19. The Bush administration knew of his plans to travel to Cuba since last October, said Moore, who went there in March with about 10 ailing workers involved in the rescue effort at the World Trade Center ruins.

OFAC's letter to Moore noted that he had applied in October 2006 for permission as a full-time journalist to travel to Cuba, but that the agency had not made any determination on his request.

The agency gave Moore 20 business days to provide details on his Cuba trip and the names of those who accompanied him.

Moore won an Academy Award for best documentary with his 2002 gun-control film "Bowling for Columbine" and scolded Bush in his Oscar acceptance speech as the war in Iraq was just getting under way.

The investigation has given master promoter Moore another jolt of publicity just before the release of one of his films. "Fahrenheit 9/11" premiered at Cannes in 2004 amid a public quarrel between Moore and the Walt Disney Co., which refused to let subsidiary Miramax release the film because of its political content.

Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein ended up releasing the film on their own and later left to form the Weinstein Co., which is releasing "Sicko."

"Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top prize at Cannes and went on to become the top-grossing documentary ever with $119 million.

LINK

from: "Sicko" review
By Andrew O'Hehir

Whatever outdated stereotypes you may hold, these days poor people in Britain are statistically healthier than rich people in America.)

When Americans do get to see "Sicko," Moore says, "They will understand that this was about helping 9/11 rescue workers who've been abandoned by the government. They're not going to focus on Cuba or Fidel Castro or any other nonsense coming out of the Bush White House. They're going to say: 'You're telling me that al-Qaida prisoners get better medical treatment than the people who tried to recover bodies from the wreckage at ground zero?'"
"When asked about his potential prosecution for violating U.S. Treasury sanctions against trade with or travel to Cuba, Moore was uncharacteristically sober. "I know a lot of you have written things like, 'How dumb are they?'" he said, "but I don't take this lightly. The Bush administration may try to claim that my footage was obtained illegally. We haven't discussed this possibility yet, but actions could be taken to prevent this film from opening on June 29. I know that sounds crazy to the Americans in the room. I guess it is crazy."

He warned us about General Motors, he warned us about school shootings and he warned us about Bush."


http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/ ... newsletter

(you will need to jump thru a couple of hoops to read the online