Jackson Free Press

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, the radio reported a plane flying into the World Trade Center as I was driving to work. The word "terrorists" hadn't yet entered into the picture. Later, settling in at my desk, I received a message from a friend leaving for a business trip. She was afraid to go to the airport, she wrote. She had a bad feeling.

Never one to buy into worst-case scenarios, I assured her that it was just some crazy accident. A few minutes later, I knew the awful truth. My friend's feelings were right on target.

A few weeks ago, after Donna once again bemoaned The Clarion-Ledger's passive-filled writing and incomplete reporting, I came to what I thought was a humorous conclusion. "I think they do it on purpose," I said, half-joking. If they write stories so that no one can understand them, I said, they keep everyone off-balance and uninformed.

I wasn't prepared for Donna's reaction. "Ya think?" she asked, rhetorically, one eyebrow raised over the rim of her reading glasses.

The next morning, I received an e-mail from an acupuncture practitioner trying to make a living in Mississippi, even though, because she is not a medical doctor or dentist, state law prevents her from practicing. She had received a cease-and-desist order, was out of business and looking for a lawyer.

That night, I drove to Madison to see "Sicko," Michael Moore's documentary about America's broken health-care system.

What do all of these seemingly random events have to do with one another? In a word, fear. It is fear that incites terrorists; it is fear that allows people stronger than us to manipulate us into doing things against our best interests, keeping us "in our place"; it's fear that keeps us from stepping out of our comfort zones.

"Sicko" points to far more than just an ailing U.S. health-care system. It points to a failure of the American political system. Why, the movie asks, in the richest nation in the world, are nearly 50 million people without health insurance? Why, in a nation that prides itself on having the best medicine in the world, are infant-mortality rates on par with some third-world countries, and life expectancy lower than any other developed country?

The answer, according to Moore, is that it benefits people in power to keep the populace ill, in debt, misinformed and cowering in fear. It's a sobering thought. Yet his evidence is solid. The fear-mongering "socialism" rhetoric used by many politicians doesn't hold up under Moore's examination. America uses "socialist" institutions when it wants to, he points out, public schools being an obvious example.

Moore interviews citizens in countries where universal health care—"socialized" medicine—works: Canada, Great Britain and France. It seems that the line fed to us by politicians and lobbyists who oppose universal health care isn't quite accurate. Canadians don't wait months for doctor's appointments. Doctors in these countries are living quite comfortably on six-figure salaries. And taxes aren't breaking the backs of ordinary citizens. Quite the contrary, people are happy with their systems and are healthier than we are. They think that the American system is absurd. Pay a bill before you can go home with your newborn? Ridiculous. Get turned down for care because of a pre-existing condition? Idiotic. Have your insurance company decide your treatment instead of your doctor? Illogical.

"Sicko" came about after Moore solicited health-care stories from American citizens. Soon, he began to get stories from people inside the system: stories about multiple-page lists of illnesses that exclude people from getting health coverage; stories of bonuses paid to managers denying the most claims. It is those stories that Moore points to when he talks about a system that has reached its nadir in America. He documents cases where hospitals dump people in front of homeless shelters when they can't pay. Those people, sick and in pain, are in dire need of the medical care that our system simply will not provide to them.

Perhaps the most chilling scenes are portions of an interview with former British member of Parliament Tony Benn. In the aftermath of World War II, the U.K. decided, "if we have the money to kill people, we've got the money to help people," he says, and soon provided universal health to its citizens.

Keeping people insecure is an excellent way to keep them from engaging their leaders, Benn goes on. When you feel your life is constantly at risk, you don't speak up. And what company, Moore adds, wouldn't want employees who are deeply in debt? Always one paycheck away from disaster, they don't make trouble; they keep their heads down and work. And poor, demoralized people don't vote, either, Benn points out.

Is it a conspiracy? Maybe not, but the powerful have ways of keeping their power, often trampling the least of us underfoot. True democracy—a revolutionary system, Benn states—should overturn that notion, allowing people to ensure their own welfare so there is more balance, not less. The film implies that despite the "family value" rhetoric delivered from Washington, it's countries that practice "socialist" medicine that truly care for all its people.

Whether you like Moore or not, this is a movie worth seeing, worth thinking about, worth talking about. The American system of health care is badly broken, but it is not unredeemable. We, the people, have a say in it—we just need to start speaking up.

Ronni Mott is the operations manager of the Jackson Free Press.

Previous Comments

ID

75177

Comment

With some data showing that 20% of the population in America owns 92.2% of the national financial wealth, with the remaining 80% of the population owning a mere 7.8%, something funny has always been in the mix, and I'm surprised there isn't more suspicions and outrage about lots of things with this knowledge being available. Like the any good business person or imposter will tell you, you haven't been screwed until you have mistaken the screwing as a testament of love.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-08-10T10:24:30-06:00

ID

75178

Comment

Wow, Ronni. Loved this piece. I may not get to see the movie until it's on DVD, but I will definitely watch it. It's about time some attention gets drawn to this system of haves and have-nots. I'm no socialist, but I think that our country could at least be fair to everyone. WWJD? :-)

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2007-08-10T10:33:11-06:00

ID

75179

Comment

We claim we hate socialism but we all accept some form of it all the time. This system wouldn't work without some forms of it. The have-nots and the haves would be in a non-stop altercation otherwise. "The truth is that in America's welfare society everyone is on welfare or public assistance, that is, government assistance, that can take a multiplicity of forms. Individual, groups of people, social classes, institutions, regions, and local areas of the country receive welfare or public assistance. They do it through welfare politics which are the policies of social recognition and government, distribution of political power, cultural and social opportunities, goods and services, wealth and consumer spending capability. These policies also involve working the hierarchical structure of society for benefits." Welfare isn't merely poor people receiving assistance or the embodiment of welfare queens or black folks looking for handouts as some tricksters would have us to believe.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-08-10T11:43:15-06:00

ID

75180

Comment

Amen, Ray. You're absolutely correct regarding welfare; that's an area that people seem to be slowly seeing realistically. Recently, a Pew Research study showed that 16 percent fewer people think that the poor get too much money from the government than 16 years ago, but it's still a big majority at 69 percent. Oddly, 54 percent of Americans believe the government should help the needy, even it it means more debt. That's a great quote, btw... can you provide the source? It seems to me that America is slowly creeping out from under the 9/11 spell we've been laboring under for the last six years. Fear is a natural first reaction to attack, but it's high time we stop believing the empty rhetoric of lobbyists (aka "think-tanks") and politicians promising to "keep us safe." What has the nearly half-trillion we've spent on fighting "over there" in Iraq since 9/11 gotten us, exactly (and that figure only incudes Iraq)? It seems to me that our government's priorities are upside down, with the "military/industrial complex" getting the lions share of our money. As a nation (i.e. our federal tax dollars), we spend 27% percent on military, 21% on health (which includes medicare) and only 5% on education. (Check the National Priorities Project for the source of these numbers.)

Author

Ronni_Mott

Date

2007-08-10T14:00:51-06:00

ID

75181

Comment

For the record, in case anyone wants to know, many Americans receive government subsidy such as that for college and university education, Medicare, pharmaceutical subsidies, rent control, community grants, farm aid, government research subsidies, aid to dependents, disability aids, et al. The upper class gets tax cuts, tax shelters, charity laws, economic subsidies, tax write-off, government assistance bail-outs, government money for take-overs, and government assistance in exporting capital and jobs. They won't call what they get welfare. Otherwise, it may tell the whole truth about welfare and goverment intervention for the rich and republicans too. Ronni I got that quote from an old historian, not an economist. I won't name him because I don't want people to know everybody I read. I'll tell you some day when I see you.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-08-15T11:56:12-06:00