Great Quote

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.
- Henri Poincare

SICKO

My neocon friends will no doubt be mortified to learn that I have actually been looking forward to seeing this movie. After all, I have been an active Republican in the past, and would still describe myself as being a conservative. That being said, I’ve also proclaimed for some time that I believe that if the Republican party cannot wake up to the very real issues (and foolishness of some of their positions) surrounding the issues of health care and public education, they face the very real possibility of some significant sideline time in the very near future.

In addition to my belief that these issues are being bungled by the party, you can certainly include exposure to the plight of my parents (Dad is self employed and has cancer) as well as friends that have struggled with availability of insurance or its insufficiency through major medical events as contributing factors. We’re not talking about uneducated, unemployed drains on the common good (assuming the common conservative assumption). We’re talking about well educated (the three examples closest to me all have college degrees), gainfully employed contributers to society. And yet, despite good planning and hard work, they can’t get the health care you would expect their efforts to warrant.  I have also personally experienced the joys of managed care, as on several occasions my doctor has sent me to tests he knows are pointless, but the insurance companies stipulate as necessary precursors to the tests he knows I need.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know that I have the answer to the insurance debacle. But I do know that the current answer sucks. What’s worse, it seems to suck with a bit more enthusiasm each year. Given that, it is time for something different.

It was with these things in mind that I watch my Blockbuster-delivered edition of Michael Moore’s latest hit piece this week, with more that a bit of gleeful anticipation. At last, he would be lining up his admittedly vicious cross-hairs with an industry that had fallen out of favor with me.

I watched the whole thing in one sitting, which I had not planned to do. A bit one night, some more the next, like a bed side read, I thought. As it turned out, curiosity for the next stunt kept me watching until completion. Unfortunately, stunts were exactly what I got. That doesn’t mean the movie was ineffective. In fact, with a bit of editing, it could have been considerably more powerful that Al Bore’s pseudo science standard. The bits of the movie that focused on the American health care system, and that of the 51st state (Canada) were particularly powerful. It was in the “Let’s take America’s 911 heroes to Cuba for treatment” stunt that Moore weakened his own work. It was a meaningless gesture, as the idea of Americans getting better treatment elsewhere had already been clearly covered in sections on Canada, Britain, and France without the melodrama. I went into the movie with an open mind and a willing heart, but still couldn’t help feeling the Cubans in the piece looked a bit to much like they had been propped up there by Castro’s propaganda machine. That’s not to say that free health care doesn’t exist in Cuba, just that Moore made himself a tool by allowing himself to be so clearly used.

The reason that the bits on America, Canada, and Britain were so effective were that they showed vaunted America doing a rotten job of caring for its own.  The thing that made Moore’s efforts in this regard work was that as he points out as some of the first dialog in the movie, he was NOT talking (for the most part anyway) about the uninsured portion of America.  He focused (in the American bits) almost exclusively on the INSURED and how insurance companies systematically endeavored to deny needed care to the people who PAID FOR IT.  In what was probably the most interesting question he asked the entire show, Moore inquired (with a melodramatic montage as backdrop) how we as a people declare public health care is socialist, and then celebrate our public police and fire coverage.  It’s only an interesting question if you are one of those that insists on philosophical purity.

To sum up, I leave the following messages:

To those that have not seen the movie: regardless of your perspective, its an interesting movie.  Definately structured to intrigue.  It will provoke some reaction in you.  Whether that be pity, rage, indignance, or shame is left to you.

To Michael Moore: when you have made your point powerfully, shut up.  Don’t feel like the movie has to be 90 minutes or more if 60 minutes drives home your point, and 90 minutes looses your audience.

To Republicans: wake up and do something or you will start losing and may not stop for some time.