By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
July 5, 2007

Pillory him as a propagandist. Praise him as a prophet. However you choose to characterize filmmaker Michael Moore, you have to admit he is prescient.

Moore’s new movie “SICKO” finished 9^th in last weekend’s money battle with Hollywood’s commercial schlock. Regardless of what it earns, issues in Moore’s documentary disrobing of the U.S. health care system will climb to first place in every American’s heart.

Or lungs. Or knees. Or back.

The poor and the powerless are no longer the only victims of this country’s prostitution of the healing arts into a get-rich-quick scheme for insurance executives and drug companies.

Self-absorbed Americans may not raise a finger – or a dollar - for other people’s kids when those children are denied medical care because they lack health insurance. United Nations studies that prove this country lags the rest of the developed world in infant mortality and life expectancy are just so many numbers on a page or a web site.

Until the system affects you.

“SICKO” describes literal come-to-Jesus moments for a few mainstream folk jerked around about health care until they die. But the film lays out a symbolic day of reckoning for everyone, not just the have-nots and not just undocumented and uninsured immigrants.

Anyone who saw Moore’s last cinematic offering, “Fahrenheit 911,” knows the director’s histrionics. In “SICKO,” Moore goes to other countries to show how much better their health care systems are. Moore even takes sick people to Cuba – including some made ill volunteering at the site of the 911 terrorist attacks – and finds them affordable medical care not available in the United States.

This is not a reason to move to Havana. It is a reality check for those blissful ignoramuses braying about the incompetence of “socialized medicine.”

If you worship the bottom line, here it is: When health insurance premiums cost more than mortgage payments, it’s time to punt.

Small business owners can no longer afford health insurance for themselves, much less their employees. Studies show that bills for medical emergencies drive an obscene number of uninsured Americans into bankruptcy.

And, by the way, there are 47 million uninsured Americans.

The working poor who can’t qualify for Medicaid must forego preventive treatment for themselves and their kids. They must rely instead on emergency room treatment when they are ill.

That’s not only the worst way to deliver quality care; it’s also the least cost effective way. I once staged a reader participation contest where I asked folks to send me their most outrageous medical bills. (Let’s reprise the contest. Send your horror stories and documentation to jim@spencerspeaks.com.) Last time around I got paperwork that showed a $120 dose of Tylenol. A hospital spokesman told me the cost of running the emergency room had been factored into the charge for the pain reliever.

The insanity of American health care doesn’t end there. Doctors spend ridiculous amounts of money paying office staff to interpret dozens of different health insurance plans. In a single-payer health care system like the one Moore promotes in “SICKO,” a lot of that administrative overhead could go to actually treat patients instead of shuffling paper.

At a recent debate of would-be Republican presidential candidates, a guy in the audience rose to ask how his buddy could run out of medicine on a trip to Portugal and replace his monthly supply of prescription drugs for $600 less that what he paid in the States.

Nobody wanted to give the real answer:

The argument that the free market delivers better health care at a better price is an empirically proven lie.

If you have been laid off a job that provided health insurance, you figure that out fast. Federal law requires the availability of so-called COBRA continuation health insurance policies for 18 months. Thing is, no one can afford them. COBRA premiums for a decent family policy range from $13,000 to $20,000 per year.In other words, the insurance is there if you lose your job. But because you lost your job you have no way to pay for the insurance.

Moore’s point in “SICKO” is simple: This country needs a different kind of health care delivery system. Yet members of Congress, bought and paid for by lobbyist for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, lack the cajones to install it.

If you think that’s over the top, find a serious national health care reform effort that seems imminent. States like Massachusetts and California have at least had the guts to attempt solutions. Some experts believe that until many more states cobble together universal coverage plans, Congress won’t budge.

Colorado’s governor and state legislators have promised their constituents a plan for something approaching universal health care coverage by 2010.

A consultant in Washington now analyzes the costs of four plans culled from 31 proposals by Colorado’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform.

The process is in place. What may still be missing is the will. Michael Moore’s horror stories of terminal indifference to suffering must be met with more than outrage. They must be met with money.

Three of the four plans on the table in Colorado will force people to buy health insurance or pay fines so big that they might as well do so. In the jargon of health insurance, they call this “pay or play.” It broadens the insurance pool to include more healthy people, which lowers premiums overall and makes insurance more affordable.

Many people welcome government mandates with the same enthusiasm they greet a dose of intestinal flu. But if America is to cure what ails its health care system, there is no way around mandates.

Frankly, the best plan under consideration in Colorado is also the most expensive and the most controversial. A single government agency, administered like a public utility, collects premiums through income tax and payroll deductions. But the government only pays the bills, it doesn’t dictate treatment. Consumers can go to any licensed private or public health care provider in the state.

Some folks out there are doubtless crying “socialized medicine.”

In what is supposed to be the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth, it is actually “civilized medicine.”

Copyright 2007 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Trailer for SiCKO