Capitalism: A Love Story

This movie isn’t exactly new (came out in 2009), but it finally moved up to the front of our Netflix queue. I think it’s Michael Moore’s most powerful movie yet. Here are some links.

It wasn’t as much of an emotional roller coaster as Sicko. But that’s only because the personal tragedies — and the corporate gaming that caused them — just kept coming, one after another after another, until you’re just numb. After endless scenes of families losing their homes because of the fine print on page 87 of their contract; of financial executives high fiving each other after they’ve made a few more million dollars from other people’s tragedies — all you can do is sit there in a thousand yard stare and go “Huh.”

Here’s just one example: If you aren’t familiar with the term “dead peasants insurance,” Google it. And then imagine a two-hour movie where one wretched horrifying fact like this after another comes flying at you, nonstop.

In Sicko, a former HMO employee told Michael Moore that “People don’t fall through the cracks. It was our job to push them through the cracks.” And in the larger picture, that’s exactly what’s been happening to millions of Americans over the past few decades. Every time another person gets laid off, goes bankrupt, gets dumped by his/her health insurance company, loses his/her home — chalk up another one for the Oligarchy. People are being PUSHED through the cracks; they’re not just “falling.”

After seeing so many families being driven out of their homes, union members fired with Zero notice and not even getting a final paycheck, and on and on and on, all I could think of was — why aren’t THESE people out there protesting and shouting? We get millions of teabaggers out there, mostly middle class and comfortable, all getting their panties in a twist because their taxes might go up or because some lazy parasite might get something for nothing.

Our current administration is trying to make a few tiny inroads against our thirty-year slide into feudalism, and suddenly millions of gullible inbred teapukes are out there screaming that Obama is a Communist Muslim who was born in Kenya and is going to ruin this great nation.

One elderly man who had just lost his home that had been in his family for generations, told Michael Moore: “I’m not gonna get a gun and go around shooting people. But I understand why some people are doing that.”

I understood it too, as I was watching the movie. For a few minutes I could actually relate to those news stories from the 1960s, where Communist insurgents would take over a country (usually Southeast Asia, if those stories were even true) and round up all the rich people and have them executed. Watching the endless parade of desperate Americans who had just had their world yanked away from them, I understood the hopelessness and fury that would motivate suicide bombers. People can really become so desperate, so despondent, that they’re willing to take their own lives if they can take a few of “the enemy” with them. And I couldn’t help wonder — why isn’t this happening here??? The oligarchs may be surrounded by bodyguards, armored vehicles, gated communities, “secure” office buildings — but that doesn’t guarantee anything. What if somebody placed an explosive device inside his briefcase, put on a $4,000 suit and sauntered all business-like into one of those Wall Street offices? Outsiders can’t drive into a gated community, but they can fly over it in a private plane or an ultra-light. They might accidentally crash into — or drop something onto — a private party full of Wall Street VIPs. For that matter, if the Mafia (or any other underworld group) has their sights on you, you’re toast, no matter how many armored vehicles or bodyguards you have. It’s just a matter of when, not if. I’m surprised there hasn’t been enough white-hot fury out there for some sort of organized highly-trained group to zero in on some of these…

[takes a deep breath] Well, that was a bit of a rant, wasn’t it. Time to do a little proofreading, make sure I didn’t…….ooooookay, that last paragraph needs a little rewriting. Wouldn’t want to put something like that out there on the Internet. I’ll look over this later and maybe dial it down a bit.

OK, I’ll click on “Save As Draft” instead of “Publish.” Let’s see, it’s this button over — OOPS.

WellPoint Eats Its Young

THIS is why we need health insurance reform. This is exactly what Michael Moore was talking about — showing endless examples — in Sicko.

To paraphrase George W. Bush, you’re either with us or you’re with the HMO butchers. Or as Helen Hunt said in As Good As It Gets, “those fuckin’ HMO bastards, pieces of shit.”

WellPoint uses a computer algorithm that specifically targets women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. WellPoint then cancels the woman’s health insurance, using whatever flimsy “reason” they can dream up. Good thing we don’t have any of them socialist bureaucrats standing between a patient and her doctor.

Here’s the pattern: The woman has a well-paying job and a health insurance policy with WellPoint. She pays her premiums on time and has had no health problems. Shortly after being diagnosed with breast cancer, WellPoint’s army of “investigators” will pore over every detail of her life, determined to find something — anything — that she “omitted” from her application form. When they find it, or pull it out of thin air if they have to, her insurance policy is canceled.

“Aha, you purchased a bottle of Ibuprofen in 1998. You didn’t tell us about your pre-existing headache condition. Gotcha!”

This time-honored practice is called rescission. Tens of thousands of employed, insured and paid-up policyholders have had their health insurance canceled through this process. But it’s just now come out that breast cancer patients in particular were being targeted by WellPoint.

Now, for the low-IQ inbreds who hold up signs saying “No on Obamacare,” “Socialized Medicine!” “Your Health, Your Problem” — maybe they’ll have some constructive advice for these women.

Why don’t they tell these cancer patients, face to face, to get up off their dead asses, put down the bong and get out there and get a job.

Sicko

Yes, it seems like everybody who sees this movie has to do a post on it. OK, here goes:

This is by far Michael Moore’s best movie. It still has Moore’s trademark combination of humor and anger, but it’s much more of an emotional roller coaster. It almost rivals Crash or Hearts and Minds for pushing those emotional buttons.

We’re all aware that 45 million Americans (or whatever the number is) are without health insurance. As disgraceful as that is, the nightmares documented in Sicko are suffered by working Americans who HAVE health insurance. Crippling injuries, deaths and grief-stricken families are the result of one slippery move after another by HMOs.

There's a 100-page list of diseases that aren't covered, period. If that isn't enough, there's that trusty old standby, the “pre-existing condition,” and there's a huge number of treatments that aren't covered because they're “experimental.” Don’t worry; one way or another, your HMO will find a way not to cover you.

Even though the insurance and pharmaceutical industries are cranking up their smear campaigns against this movie, Sicko probably won't alienate as many conservatives as Moore’s other movies have. After all, Biblehumpers, rednecks and Iraqi-war supporters are just as likely as anyone else to get sick and go into bankruptcy because of medical expenses. You remember the expression that “a conservative is a liberal who just got mugged.” Well, what happens to a conservative who just got fucked over by his HMO?

Some of the most moving parts of the film are the interviews with HMO employees. A woman broke down crying when she was telling Moore about interviewing a couple who was applying for HMO coverage. The couple was ecstatic that they were finally going to have health insurance. The interviewer wasn’t allowed to tell them, but she knew — by some of the answers on their application form — that they would be denied, but they wouldn’t find out until they received a boilerplate denial letter in two weeks.

There was an interview with a former HMO employee whose job was to find a way — any way at all, whatever it took — to get money back from patients (or get them dropped by the HMO) after they had already had their treatment approved. His most common method was to do an excruciating background check on a patient until he found a minor ailment — no matter how insignificant — in the patient’s distant past. It could be a stubbed toe, a cold, a mild rash or any other condition which cured itself without treatment; anything. Then, if it turns out the patient hasn’t mentioned this “pre-existing condition” on the application form — Gotcha! They instantly lose their health coverage for failing to disclose their pre-existing condition.

At the end of the interview, this same HMO ex-employee said “people don’t fall through the cracks. We put the crack there and then we push them towards it.”

Think what you want about “socialized medicine,” or the Big Business-generated hysteria about “you don’t even get to choose your own doctor!” “You have to wait six months just to get into the doctor’s office!” But in countries that have universal health care — that’s every industrialized country in the world except us — the people love it and wouldn’t give it up for anything. Moore traveled all over Canada, France and England, interviewing local citizens and American expatriates. Not one of them echoed the rightwing spewbuckets back in the States. Everyone he talked to, regardless of income level or political views, was very happy with their health coverage and the quality of the care.

And now, for the sake of equality and fairness, here is an opposing view of Sicko.

Good News: The Government Will Be Examining Our Health Care Crisis

Finally, there's some good news about our health care crisis. The publicity from Michael Moore’s next movie — Sicko, about the crisis in America’s health coverage — has gotten a response from the government.

Let’s give credit where it’s due. Sometimes the system works. Sometimes the American government listens and responds to a public outcry. Just when we thought America’s health care would always be at the mercy of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, we get a heartwarming story like this.

Part of Moore’s movie deals with some 9/11 rescue workers who went to Cuba to get medical treatment that wasn’t available in the U.S. It seems that even some of the most cut-throat HMOs were moved by this revelation, and now finally we’re — uuhhh…hmmm…wait, this can't be right…WTF???

OOPS. No, the government isn't investigating the lack of health coverage. Nope. They're investigating the injured 9/11 workers themselves. These rescue workers had the nerve to travel to Cuba seeking medical treatment that wasn’t available here, and now they might be prosecuted for violating our Cuban embargo.

Talk about “sicko.” How low have we sunk?

Michael Moore: He's Baaack!

It’s time for the Far Right to start foaming at the mouth again. Michael Moore is coming out with another blockbuster this summer. The Right still hasn’t forgiven him for Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling For Columbine. Now they’ll have to gear up for another mass hissyfit.

Most wingnuts probably aren’t aware of this (or didn’t grasp it), but in Bowling For Columbine, Moore concludes that guns are NOT the root of America’s crime and violence. He decides this after interviewing some Canadians and finding out that Canada has about the same number of guns, per capita, as the U.S. So Michael Moore has pretty much the same stance on guns as the rightwads who hate him. How’s that for irony?

His newest movie — coming out this summer — is called Sicko. It'll be a dark comedy (what else?) about America’s ailing health care system. The film will have a segment about some 9/11 rescue workers who had to go to Cuba to get medical treatments that weren’t available in America. Damn those Commies!

It’s hard to tell which will be funnier — the movie itself or the hysterical splutterings of all the rightwing pundits and bloggers who will be ordered to vilify the movie.