A health care advocate's take on Sicko

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Sicko directed by Michael Moore now playing in theaters everywhere (I hope). Even though Ralph and Mike are at odds, I consider this another great Nader date movie--Bill and I and the two or three other couples who both worked for Ralph Nader are so blessed to have this genre.

We loved this film. I laughed, mostly I cried, and I walked out with a renewed sense of how much of a crucial difference in real people's lives it would make to have national health insurance.

As someone who spent a decade working for almost every major organization in the country that fights for universal health care, I expected to agree with this film; I didn't expect to learn much.

I was wrong on both counts. I didn't agree with all the film-maker's choices and I learned a few things. If Michael Moore's goal was to make a film which could convince mainstream audiences that they'd be better off under national health insurance, he could have shown a little more restraint. In France he should have stopped short of showing us the amazing state-funded childcare and laundry services and in Cuba, he should have simply pointed out that a poor nation like that can afford good health care. By setting up a totalitarian society as an example, he risks undermining his whole point: we can do this here in America, national health insurance is compatible with a capitalist democratic system.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not the target audience here. My resume reads like that of a socialist girl scout. From 1992 to 2002 I worked as an advocate for single payer health care for Public Citizen, Physicians for a National Health Program, Neighbor to Neighbor and the California Nurses Association.

My father was an activist college professor who marched for Democratic Socialists of America. He used to say a socialist "is a communist with 3 children." At age 12, I stood in Balboa Park for hours collecting data for a study I was doing about people's views on publicly-funded programs.

What I learned that day was later confirmed as a health care advocate, most Americans still think they hate Socialism and government-run anything, even while they depend upon the fire department, library, post office and schools. I have even heard people in focus groups say, I kid you not, "let the government keep its hands off of my Medicare."

In other words, Americans want national health insurance...without the government.

What I learned in this movie was that I carry a buried pain in me from living in a society that has been duped by doctors and HMOs into not taking care of its own.

With health care reform likely to fall apart on the California legislature's watch yet again, and a compromised Hilary Clinton a leading contender for U.S. President, what Moore most accomplished for me is to revive a latent dream of mine to move to Paris and become a deliriously happy ex-pat.

See the film, and join me on the Left Bank.

A bientot, enjoy the Fourth of July!