I was in New Jersey this past weekend, and I heard a very animated conversation between two NJ Transit workers about Sicko: “So Hillary takes the money — Can you believe that??” And apparently, that’s happening in other equally unlikely places. This apparently non-political blog has an account of spontaneous citizen activism after a showing of Sicko in Dallas (ht: BoingBoing via Steve Benen of Washington Monthly) :
When the credits rolled the audience filed out and into the bathrooms. At the urinals, my redneck friend couldn’t stop talking about the film, and I kept listening. He struck up a conversation with a random black man in his 40s standing next to him, and soon everyone was peeing and talking about just how fucked everything is.
I kept my distance, as we all finished and exited at the same time. Outside the restroom doors? the theater was in chaos. The entire Sicko audience had somehow formed an impromptu town hall meeting in front of the ladies room. I’ve never seen anything like it. This is Texas goddammit, not France or some liberal college campus. But here these people were, complete strangers from every walk of life talking excitedly about the movie. It was as if they simply couldn’t go home without doing something drastic about what they’d just seen. My redneck compadre and his new friend found their wives at the center of the group, while I lingered in the background waiting for my spouse to emerge.
The talk gradually centered around a core of 10 or 12 strangers in a cluster while the rest of us stood around them listening intently to this thing that seemed to be happening out of nowhere. The black gentleman engaged by my redneck in the restroom shouted for everyone’s attention. The conversation stopped instantly as all eyes in this group of 30 or 40 people were now on him. “If we just see this and do nothing about it,” he said, “then what’s the point? Something has to change.” There was silence, then the redneck’s wife started calling for email addresses. Suddenly everyone was scribbling down everyone else’s email, promising to get together and do something — though no one seemed to know quite what.
It’s that last quote that really makes me nervous. Steve Benen points to this action by MoveOn, petitioning the presidential candidates to reject health insurers’ campaign cash … but geez, that’s not gonna cut it. Try getting 535 members of Congress to do the same thing, and then we’ll talk.
We’ve got a terrific moment here, and a real opportunity to change the debate entirely; but our health care activist infrastructure is really lacking. The leading Medicare lobbying group, Families USA, doesn’t even mention universal health care on its home page— how totally pathetic. And its very name is so vague it’s almost sleazy: What does a “Families USA” do? Is it a fundamentalist theme park?
Way over on the other side, Physicians for a National Health Program is the major pro-single payer group out there, and they’re fine people, but I don’t see that they or their fellow travelers have really reached out to the other heavy-hitters on the left — the progs-n’-blogs, SEIUs, think-tanks, etc. Hey, they’ve got Michael Moore and 75 co-sponsors in the House of Reps — and none in the Senate. What’s their plan to move beyond that? Their situation reminds me of the old dot-com era UPS commercial, where a small company’s delight at fielding its first few online orders quickly turns to dread when it realizes it has no capacity to actually fill them. I’m just not sure that PNHP, or their fellow travelers HealthCare-Now.org (warning: your eyeballs will hate you for visiting that link) are actually big-league enough activists to direct the firehose of popular reaction to the movie.
Oh, and PNHP doesn’t play well with others: “As a matter of policy, PNHP expressly opposes what are sold as “gradual” steps towards single-payer.” Translation: You’re either for us or against us. They may be right on the policy, but statements like that leave them on a political island. That’s not how you win anything that matters: One can express skepticism for incremental plans while engaging, rather than pushing away, those working in good faith on other proposals — these folks, for instance. Some retooling of that language — and more importantly, its underlying political strategy — is definitely in order.
The weak and fractured state of our activist infrastructure is a serious problem. But that doesn’t leave us with nothing to do — not by a long shot. You do what you can, when you can, as much as you can. As I’ve mentioned, what the public sphere needs from us is a strong and forthright statement of values: No one should be denied the medical care they need because of insurance or ability to pay. Ever. Start with the values, and the policy will follow.
So when you exchange emails with those random folks who saw Sicko with you, you know what to tell your elected officials — and what to expect of them.
you know them. i know some. you probably voted for some of them.
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oh, they’re for universal healthcare alright.
oh, the situation is terrible.
oh, something has to be done.
oh, i hear you.
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so, are they willing to stand up at the podium and denounce by name the bloodsucking insurance and pharma cartels that have so perverted our healthcare system?
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well . . . . ummmmm . . . . no.
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beacon hill is full of them. they’ll talk the talk when the activists are visiting that afternoon. but will they fight? will they buttonhole their colleagues after hours? will they name names? will they piss off blue cross/blue shield?
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no.
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they might file some band-aid bill that’s dead on arrival. at least then they can go home and tell the activists that they’re trying. but oh, it’s hard. oh, it’s such a big problem. oh, i hear you.
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want to see action?
we’ll see nothing til our representatives learn what political courage is.
til then, the cartels will remain our masters. irregardless of how many people get involved.
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it all comes down at the legislators desk.
“Depend on the cowardice of politicians.” And it was presented like that was a good thing.
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Asking for political courage from our leaders is a cop-out for us. Our whole system is built on political cowardice — that’s what democracy is. The question is whether they’re more afraid of jes’ folks than they are of the AHIP and PhRMA lobbyists. Right now, they’re not. As one of the American expats in France says to Moore in Sicko, “In France, politicians are afraid of the people.” Our special-interest-glutted system only works that way because pols are not afraid of the people.
were all presidents that broke concentrated interests.
political courage does exist. and can.
it just doesn’t dwell in todays democratic party.
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the republican politicians continue to do what they’re supposed to do; shill for corporate interests. (and sucker the jes folks into believing it’s in their best interests)
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the democratic politicians have run away from what they are supposed to do: fight corporate interests.
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shame on us if we enable that.
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So what to do?
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Check this DailyKos thread out, for one, and post your own ideas here on BMG, for another.
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Lots and LOTS of people are looking for ways to get involved and to make the needed healthcare reforms actually happen, as Charley describes in this post.
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Politicians will do what we give them the space to do, as Grace Ross said to me when I was bemoaning what fairdeal describes above (the “I’ll talk the talk but no, not me, will actually walk the walk”, a la former Senator Jarrett Barrios et al).
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The “Prove you’re not evil, Google” blog thread on http://www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org is part of our movement-building, too.
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Just like impeachment.
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Huh.
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Is there a THEME emerging here?
The House of the People is listening to the people.
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75 of 435 is listening?
MTA guy is on the mark re activist lacks in infrastructure, but all sorts of groups, and groups of groups, have been trying.
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I haven’t seen SICKO (sold out the night we went to see it) but based on Moore’s other films, I’ll bet it connected.
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I sort of hate to talk about money, but it’s been my observation of the last few years that the guys and the causes that I’m for lack money, and the folks and the causes and tendencies I hate, have lots of it. Moreover the latter have used it very shrewdly to dominate the public dialogue, and to push national progressive politics i.e. common sense, decent, justice-and-peace-seeking politics, to the margin. According to the NATION’s recent piece on the Pew Center’s massive poll, the great majority of Americans agree that they want the very same common sense etc. policies. They also, by all interpretations of the ’06 elections, want out of Iraq. They have gotten none of the above, nor progress toward any of it.
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All in all, our US government has isolated itself rather perfectly from the people, including the Democrats in Congress. Or rather, the need for enormous funds to get elected has done that. That’s the news inside the Beltway. All our marching and banging on the doors of our government has had little effect.
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The one great good thing that HAS happened is the disillusionment of most Americans with Bush & Co. and all its works. Progressives and Americans in general now agree.
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But Americans-in-general don’t take to the street. Activism is foreign to most Americans. We don’t have a culture of direct mass action like Latin America, and say, Poland and the Ukraine.
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However big PR campaigns do activate people. That’s familiar to Americans. We DO know how to raise money from the wealthy and the non-wealthy (look at what some evangelical churches do!) and we do know, by which I mean, it’s in our culture how to do PR, and people do respond to PR.
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This is where the money comes in. We must put together a straghtforward program based on a consensus Americans now agree on and then raise hundreds of millions to put on massive national ad and PR campaigns, and buy media and create networks JUST TO BE NOTICED AND RESPECTED AS A REAL POLITICAL FORCE, and incidently get a democratic agenda out. It will take lots of money, not as much as the other side has, but to battle in the same league the public is used to.
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Big money does many things. Even having a credible fund-raising program gets notice. It can be done, if progressives become determined to carry it out.
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This may be a crazy idea, but we are badly stuck. The longer the regime gets away with showing Congress to be incapable of calling it and ousting, or even threatening it, the harder it’ll be to uproot and repair all the evil it has done and continues to do.
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Whomever wrote this is NOT me. I may have logged into a computer somewhere (Dad, is that you?) and forgot to log off. Very strange.
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Anyway, I leave the comment up there because it’s basically constructive.
and establishing a guaranteed universal healthcare program American-style will be the movement’s first victory, or maybe we’ll get the U.S. out of Iraq first, and then finish the major healthcare reform work (certainly vigilance will always be needed on this hc front).
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Yes, money is an essential ingredient but we should not let the aim of big fundraising replace building a movement and taking it to the streets to demand change.
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I am certainly not alone in having marched on Washington in the 1960’s and 70’s, taken with my mother as one of her 3 young daughters, to support the civil rights movement and then to demand an end to the war in Vietnam. Lots of other Americans understand what that activism did and are very proud of being a part of it.
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Rep. John Conyers is the lead sponsor of HR 676, a bill to create an improved and expanded Medicare For All program.
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I’ve been wondering, where’s John Lewis on this issue?
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We need his voice and leadership joined together with the wisdom and passion of the many other lions of social justice work in the U.S., joined together with the voices of the young and all of us in between.
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I’m reading Halberstams’ wonderful book about the civil rights movement, much of it drawn on detailed research and also on his reporting on this movement building work as a young man.
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The U.S. healthcare issue begs for a national citizen-activist response on the order of a national social justice movement. Which places will it begin and who will help to lead it? Many have stepped forward already but many many more are needed.
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Will it be you? What will you do?
Or so claims a Capital Blue Cross Blue Shield VP in this internal memo he prepared after attending SiCKO.
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(Of course we have about the lowest smoking rate in the industrialized world… but whatever)
…unless it was an alias that I could easily delete.
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On the subject matter of the post, we haven’t seen Sicko–and won’t until we can get the DVD from Blockbuster, but it is my sincere impression that nothing is going to be done about the American health care delivery and finance system until corporate America demands something to be done. I have described some of the inefficiencies in the American delivery system. I could describe some of the inefficiencies in the American finance system.
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The problem that you have is that those inefficiencies provide jobs–and income–for real people. That is one reason why the American health care delivery and financing system is the most expensive in the world.. But, until you can find something else for those people to do, they will be among those resisting change. One can rant against insurance companies all one wants, but it is the employees of those insurance companies who are feeling the heat.
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On a related matter Hire Google for your denialist campaign!
See any problems with that? Might we implode?
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Health care is overhead, not “real” income. Like any entity, we’re best off lowering overhead as much as possible.
…what if every single person in the USofA worked in digging ditches.
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Maybe you might want to expound on whatever thesis you might want to.
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I do believe that I have been clear as to the various inefficiencies involved in the US health care delivery and finance system. I also believe that I have suggested that there are alternatives. I also believe that I have suggested why the reticence to transitioning to another delivery and financing system which might be far less inefficient and far less costly.
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If you don’t want to address those issues, it won’t bother me a bit.
and at the same time, transition those employees into the renewable energy sector and have the US invest heavily in buying/researching it so there’s customers! 😀 It’s perfect!
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Obviously, the expertise in the health field and engineering experts are different kettles of fish, but for the vast majority (call center employees, salespersons, PR, IT, etc) you could easily switch them from one to the other. And throw in some retraining funds for the transition.
How to get to Universal, why, even single payer.
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First of all, you have one uncredible Bill in the House. The Bill, if passed (ROFL), would cost 17.5% of the population more in tax, than it would save them in health insurance. That’s the ‘rich’. You know, as in households with $100K and up income.
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Rep. Conyer always refers to the tax as a ‘modest’ 3.3% on everyone, plus 5% on the top wage earner, plus repeal the Bush tax cuts. I’ll call them 50,000,000 people that the bill alienates. That’s why, the Bill has only has 75 or so backers in House.
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Second, when someone uses ‘modest’ as an adjective preceding any measure of money, check your wallet. Conyers. What a joke.
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Third, 87 million people are covered by Medicare or Medicaid. By all reports, Medicare and Medicaid are successful programs. That 87 million cranky, blue-haired or no-haired people who are convinced that they’re the greatest generation, and pandered to by every politician. BTW, they vote.
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Forth, the baby-boomers’ hair’s turning blue.
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Fifth, PHARMA and insurance companies have a financial interest in the status quo and a huge voice to lend to the blue hairs and the ‘rich’.
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That’s 187 million people with money who don’t want change.
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Next, if you believe the polls, 68% of the entire population are content with the care they receive. A lot, (like me) say it’s expensive, but a lot are government and town and corporate employees with an employer who pick up a seriously percentage of the cost.
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All the 68 percenter know is a) I like what I got and b) change is scary.
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So, how to proceed to Single payer. First, you bust Medicare. It’s going broke anyway. Let it. Block-grant aid to the states to fund Medicaid instead; raise the deductibles to Medicare recipients on a means tested basis. There! Suddenly, you have 87 million people on your side.
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Next, get somebody other than that bozo Conyers to sponsor a single payer, catastrophic coverage program. Some moderate with credibility.
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Those who don’t have coverage, well, at least now you do for the big emergencies in life that can bankrupt you: cancer, heart attacks, and the like. Then, if that catastrophic program is successful, “mission creep” takes over and it will expand.
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It’ll result in 2 levels of health care. Don’t interfere with the 2 levels. Because, if you don’t allow it, then you’ll alienate the insurance companies. Let them sell their Gap policies giving better coverage to those who can afford it. That’s what all the industrial countries do now.
Change is scary. Therefore let Medicare go bust and block-grant it all. Good one.
I thought about your point as I typed my earlier comment, and you’re right.
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However, the less-than-scary part about letting Medicare to bust, is that it will happen by government inaction. It’s politically easier to allow something to happen rather than pass a law that will prevent it.
I trust that your hypothesis won’t ever be tested.
But, how can you, an activist, disregard the overwhelming resistance to your cause? Either (i) refute my analysis or (ii) fail.
gary, do you have enough spare time to lead humanity out of the darkness?
So many causes so little time.
You people don’t really believe that short story written on some blog about all those people ( a “redneck” friend and a black man co symping together with a group of 40 people in the lobby of the movie house) which smacked of a Freshman creative writing class assignment. Please, don’t destroy what was a pretty good discussion of the topic with such feel-good nonsense.
… assuming that is your real name … As I say, I heard a similar intensity in an overheard conversation in Jersey. It’s an anecdote, not data — but I have a sense it could turn into data pretty quick.
OK I admit I won’t probably ever see sicko in any context. Also I admit that even conservative pundits have said good things about this movie.
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But you’ve got a guy who is basically a leftist socialist idealogue, who is known for twisting the facts, and you’re going to go in and see a movie and then rise up as if its all true? (What is up with this new movie activism anyway??) Maybe because it syncs with your own beliefs about the world?
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Where’s the critical questioning? Why ignore the other side with such determination?
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http://www.nydailyne…
You can’t talk about it. I am so sick of sanctimonious conservatives talking out their ass about which they have no experience.
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The movie is a pivot point, it humanizes the issue and shows us that WE have been propagandized to by OUR media and government and corporations regarding socialized medicine in other countries. We’re told it’s evil…well, 80% of Canadians are is favor of their system, so it must be…we’re told about the “rationing” and yet waiting times are similar if not better than here…we have been lied to repeatedly, and you hate Michael Moore for having a point of view when he makes his movies?
And I know I don’t like that movie either. I’m sure Sicko is standard MM fare: a somewhat effective piece of propaganda. Even if whatever he says is true, the fact that it came from his mouth lends it an air of the unlikely to be true.
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I guess I’ll have to continue to learn about the issue from AnnEM and gary.
1:
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No. You’re saying it’s evil. Let’s see what the CDC reports about Canadian and US thoughts on healthcare:
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link
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2:
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Didn’t Mr. Lynn get a haircut on this same point HERE
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Wait times in Canada are greater. Maybe it’s no big deal to the Canadians, but wait times are greater.
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3:
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Michael Moore is funny. I saw the one about General Motors and then the Colimbin and thought they were both cute. But a pivot point? Maybe the same way Spiderman was a pivot point for mainstreaming NYC superheros.
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Moore takes himself too seriously, he’ll be the next Lenny Bruce.
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3 strawmen, dead and accounted for.
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Ad hominem argument: “Michael Moore twists facts. Therefore anything Michael Moore says is suspect, including claims that the sky is blue.”
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Either he’s right or he’s wrong. He’s right about most things in the movie with regard to our system — the bloody injustice and randomness with which human lives are discarded. He’s wrong or possibly wrong about some things: It’s been said that his portrayal of Cuba’s health care system is one-sided; and one of his subjects is bone-marrow transplant surgery that is actually not a sure thing at all.
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But let’s have a discussion about what the movie actually says, for crying out loud — not just “Moore is a fat liar — therefore Sicko is a big fat lie.” Boring!
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Charley,
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I agree with you about FamiliesUSA. You said, ?No one should be denied the medical care they need because of insurance or ability to pay. Ever.? Well, in MA, the group, Healthcare for Massachusetts Campaign, tried to amend MA?s constitution to make health care a right. It would have passed until Sen Richard Moore and Health Care for All (FamiliesUSA?s rep in MA) forced the Constitutional Convention to table the amendment.
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Healthcare for Mass along with other groups, such as MASS-CARE, have been working many years for real health care reform in MA and the country. There are grassroots organizations in CA, CO, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MN, MA, MI, MN, NH, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, RI, TX, UT, VT, WA, WV, WI. So it is not only PNHP fighting for real reform. But PNHP is a good resource for health care information.
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I personally disagree with PNHP about pushing only for a national single payer. I believe that we have to show that real reform works in 2 or 3 states before we can get Congress on board. That is what happened in Canada.
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I am also deeply offended when national newspapers keep saying, ?Massachusetts is beginning Universal Health Care.? The new health law is NOT universal and will not really cover people fully. The law should not be called ?Health Insurance for Everyone? but should be called ?Insurance for the Health Industry.?
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Let us hope that ?Sicko? opens people?s eyes to the fact that the problem is not just the uninsured but also the underinsured.