Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Moore: Call It 'Christianized' Medicine

Health care for all Americans is not a matter of socialism, but of Christian beliefs, filmmaker Michael Moore told a standing room only crowd of Democrats in Brighton Wednesday night.

Moore, speaking by conference call, said he was taught by nuns in school while growing up in Flint that taking care of other people who are sick or poor or in need is the Christian thing to do.

"Instead of socialized medicine, we should call it Christianized medicine," said Moore, adding that the Jewish and Muslim religions have similar beliefs.

Moore spoke as part of a Democracy for America event that joined people in 288 houseparties in 46 states and the District of Columbia. People at the events watched Moore's movie Sicko and then joined in the conference call.

The event brought more than 60 people to the Livingston County Democrats' headquarters.

Sicko, which has drawn excellent reviews, explores the tragic effects of America's for-profit health insurance system, which rewards doctors for denying care to sick people, and contrasts it with health care received by people in other nations. Too often, Moore found, Americans are paying more and getting less care.

Moore boils down the issue of health care in America to the essential question -- what kind of nation are we?

In the conference call after the movie was shown, Moore said Americans' fear of having government pay for health care instead of for-profit insurance companies is tied up with Americans' fear of their own government. Even though the United States claims that it is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, Moore said, people are still taught to be afraid of government. In effect, he said, we are afraid of ourselves.

Moore also said that American doctors are becoming a demoralized group, no longer making as much money as their Canadian counterparts because of the extra staff they need to argue with insurance companies over payment for patients' care.

Moore admitted that Americans can get elective care, such as knee surgeries, after a shorter wait than Canadians. But he pointed out that's because Canada believes in treating everybody, while the American system leaves out 50 million people. And he said he would rather live in a country that lets everybody in line, and wait an extra month for elective surgery, than jump to the head of the line at the expense of others.

The event was the third movie night sponsored by Livingston Democrats this year. Previous films screened were Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Robert Greenwald's Iraq for Sale.

The next film in the series will be another Iraq war documentary called No End in Sight.

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