Michael Moore’s SiCKO

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It seems as though the Bush administration is bowling for Michael Moore’s head. Hopefully, they’ll throw a gutter ball. The U.S. Treasury Department announced in May that it was investigating filmmaker Michael Moore for going to Cuba as part of his new documentary SiCKO, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. 

Last March, Moore took ten 9/11 first responders who suffered chronic respiratory problems due to toxic conditions at Ground Zero in New York City to Cuba to get medical care. Moore’s new film focuses on the problematic United States healthcare industry and HMOs. The point of Moore’s trip was to show that America’s health care system is inferior to Cuba’s socialized medical care system. 

Moore’s request for travel documents to Cuba had been filed six months before his trip. Now the Treasury Department is investigating whether Moore violated the U.S. embargo of Cuba. The travel and trade ban excludes anyone other than full-time journalists, media, government officials, members of international delegations, full time professionals, and family members. Moore had requested permission to legally visit Cuba, a request similar to those previously granted to such filmmakers as Steven Spielberg, but never received an answer. The recent Treasury Department inquiry asked Moore for proof that he works for a “news gathering organization” and for information about who else went with him to Cuba. 

Citing U.S. Census Bureau Statistics, National Public Radio reported at the same time that the number of uninsured Americans rose from 31 million in 1987 (13 percent of the population) to 46.6 million in 2005 (16 percent). The Orlando Sentinel reports that 17 percent of Florida’s children are uninsured. 

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, family health insurance premiums averaged $11,500 per year in 2006 while a full time minimum wage employee earns $10,712 a year. The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. healthcare system as 37th in the world, behind countries such as Canada, Chile, and Costa Rica, and just two spots ahead of Cuba. 

The journal Health Affairs has reported that uninsured patients and those who self-pay for hospital care were charged on average 2.5 times more for hospital services in 2004 than what health insurers paid, and three times more than Medicare-allowed costs. 

Several right-wing commentators, including Glenn Beck and John Gibson, have argued that Moore should not be considered a journalist. Though predictably reviled by the right wing, Moore is better viewed as a muckraking investigative journalist, exposing corruption and hypocrisy in society, corporations, and the government and championing the causes of average working class people. In Roger and Me, Moore focused on the sky high profits of auto executives contrasted with massive layoffs of auto employees. In Bowling for Columbine he exposed the flaws and hypocrisy of the National Rifle Association. In Farenheit 9/11 he took a bold and unpopular stance against the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq. 

It’s true that Moore goes into his projects with a point of view—the video equivalent of articles written by columnists and op-ed writers, who gather facts and then interpret them and make persuasive arguments based on those facts. So if Moore isn’t a journalist, then neither is George Will, Leonard Pitts, Charles Krauthammer, Cynthia Tucker, Cal Thomas, or Ellen Goodman. Fox News is a biased propaganda wing of the Bush administration and the Republican Party, yet they consider themselves journalists. 

For millions of Americans, our country’s health care system is a mess. Michael Moore is pointing that out in his new film. Don’t shoot the messenger. Our government needs to fix the underlying problem before we all become sicko. 

Z 

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Larry Atkins teaches journalism at Temple University and Arcadia University.