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Maybe...maybe not.   http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

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----- Original Message -----
From: Aggo Akyea <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, April 23, 2007 1:21 pm
Subject: Michael Moore Flick "Sicko" Will Compare U.S. Health Care with Cuba's
To: [log in to unmask]


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> 
> Controversial Michael Moore Flick "Sicko" Will Compare U.S. Health 
> Care with
> Cuba's
> 
> By Don Hazen, AlterNet
> Posted & Printed on April 23, 2007
> http://www.alternet.org/story/50911/
> 
> To state that controversy and Michael Moore go hand and hand is to 
> utter the
> obvious, and Moore's latest film Sicko will clearly be no exception.
> 
> Sicko, which will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is 
> a
> comic broadside against the state of American health care, including the
> mental health system. The film targets drug companies and the HMOS in 
> the
> richest country in the world -- where the most money is spent on health
> care, but where the U.S. ranks 21st in life expectancy among the 30 most
> developed nations, obviously in part due to the fact that 47 million people
> are without health insurance.
> 
> The timing of Moore's film is propitious. Twenty-two percent of Americans
> say that health care is the most pressing issue in America. Health 
> care will
> clearly be a major issue in the upcoming presidential campaign, as the
> problems with America's health care system have mushroomed during the 
> Bush
> administration. For example, between 2001 and 2005 the number of people
> without health insurance rose 16.6 percent. The average health insurance
> premiums for a family of four are $10,880, which exceeds the annual gross
> income of $10,712 for a full-time, minimum-wage worker. In addition, the
> lack of insurance causes 18,000 excess deaths a year while people without
> health insurance have 25 percent higher mortality rates. Fifty-nine percent
> of uninsured people with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes 
> skip
> medicine or go without care.
> 
> Under wraps, but one surprise out of the bag
> 
> The details of Moore's new film are being kept under tight wraps. According
> to inside sources, only a handful of people have seen the film, and 
> both the
> film maker and Harvey Weinstein -- the film's distributor, who also
> distributed Moore's hugely successful Fahrenheit 9/11 -- are remaining
> tight-lipped about the film's contents.
> 
> Nevertheless, one aspect of the film will not be a total surprise. One 
> of
> the film's segments, an increasingly controversial boat trip to Cuba,
> exploded onto the pages of The New York Post, the Rupert Murdoch-owned
> tabloid, when at least one 9/11 cleanup worker who had been invited to
> participate in a trip to Cuba for Moore's Sicko went to the press.
> 
> The boat trip, according to sources who spoke to both the NY Post and 
> The
> Daily News, took ailing rescue workers to Cuba for health treatment for
> respiratory ailments which they suffer as a result of working at Ground
> Zero, and for which a number of the workers have no health insurance. 
> The
> purpose of the trip, according to some, was to show that the free health
> care in Cuba is superior to the health care system in the U.S. Those invited
> on the trip, as described by Janon Fisher in the Post, were told the "Cuban
> doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other
> respiratory illnesses," and that health care in Cuba was free.
> 
> Health care advances in Cuba
> 
> According to the Associated Press as cited in the Post article, "Cuba 
> has
> made recent advancements in biotechnology and exports its treatments 
> to 40
> countries around the world, raking in an estimated $100 million a 
> year. ...
> In 2004, the U.S. government granted an exception to its economic embargo
> against Cuba and allowed a California drug company to test three cancer
> vaccines developed in Havana."
> 
> Although trip participants signed confidentiality agreements prohibiting
> them from talking about the trip, some thought the trip a success. 
> From the
> NY Post:
> 
> 
> "From what I hear through the grapevine those people who went are utterly
> happy, said John Feal, who runs the Fealgood Foundation to raise money 
> for
> responders and was approached by Moore to find responders willing to take
> the trip. "They got the Elvis treatment."
> 
> According to staff writer Bill Hutchinson from the Daily News, Moore was
> praised for seeking medical alternatives. Retired Firefighter Vinnie Forras,
> 49, said he's been going to Ecuador and Bolivia for experimental treatments
> for lung damage and severe headaches which he suffered at Ground Zero. 
> "For
> me, anyone who's looking to try to help the guys and women who are 
> sick is a
> good thing. I don't care where you go for that treatment."
> 
> On the other hand, some balked at the idea of going: "I would rather 
> die an
> American than go to Cuba," Joe Picurro told the NY Post. Picurro, an
> ironworker with a laundry list of respiratory and other ailments, 
> said, "I
> just laughed. I couldn't do it. "
> 
> America's second-class health care system
> 
> Clearly one of the themes of Moore's films, highlighted by the trip to 
> Cuba,
> is to challenge the myth that the U.S. has superior health care when
> compared with other countries. In a recent AlterNet article, attorney 
> Guy
> Saperstein explained, 
> 
> 
> "The World Health Organization ranks health care systems based on objective
> measures of medical outcomes: The United States' health care system
> currently ranks 37th in the world, behind Colombia and Portugal; the United
> States ranks 44th in the world in infant mortality, behind many impoverished
> Latin American countries. While infant mortality in the United States 
> is
> skewed toward poor people, who have rates double the wealthy, the top
> quintile of the U.S. population has infant mortality rates higher than
> Canadians in the lowest quintile of wealth.
> 
> 
> "The United States has fewer physicians, nurses and hospital beds than 
> most
> developed nations. In the United States, 28 percent say it is 
> "difficult to
> get care"; in most European countries, Japan, Australia and New 
> Zealand, 15
> percent say that. In terms of continuity of care (i.e., five-plus 
> years with
> the same doctor), the United States is the worst of all developed nations.
> By every objective measure, the United States has a second-rate health 
> care
> system."
> 
> It is unclear how soon after Cannes Sicko will open in U.S. theaters. 
> But
> with the aggressive and often Oscar hungry Weinstein at the distribution
> helm, there is little doubt that the movie will make a big splash, bubbling
> up many more controversies. Moore's film has been a long time coming --
> three years since his huge success with Fahrenheit 9/11, which was awarded
> the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm), the festival's highest award, by an
> international jury in 2004, and an Academy Award for best documentary 
> later
> that year.
> 
> Legend has it that while Moore has been critical of Cuba, he became a 
> hero
> there after a pirated version of Fahrenheit 9/11 was shown on
> government-controlled TV. It's ironic that Cuba showed a free version,
> because the film has made boatloads of money. According to the Wikipedia,
> "As of January 2005, [Fahrenheit 9/11] had broken all box office 
> records for
> a documentary grossing nearly US $120 million in U.S. box office, and 
> over
> US $220 million worldwide, an unprecedented amount for a political
> documentary; Sony reported first-day DVD sales of two million copies, 
> again
> a new record for the genre." 
> 
> Only time will tell if Moore can duplicate his success. 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet. 
> 
> © 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
> View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/50911/
> 
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