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July 2, 2007

Sicko

We went to go see Sicko this weekend.

Health care is one of those issues that everyone seems to care about, but nothing seems to get done. Sometimes I just can't believe we've let ourselves get as screwed as we are. Personally, I have a job that I have kept over the years in large part because it offers health insurance. It's part time but gives good benefits, although of course the part time status at a low pay rate has meant keeping at least one and sometimes two other jobs in addition to the first. I now have the potential for a new job at a higher rate of pay (with more fun, potential for growth, responsibility -- all those good things) and the best thing argument for my old job is the health insurance (the new one is at a small company that can't offer it). If it turns out I can't get insurance independently because I'm too fat or something, I'll have to make a pretty tough decision.

In another example, my friend Becky emailed me awhile ago from England asking about health insurance -- she was thinking about moving back to Portland after years living overseas, but she's scared of our health care system.

The point is not that I'm particularly screwed -- I'm pretty lucky, overall -- but that even the lucky among us are affected by this issue. In fact, one of the smart things Moore does is focus on people who have insurance, but are still screwed by the system. So why aren't we doing something about it?

It's interesting to me that the disability rights movement seems more effective and active to me than anything approximating a wellness movement. I think of the disability rights movement in part because of something I heard once which was, "we're all one accident away from being disabled"(or something along those lines). Health insurance seems like the same thing -- if we're not actively getting screwed by the system now, most of us are just one accident (or cancer cell, or germ) away from it.

Anyway, the movie was manipulative and pedantic, but is it really manipulative and pedantic if it's true? II laughed, I cried, I fantasized about moving to Canada. It was manipulative and pedantic in a good way. I had an interesting talk about it with a friend last night who says he's turned off by Moore's inflammatory rhetoric, which I understand, but, by the same token, I sort of appreciate getting emotionally riled about something that know is important.

I used to complain about the way Michael Moore sets up some of his targets to look like jerks, but the more he says and does, the more I respect him, and this one has the least to say about individual jerks and the most to say about historic, social forces. I felt like the victims are individualized while the forces that put us there are more-or-less historicized (although it's hard not to see Nixon or Bush being such craven idiots and not want to do some individuals held accountable). I think that's the right way to go about it.

Anyway, I recommend seeing the movie. I learned things, and I left feeling motivated, not depressed. Apparently there are lots of places to see it for free on the internet now. I kind of like voting with my pocket book when it comes to movies, but either way, I recommend it.

Posted by mary at July 2, 2007 6:28 PM

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Posted by: justin at July 3, 2007 8:08 AM

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