Columnist Jamala-Rogers
Truth be told, I have health insurance for the sake of my dear mother’s mental and physical health. She would worry herself sick if I didn’t have it.
Even before Michael Moore’s Sicko exposed the obscene profits of the insurance companies at the expense of human life, I have been resistant to making them one of my charities. It angers me to know that my hard-earned dollars go to uphold the lifestyle of CEOs like Dr. William McGuire of UnitedHealth Group Inc., one of the nation’s largest health care companies. McGuire lives large off his $8 million annual salary plus his amassed stock options of a whopping $1.6 billion, unprecedented anywhere in the business world. I’m getting sick just writing about it.
In Sicko, Moore soundly condemns American medical industrial complex which consists of the highly organized network of hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical businesses and those who help to prop it up. This includes the politicians who are beneficiaries of their scandalous profits in return for passing legislation favorable to the industry. Moore compares our failing system with the health care systems of other countries who have universal health care.
A conservative estimate suggests that there are 46 million uninsured people in the U.S. Most of them don’t have a personal doctor or health care provider. Most of them are in poor or fair health making access to affordable and high-quality health care even more important.
But if this is the plight of citizens in general, you must know the scene gets even uglier when it comes to African Americans. It is estimated that 1 in 4 blacks are uninsured. Poverty and racism contribute to the sticky web that entraps black families, robbing them of their health and life expectancy.
Most Americans get their insurance through employer-based plans leaving a lot of black folks at the starting gate based upon racist hiring practices. We are the top holders in diabetes, strokes and heart diseases. Structural policies have us disproportionately represented in the numbers of the homeless, the incarcerated and victims of violence.
Attempts to sabotage Sicko’s box office sales didn’t affect its successful debut as a documentary. Two weeks before its opening, the film mysteriously appeared on the internet for downloading. Many suspected that it was the grand scheme of the insurance industry, but it could have just as easily been one of the movie industry capitalists, like Disney Productions, trying to maintain their profit margins.
Neither these acts nor the factoid nit-picking by the rightist media is likely to stop the impact of Sicko. The movie will resonate with many of us, because either we were the victim of the medical industrial complex or we know someone else who was/is. Far too many of us have contributed to modest fundraisers for those needing some expensive, life-saving medical procedure.
The industry is already reacting to Sicko and viewers’ reactions. A memo is circulating in cyberspace alleged to be from a VP of one of the major insurance company exposed in the movie. It was replete with talking points about how to get on the offensive. A special media team was suggested to deal with counter-messaging. Translation: spin for damage control not address the fundamental problems.
For the rest of us, insured and uninsured, we need to be beating down the doors of our legislators demanding that the dream of universal health care be made a reality. After all, health care is a human right.