Sicko

I just got home from the movies, and I have one thing to say: THANK YOU MICHAEL MOORE.

Although I agree with Michael Moore's politics, I find his films to be too one-sided and propagandistic. However, I had personal reasons for wanting to see SICKO and boy am I glad I did.

Let's start with the background. My mother, a Beverly Hills divorcee, died from cancer 8 years ago, in no small part due to problems with getting health insurance. My mom spent her 20s and 30s being a housewife and mother, and after her divorce from my dad she had lots of problems adjusting to being a modern single woman. Used to being "Mrs. Dr. XXX", she suddenly was just "Sandy" and she had to try to find a way to make it on her own. Not as easy as on a television sitcom or in the movies. She tried her hand at retail, then she became a travel agent, got involved in a scheme in the early 90s to sell ATM machines, then finally went into real estate.

Bad move. Just when she got her license, the housing market collapsed. My mom couldn't sell a house or condo to save her soul. She also didn't have health insurance, as she was paid solely on commission. So, not only did she not have health insurance, she basically had no income. Once child support and alimony ran out, her situation became even more dire. She moved from a large house in Westwood which she and my dad owned, to a small house in Westwood which she owned alone, to a ranch house in Brentwood which she rented (she had to sell the other house because she couldn't afford payments anymore), to a rented townhouse in West LA, to a one-bedroom apartment in Beverly Hills Adjacent, to her brother's condo. A horrible downward spiral for a woman who drove a Mercedes, shopped at Gelsons and Saks, and sent her kids to the best private schools in Los Angeles.

Over time, she noticed a birthmark on her arm start to turn black. Not a good sign but denial and the bank prevented her from getting treatment. Finally, after much too long, she borrowed money from her brother to get the birthmark removed. It was melanoma and it had spread to her lymph nodes. What I didn't know at the time, but later discovered, was that they recommended a course of chemotherapy as follow up. As far as I know, she did not do any follow up for the next five years, and she was also completely unable to get health insurance from then on because of her now preexisting condition.

My mother went about her life as usual over the next several years, trying unsuccessfully to build a career as a real estate agent and get her life back together. Unfortunately it was not to be. In February 1999 she suffered a seizure out of the blue. The doctors told her that the melanoma had been spreading for all these years.....it had traveled to her brain and lungs...stage IV.....and that they could not treat her because she didn't have health insurance.

My mom, the former wife of a prominent Los Angeles veterinarian, had to get treatment from LA/USC County Hospital, a place I liken to a third world prison. In the ER, patients from the local jails and prisons were shackled to their gurneys. Waits were interminable. Getting an appointment involved a complicated maze of telephone calls and beaurocracy, and even once we had an appointment we would wait all day in a government issued waiting room and only got to see a doctor if we were lucky enough to be one of the first to arrive on our given day.

Ultimately I was able to get my mother some sort of "emergency" health care, paid for by cigarette taxes (the ultimate irony considering the several packs my mother smoked her entire life) with a lifetime cap of something like $70,000. It didn't matter, though, because I knew that she would die before the cap was met. From then on, we had reasonable health care and were treated by doctors at private hospitals such as USC Norris. Unfortunately, it was several years too late. My mom died in November 1999 at her brother's condo, with me at her side, as a result of melanoma originating from a small birthmark on her forearm.

Because of this very personal life experience (and another which I'll write about some other time), the issue of health care has alway been a particularly sensitive one for me. I will NEVER go one day without health care. I currently pay over $400 month for very poor insurance coverage. My deductible is $2000 per year. I only go to the doctor once a year for the OBGYN, once a year for the dermatologist, and once a year for my GP. Other than that, I only go in cases of severe emergency.

To say that I am thankful for Michael Moore's work on this subject is an understatement. He is bringing attention to this issue which is long overdue. Whether anything will change as result of this film is uncertain, and probably unlikely. People have always been aware that health care companies are like phone companies, cable companies and IT centers.....beaurocracies which seem to exist to give customers the runaround.....but to see a documentary like Sicko which is filled with anectodes, comparisons to other countries (which I am aware are not really accurate, but they get the point across nonetheless) and evidence of government and private corruption.....well, it gives one hope that maybe someday enough people will care about this issue to make a difference. Look at the difference "An Inconvenient Truth" is making. A huge impact on an issue we have all known about for years but ignored because it was too annoying to have to recycle, or electronic cars were too ugly, or it was inconvenient to try to live "green". Al Gore has made it "fashionable" to care about the earth. Maybe SICKO can do the same for healthcare. If only it had been made 15 years ago.