The World In Film
SiCKO: Healthcare denied for profit

Leah Otto Johnson

"There are two ways people are controlled. First of all, frighten people; and secondly, demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern."
- Tony Benn, former member of Parliament

Universal healthcare — its one of the hottest issues debated by nearly all 2008 presidential candidates. Nearly 50 million Americans do not have healthcare coverage.

And of the nearly 250 million Americans that do have healthcare insurance, thousands will have their prescribed procedures and medicines denied by HMOs as experimental, not medically necessary, due to a preexisting condition or because their condition is not considered life threatening.

"Many people with insurance have found it’s difficult to get healthcare because the insurance companies deny you what you need," said presidential candidate Hilary Rodham Clinton in a March 2007 interview on ABC’s "Good Morning America."

Plainly put by Director Michael Moore, the United States healthcare system is SiCKO.

The docu-comedy compares U. S. for-profit managed healthcare systems, such as HMOs and pharmaceutical companies, with the universal, nonprofit healthcare systems in Canada, Britain, France and Cuba where life expectancy is higher.

Out of 191 countries, the United States ranked No. 37 out of the world’s healthcare systems, according to the WHO World Health Report. U. S. citizens pay 56 percent of their healthcare costs out-of-pocket.

"The poor are treated with less respect, given less choice of service providers and offered lower-quality amenities," said WHO Director-General G. H. Brundtland. "In trying to buy health from their own pockets, they pay and become poorer."

The health and well-being of people around the world depend critically on the performance of the healthcare systems that serve them, said Brundtland. But according to testimonials in Moore’s film, the healthcare systems serving U. S. citizens care more about profit and less about health.

"You look at the particular case or question at hand and you start looking for ways to deny or limit or save money," said Dr. Linda Peno, former Humana medical director. "The doctor with the highest percent of denials was actually going to get a bonus—that was the way they set the system up."

Any payment for a claim is referred to as a medical loss, she said.

In 1996 Peno testified before U. S. Congress that nearly 10 years earlier, when she was a physician, she denied a medical procedure and went from earning a few hundred dollars a week to six-figures annually.

"I denied a man a necessary operation that would’ve saved his life and thus caused his death. No person and no group has held me accountable for this, because, in fact, what I did was save a company $500,000 for this."

The film also states that of the congressional aids who worked on the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, 14 went to work for the healthcare industry after the act passed. Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, who pushed the act in Congress, accepted the CEO position after the act passed at Pharma, a leading a drug industry group — for a $2 million annual salary.

Managed healthcare organizations provide healthcare insurance and manage healthcare cost. Former President Richard Nixon introduced this "National Health Strategy" after a taped 1971 conversation with John D. Ehrlichman, which led to the HMO Act of 1973:

Ehrlichman: Edgar Kaiser is running this Permanente deal for profit and the reason he can do it—I had Edgar Kaiser come in, talk to me about this, and I went into some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care. Because the less care they give them, the more money they make.

Nixon: Fine.

Ehrlichman: And the incentives run the right way.

Nixon: Not bad.

Today, Kaiser Permanente is the largest HMO in the United States — and it is just one of many healthcare industry ties to Rodham Clinton, according to a Contributions by Employer report by the Federal Election Commission. Rodham Clinton is the No. 2 recipient in the senate of healthcare industry contributions, the film states.

Further, the Center for Responsive Politics also reported Rodham Clinton was the No. 5 recipient of lobbyist contributions during the 2005–2006 election cycle.

Lobbyists try to persuade legislators to propose, pass or defeat legislation or to change existing laws. They may work for a group, organization or industry, and they write legislative proposals to support their clients’ interests.

"Profit should have no business in our healthcare business," said Moore in an interview on the Colbert Show.

A pirated copy of the film leaked to the Internet and is available to view at such Web sites as http://www.videosift.com and http://www.livevideo.com. Moore said he’s just happy people get to see his movies and doesn’t believe in copyright laws anyway.

This film has a PG-13 rating and was released in theaters June 22. Weinstein Company, the film’s distributor, will donate 11 percent of SiCKO’s box office receipts to help 9/11 rescue workers who need medical care.

This article is Leah Otto Johnson’s last The World In Film for The Metropolitan. Thank you for reading.