Dear CBS Evening News,
On the June 22 broadcast of CBS Evening News, reporter Jeff Greenfield criticized Michael Moore's documentary SiCKO on the grounds that the U.S. public and its political leaders reject Moore's solution. To prove his point, Greenfield said that though the presidential candidates "have all talked a lot about changing the health care system...no one, Democrat or Republican, has come close to advocating the kind of government-run national health system Michael Moore proposes."
First, it should be clear that SiCKO's basic message is that the core problem with health care in the U.S. is that the private health insurance industry dominates and sets the logic of our health care system. SiCKO presents a variety of alternatives to this kind of health insurance industry control. The film shows the systems in Britain, Canada, France, and Cuba. The only thing these countries have in common is that each provides health care to its citizens without putting any financial barriers in their way. But each does it in a different way. Britain's National Health Service funds all health care and employs its hospital workers, but physicians set up their own primary care services. In Cuba, health workers are employed by government authorities. In Canada, the government provides insurance to everyone and people use that insurance to see private physicians and go to hospitals of their choice; their system is government financed, not "government-run." In France, the government oversees and regulates a system of non-profit insurance funds, so the government has an even smaller role than in the other three countries Moore shows.
Moreover, Greenfield is wrong about the presidential candidates. One of them, who is systematically ignored by CBS and the rest of the mainstream media, is U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich, who has clearly come out in favor of national health insurance for this country. Mr. Kucinich has, along with the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, introduced a bill -- H.R. 676, the "United States National Health Insurance Act" -- which proposes "Expanded & Improved Medicare For All." Not surprisingly, CBS and the rest of the mainstream media have systematically ignored this bill, despite the fact that it has 75 Congressional co-sponsors and the support of a growing movement of ordinary Americans, health professionals and labor unions across the country. Michael Moore endorsed this bill when he met with members of Congress in Washington D.C. last week.
Are Americans dead set against national health insurance, as Greenfield implies? A recent CBS/New York Times poll (2/23-27/07) found 64 percent support for the idea that the federal government should "guarantee health insurance for all," and 60 percent supported paying higher taxes to provide such coverage. And in a recent CNN poll (5/4-5/6/07), 64 percent of respondents supported the idea that "government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes." Finally, if further proof were needed, see the ABC/Kaiser poll which finds that 56 percent of Americans would prefer a universal system "like Medicare..." ("Health care in America 2006 Survey," Kaiser Family Foundation).
Michael Moore has strengthened the movement for national health insurance by calling for getting the private health insurance industry out of our health care. He is amplifying the efforts of groups that have long been committed to this cause -- Physicians for a National Health Program, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, and Healthcare-NOW! And as John Nichols reported on June 26 in Wisconsin's Capitol Times, Moore is asking all the presidential candidates "to sign a pledge to support free, universal health care 'as a human right for every resident of the United States,' and to work to remove private insurance companies from providing health care. The pledge also calls for stricter regulation of pharmaceutical companies. And it asks candidates not to take any money from the health-care industry -- or, if they have taken such money, to give it back."
It is the politicians who are out of synch with the American people, but up until now we have had too few leaders willing and able to crystallize and mobilize popular opinion behind a real universal health care program, a program that is only possible if the private health insurance companies are evicted from their place in the U.S. health care system. That kind of leadership is being built up now, from the ground up. CBS should accurately and honestly report on this movement, not try to explain it away as Greenfield has done.
Joanne Landy, MPH Executive Director Physicians for a National Health Program, NY Metro Chapter pnhpnyc at igc.org
Mary O'Brien, MD Chair, Media and Communications Committee Physicians for a National Health Program, NY Metro Chapter meo1 at columbia.edu