There isn’t much middle ground on Michael Moore; his bromide-laden documentaries have earned him both an enthusiastic following from many on the left and unvarnished vitriol from much of the right. But as divisive as Moore’s films can be, they’ve also been remarkable successful with audiences and critics.
“Fahrenheit 9/11” is the highest-grossing doc of all time, and “Bowling for Columbine” won Moore an Oscar for best documentary. With “Sicko” (which opened Friday in New York, and made a remarkable $70,000 on one screen), Moore turns his sights on the American health care system. Specifically, he posits that universal health care in Canada, France, and the U.K. offers both a greater level of service, general satisfaction, and fewer serious, potentially grievous problems than does America’s privatized model.
“Sicko” generated its share of controversy because of its last segment, during which Moore took a group of afflicted 9/11 workers to Cuba for health care. Some have accused Moore of whitewashing Castro’s human rights violations, and the U.S. Treasury department has investigated the trip to determine if it violated the U.S. embargo with Cuba. But Moore defends his stop in Havana, saying the U.S. should be doing more to help the ailing, especially those it considers its heroes.
Moore spoke with journalists at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival shortly after the film’s premiere, discussing balancing facts with entertainment, reforming the American system, and Americans’ thinking when it comes to universal health care.
Michael Moore: I’d first like to start by saying something that I became aware of in the last 24 hours. Yesterday the New York Post reported that the Bush administration is now investigating the 9/11 rescue workers who we took to Guantanamo Bay, and that they’re not just going to just come after me. Again, I’m taking this from the New York Post, so take that for what it’s worth. But if what the Post is saying is true, I was just kind of stunned that they would go after these rescue workers. The reporter in the story pointed out that that they went there for medical treatment, and the Department of Treasure spokesperson said, “We don’t issue licenses to Cuba for medical treatment.” I just think it’s really shameful on the part of the Bush Administration. Go after me, go after the film, but leave these people alone, these are individuals that the government has already refused to help. To go after them because they want to get help makes absolutely no sense.
Q: What inroads had you made with officials at Guantanamo? Had you talked to anyone or made any arrangements? Were they expecting you to arrive?
Moore: We first approached the Bush administration last October wanting to go down there, and they kept stalling and putting us off. Finally by March, six months later, we decided, it’s already legal for us to go down as journalists, [so] that’s what we’re gonna do. You don’t need a license if you’re doing any journalism work or whatever. So we went legally, according to what the law says. They did not know we were coming that day.
Q: The sequence where the 9/11 rescue workers get medical treatment from Cuba, and all the doctors are smiling very pleasantly — did it ever cross your mind that you were essentially making a great marketing piece for dictatorship?
Moore: After we were turned away at Guantanamo Bay, we would have gone to wherever our government was holding detainees. That was the purpose of the trip: to show the same medical care that we’re given to Al Qaeda detainees. No more, no less. So if the naval base had been in Italy or Spain or Australia or the Philippines — if we’d been turned away — that’s where we would have taken 9/11 workers to see what kind of health care we could get. It’s just an accident that it was in Cuba. We didn’t make the decision. The Bush Administration made the decision to keep the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The health care they were given by the Cuban doctors was the health care received by the Cuban people. You see they don’t have a private room: four to a room. This isn’t just me saying this, all the health care organizations in the world have documented that the Cuban health care system is a very good system and it’s probably the best [health care system] in the third world. The EMT volunteer was there and she told this story to us last week. She stayed there longer than we did. I wanted to find out if the team was doing this because the cameras were on. So she snuck out of her hospital room, checked in, walked up to a different woman than the one she checked in with, and said, “I’m an American of Puerto Rican descent.” She walked up to one of those intake desks just as you see in the film. She said they treated her exactly as they had the rest of the patients. Of course, anytime the camera’s on, people behave differently. I think that should just be a given. Anytime you see a documentary, when the camera is on people are aware. But with the patients we interviewed and with the time we were on the floor, we only saw patients, no reporters, and they care they were given was incredible. You can interview these 911 health care workers and they’ll tell you how grateful they were for the health care they received.
Q: You didn’t really point out the cultural and sociological difference with America. You didn’t point out that you’d be drowning your taxes in order to underwrite so much for health care. Why don’t you address this?
Moore: I do address it in the film, but I don’t say we’re “drowning in taxes.” Americans don’t want to pay taxes and I don’t blame Americans for not wanting to pay taxes because what is the result? You pay taxes and still you can’t even get a pothole fixed. Nothing works. That’s why we don’t want the government running our health care. In France or Britain they actually see some tangible results for the money they pay in taxes and I think that’s what the big difference is. And if Americans actually saw tangible results with the amount of taxes they paid they might be willing to pay more. What you’re suggesting is true: We Americans will have to restructure our thinking, share and stand in line a little. And if it means sharing and standing in line so that everyone is covered? Are we willing to do that? No! “I don’t want to stand in line. I want it now!” I don’t think that mentality has done us well and I think we need to learn to share and start behaving. The Americans like to refer to the States as a Christian country, and I’d like to see that. The closer to that we are the better off we’ll be.
Q: You oversimplify some things, sometimes for entertainment purposes. That does make you open to more mainstream critics who see you as telling incomplete truths. You know that will happen so why do you choose to make your films this way?
Moore: I’m making a movie. I have a 90 to 120 minute time-frame. What you call oversimplification I call a rocking good way to tell a story that leaves no one bored and wanting more at the end of the movie. That’s my goal
Q: You go from focusing on health care to breaking the stereotypes Americans have about their country, which was wild and imaginative. One of the stereotypes you displayed that doctors in Europe were not poor, struggling, doctors — unlike those in America. I was wondering if you were deliberately appealing to American values and the bourgeois lifestyle?
Moore: Upper middle class. I say, at the beginning of the film that this film is not primarily going to deal with the poor, that I wanted to talk to you middle class American who thinks everything is hunky-dory here. When I went to these other countries I deliberately showed people who make similar amounts of money. My sister is a schoolteacher in San Diego; she makes $52,000 a year. $1,000 a week times four is $4,000 a month. I’m trying to appeal to American middle class audiences, showing them middle class households. It’s not a poor hospital. I did this because I want to show the American people where they are in this. I went to London, Ontario, not the bad section of Vancouver, and that was a choice I made, because I decided in the beginning this would not be from the point of view of the people I’d be championing or whatever. I think it’s enough to say we have over 50 million people who don’t have health insurance and that is patently wrong and you don’t have to watch a two hour movie about that.
Q: Do you have any immediate and realistic solutions for the United States problems that could be implemented immediately?
Moore: One thing we really need to do is get the money out of politics and reform so that these pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies can’t buy our congress. If we took the money out we’d have a better chance of getting the bills passed and begin a pre-universal, not-for-profit health care. I have a list of sites on my web site. I have a list of organizations I encourage people to hook up with and bills for congress. I hope people will become active participants and do something about this. Sometimes I feel I’m in a position and I should try to initiate some engagement. I don’t really think that’s my role to do that and something gets lost in this whole discussion about the film and the festival. I’m a filmmaker and I seldom get to talk about being a filmmaker, making films or what I think about films. Instead, I’m asked political questions and I’m only equipped to answer the questions so far. I try to put into my films some things I feel, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t writing a book. I’m very careful about the facts in my film — I’m careful they’re accurate and correct. If I say, “There’s nearly 50 million people without health care,” that’s a fact. You have to trust that’s a fact. But if I say, “I think part of health insurance should be eliminated,” that’s a conclusion I’ve reached through the facts I’ve found. If I said things that were wrong, trust me, people could come at me from all direction but they don’t because things I state as truth are true and things I state as opinions are mine. So the only way these critics can come at me is for the opinions I express or by confusing the opinions for facts.
Q: In terms of process, not factual information, did you consider Hillary Clinton and the battle with the AMA that has been going long. Perhaps that’s something you initially considered —
Moore: I initially had a whole thing with Roosevelt and Truman. The AMA has been opposed to national health insurance long before Hillary. They were opposed to social security and Medicare. The doctors did not want free health care for the elderly and they bought Medicaid and didn’t want free health care for the poor. Doctors have been on the wrong side of this issue for a long time. They supported HMOs at first because they got the goods from the insurance companies who told them they would make more money in managed care. They didn’t realize the insurance companies were a lot smarter than the doctors. Again, the doctors are demoralized.
Q: There’s the old saying that “anecdote is not evidence.” When you’re making a film, do you think intellectually about balancing human stories with analysis or is the process more instinctive than that? Do you have a roadmap, or do things just happen?
Moore: It doesn’t just happen. I don’t think it’s enough to just show these anecdotes in my film and have them play as fact. What I make sure to do is anything anecdotal in the film — fingers sawed off, fingers put back on — that’s there because it’s based on evidence. The things about the Canadian health care system, in an emergency like that they’re going to take care of you well and they’ll take care of you right there. Other things, like a knee or hip replacement or liposuction, stuff that’s not life threatening but just better for you, that takes a little while longer because any time you decide to share a pie, wouldn’t it be nicer if the ones who are hungrier get fed first?
Q: It was mentioned before that our country pays a lot in taxes and the other nations like France or Germany who have nationalized health care, they don’t have as many billions of dollars going towards the military. Did you feel that was something you couldn’t address in the film?
Moore: Yes. Somebody, one of the senators from Ohio, he won’t take the congressional health insurance. His stance is that he won’t take federal health care until it is offered to all Americans. The $100 billion a year we’re sending in Iraq would cover those 50 million without health care for three to five years. So clearly, as he says, “If we’ve got the money to kill people, we’ve got the money to heal them.” I know that sounds a little reckless because it would put us into debt. But, you know, just like you get a paycheck in France, you get a paycheck here. The federal tax in France is 10 percent. That covers the infrastructure, the military and all the basic things the federal government takes care of. Then on your pay stub you have your tax for college, health care, daycare and they list it so every week you see what your money is going towards. The show of waste that goes on in health insurance companies: [just think] if you eliminate the 25 percent they spend on administrative costs. Medicaid spends three percent on administrative costs. Canada spends 1.7 percent of the budget on the bureaucracy that runs the Canadian Health system. 1.7 percent! AETNA, Blue Cross, Humana, they spend anywhere between 18 to 25 percent on their health care costs. The myth is [that] privatization is better and less expensive. If this were in the hands of the government it would be reliable. If you don’t believe me just as your parents, parents if their social security check comes at the same time every month. It does: via the crappy US mail! My guess is it comes on the same day, and ask them if they have a problem getting their social security money. It’s there for them every month. It’s a good system. They give millions of dollars every month to millions of senior citizens. And it works. Just because it’s the government doesn’t mean it has to be Amtrak.
Q: How many people do you have helping you gather all the clips, facts and figures? You have a lot of reporting in your film.
Moore: I have five or six field producers and senior producers. I have four researchers and four in the archiving department. Then I have four independent veterans who are not on staff, who go through the film and two teams of lawyers who go through the film. Then they hire another firm. And the insurance company who insures the film also sends people to look through the film. All the people are fully insured and have the absolute best coverage AETNA offers: zero deductible, dental, eye and as good as they can get in the US these days.
Q: You’re originally from Canada?
Moore: No, but thank you. My grandfather came from there. I have family there.
Q: Have you ever considered relocating?
Moore: Yes. When I was in high school, during the draft, my friends and I would make these dry runs over the blue river. Of course I wouldn’t consider living anyplace other than America. I’m an American. I’d rather bring France to us. We’ll bring these Canadians to us if we have to kicking and screaming! And maybe it won’t be hard since they leave their doors unlocked.
Q: What is the next issue you want to make a film about?
Moore: I got asked that question here in Cannes three years ago and I made a mistake saying “the health care system” and the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies started issuing these medals to employees and told them not to talk to me. I made a hotline with a note: “If you see Michael Moore at this or any location and want to talk to him, please call%u2026” The LA Times did a story on it. There was some kind of a training session with a psychological profiler to train their employees how to deal with me if I came at them with a camera. So they hired this guy to profile me and it said “try to get him off the subject by talking to him about Detroit sports team or complimenting him on his recent weight loss.” I thought, “This is genius! It will absolutely work!” It’s hard enough for me to get in anywhere but as I said, it’s hard not to get in because these people were screwing around, getting ready for me! But, about the subject: the subject matter has been researched and we don’t need any help, but thank you!
