CHICAGO – You’d think I’d get over it already. After reading so many patient horror stories and knowing how many people are hurting for healthcare, you’d think I’d have thicker skin. But I sat alone again this morning in the dark and cried. And I cried because this recession – this depression – is going to mean more and more people will have less access to healthcare both through insurance and through other means.
ABC ran a piece this morning that described the ghost town-like atmosphere in some communities where foreclosures are growing and people are just up and leaving their homes and many of their personal belongings. Trash collectors come through and empty out the homes of the food, the dishes, the clothes, the TVs, the microwaves and the toys left behind. One of the young workers wondered when it might be his own family, his own kid’s doll...
A fellow plaintiff lawyer in Kentucky sent me this video link to an amusing and right-on youtube video. It accurately portrays the American experience of InsurerDrivenHealthCare. Check it out and spread it to friends. It's sponsored by Health Care for America Now.
Happy Anniversary To a Country Full of SiCKOs
Written by Clark Newhall MD JD
Friday, 20 June 2008 08:39
By Donna Smith, American SiCKO
So, a year has passed since Michael Moore's much anticipated film, SiCKO, was released in the United States. The film debuted with great fanfare and with teams of nurses in bright red scrubs and health reform activists all over the nation passing out leaflets and trying to push the reach of the film deep into the nation's psyche.
I paid for Adrian to fly to New York to be on a national TV show about healthcare. Here she is, making the point (once again) that our greed-driven, profit-maximizing system is not working for PEOPLE.
Here is Adrian's thank you note to me:
Thank you again for the flight to NYC. I am so grateful that I was able to go and be a part of an international discussion. I defended my nation against a German woman who is a professor there in NYC. She said that Americans will never see single payer. I told her that we will, as 80% of people polled want single payer, 59% of physicians polled want single payer. She said that she thinks our system is scary, and I replied so does the rest of us. This was all before we started taping.
The show is up on Michael Moore's website. I will send you a link to it if you would like. There on his site too, you will find the news articles on me. I am running for a county commissioner seat out here in Livingston County. Currently it is all republicans, and they want to spend $2 million on a new jail, yet our senior centers, and county medical facilities need attention! I am running so I can make sure the people of this county are taken care of, not locked away. We don't need a new jail out here.
Its the younger people like me that is going to make a difference in this country.
Thank you again. You are a saint, God Bless You!!!
Adrian Campbell Montgomery
Here are some other links to Adrian's show:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=11551 http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=11494 http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/index.html http://blip.tv/file/928437 the whole show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T46wQb9lAbI&NR=1
Three Activist Moms
Written by Clark Newhall MD JD
Monday, 26 May 2008 12:37
Donna Smith and Reggie Cervantes of SicKo with Cindy Sheehan.
Donna Smith Speaks
Written by Clark Newhall MD JD
Monday, 26 May 2008 12:18
Speech delivered at Radford University, May 24, 2008
By Donna Smith, American SiCKO
'Building a New World' First Summit of the World Prout Assembly Seminar entitled: Revolution
RADFORD, VA -- Wow, to be here with Cindy Sheehan, the woman with whom I have shared so much in cyberspace as we both appeared on Michael Moore's website over the months but never met face-to-face. Cindy, I am so sorry for the loss of Casey. But I am also so joyful for you as you welcome Jonah, your first grandchild. And I am grateful to you for your continued heroism on my behalf and on behalf of all American mothers and sons, fathers and daughters. Blessings to you and thank you for being here. And may you be elected to Congress as a new co-sponsor for HR676, the National Health Insurance Act.
My fellow revolutionaries, I bring you glad tidings from your fellow citizens. Over the past nine months, I have visited 27 states and the District of Columbia spreading the single payer, universal health care message. And I can tell you without doubt the revolution has begun. In some places, there are seedlings popping gently but with determination toward change: in South Dakota, in Mississippi, in West Virginia, in North Carolina and in DC, and even in Dick Cheney's Wyoming. In other places, saplings are more steady and and beginning to bare witness that will soon hold the steady branches of real change: in Indiana, Pennsylvania, California, Washington state, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama -- even Utah and Colorado, New York and Maryland. Add Florida and Katrina-ravaged Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, and now in Virginia. These people of the revolution gather and they speak and they plan -- the next action, the next protest -- the real stuff of people on a mission. And they look to us to help provide the passion and the fuel necessary to inspire them onward. The noise of discontent must blossom and mature. And to the extent that each of us here -- engines of revolution in thought, in action and in art -- inspire and conspire with one another and all of our fellow citizens, the revolution will come. Are there any other Phi Betta kappa members in the room today? Were you taught the 'secret' handshake the revolutionary and pre-presidential Thomas Jefferson and the other founding members used to safely identify one another? I was. And with that lesson came my knowledge that this nation was and is still most assuredly subject to conditions that require, that compel, that demand not secrecy so much as loyalty to one another as revolutionaries and to the causes for which we would still die. For me, that cause is the basic human right of health care for all. And make no mistake. I am a patriot in the most sincere and revolutionary traditions of my foremothers and forefathers. On November 19, 1864 (and I have an affinity for that date since November 19th is my own birthday), Abraham Lincoln said, 'Four score and seven years ago, our fathers set forth upon this continent a new nation -- conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.' I am holding him to that promise and to that truth. I am holding you to that promise, and I am holding my nation to that higher purpose that uplifts and empowers us all and all people of the world. Code word for the new revolution? RADFORD. Onward, my friends to the revolution. Thank you.
Donna Smith, The Sicko Blogger and Star
Written by Clark Newhall MD JD
Thursday, 15 May 2008 14:16
Donna Smith, the former newspaper editor whose story of medical bankruptcy was featured in Sicko, is an accomplished writer. She is posting frequent blogs concerning her (and my) crusade for singlepayer universal health care. Here is her most recent.
They're not the legislators: I mentioned Friday that Clark Newhall's offer to pay KUER and KCPW $1,000 for announcements of his free showing of Michael Moore's "Sicko" at the state Capitol on Jan. 29 were rejected. Most state legislators have already said they won't view the film promoting universal medical coverage.
But KCPW news director Bryan Schott says the rejection was not because of the film's political nature.
The attorneys said that because it was a call to action - asking people to come up and see the film - it could violate the standards required of public radio stations that get federal funding. Schott said he would be happy to have Newhall on his program to talk about his plans to show the film.
Clark Newhall, a physician/attorney who bought out the Broadway Theatre last summer and invited all the legislators to a free screening of "Sicko," now plans to show the movie at the state Capitol during the legislative session.
But when he called KCPW and KUER and offered to pay $1,000 to each to run promos of his "Sicko" screening leading up to the Jan. 29 showing, he was told that the word was too political.
Try, try again: If they won't come to you, sometimes you just have to go to them.
That's the plan of Clark Newhall, the physician-attorney who tried to get Utah legislators' attention about America's health care crisis in July by offering them free tickets to Michael Moore's "Sicko."
Hardly any came; some showed open hostility, calling Moore a Socialist. Newhall had bought out the Broadway Theatre for the free showing. Now, he's taking the movie to the state Capitol during the Legislature's general session, where he will have a continual showing of "Sicko" in the Capitol Board Room from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jan. 29.
The movie will be shown alternately with a film featuring interviews with victims of medical malpractice. He also plans to serve food, which may be the most effective way to lure legislators. Donna Smith, one of the "Sicko" stars who went bankrupt from medical bills and had to move in with her children, will be there as well.
Letter to Paul Rolley
Written by Administrator
Thursday, 09 August 2007 17:24
Mr. Rolly
As you know, I am the person who sponsored the legislative showing of Sicko. I plan to do the same in October, just prior to an interim session. I originally chose September, but it appears that date conflicts with a national conference of state legislators.
I have just seen your continuing pieces evidently spurred by Sicko and am quite gratified that youhave chosen to take on the clueless Utah legislature. I have recently sent to the Trib (and all Utah papers) an open letter in which I offer to pay for the ticket of any person who sends me a Sicko ticket stub along with a story of being uninsured, denied coverage or otherwise screwed by the current system. I am on vacation in eastern Canada currently. I have a farm here and Canadian healthcare system and can relate that in my experience, it is top-notch.
Canadians simply do not feel the pressure we do with respect to health care. They don't worry about being left penniless by an illness. They don't worry about losing a job and its concomitant helath insurance. They don't worry about getting whatever medical care they need when they need it. The supposed 'waiting time' flap that opponents of universal care make much of is mostly a non-issue for the Canadians I know.
Sure, small towns in Canada have trouble attracting doctors. So do small towns int he US. Sure people wait to be seen int he ER or the clinic. So do people int he US. Sure, elective operations take longer to schedule than emergent operations. Same in the US. In short, Cnadians have US quality helath care (better in fact) at half the per-person cost and with none of the personal financial stress.
Moreover, the people with whom I have dealt with during my own family's illnesses in hospitals and clinics have universally been embarrassed when they realize that they have to charge me for healthcare. Of course, they do not realize that the bill they present to me is far, far less than it would be in the US. In fact, it is below my deductible. For instance, my young son had an emergency CT scan here. The cost of the ambulance ride, the ER visit, the CT, the radiologist interpretation (he came in from home), the blood tests and all came to about $250 as I recall. The nurses were most apologetic that I would have to pay.
SiCKO