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Recipe for a Cuban Molotov cocktail: Michael Moore, Harvey Weinstein, a documentary about U.S. healthcare and a federal investigation. No need to mix, because it'll stir into a frenzy on its own.
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and his distributor, Harvey Weinstein, appeared at a press conference yesterday to question why the government is investigating Moore's trip to Cuba for his upcoming film, Sicko. The film, which premiered at Cannes and is scheduled to open in a few weeks, questions the American health care system and, at one point, Moore takes three September 11 rescue workers to Cuba to get health care treatment for them there.
Now the Treasury Department is investigating the trip, saying it may have violated the trade embargo. Enter Moore, Weinstein, and lawyer David Boies, who spoke to reporters yesterday. From the Hollywood Reporter:
"We're prepared to go to court to stop this discriminatory attack," Boies said in his Midtown Manhattan conference room. "We view the actions taken as a form of harassment."It is mighty interesting that the press conference was yesterday; there's a May 15 Entertainment Weekly interview that mentions Moore being investigated. Anyway, Moore said he sent a negative of the film to Canada in case it gets seized by the U.S. government. (Question: Does Canada like Moore after Canadian Bacon?)...Boies' letter cited the Cuban Assets Control Regulations allowing for "travel-related transactions directly incident to journalistic activities in Cuba." It did not address Moore's role in bringing the patients to Cuba, but Moore said that "subjects of the work of journalists are transported by (journalists) all the time. We were acting not just as journalists but as human beings (to help) rescue workers. ... Take off your journalistic hats for a moment -- does this upset anyone?"
..."In my 25 years in the movie business I've never seen anything like this, where the government has tried to impact a movie like 'Sicko,'" Weinstein said.
...When asked whether he and Weinstein were capitalizing on the government's actions for promotional value, Moore sarcastically replied, "Bob (Weinstein) and Harvey did call Mr. Bush and ask them to investigate us." He added, "It's an odd thing to accuse us of. We were going to open this movie quietly, and then to receive a letter like that. ..."
You can see the Sicko trailer here. And a public school class trip to Cuba is being investigated by the Department of Education; no word on whether the Treasury is getting involved.
Photograph of Moore with Boies in the background by Kathy Willens/AP
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Could this fat loser be any more of a self promoter? Of course the government is going to investigate his trip to Cuba. But not even Moore thinks his movie is going to be seized. He's creating hysteria where there is none simply to draw attention to himself and his movie. If he wa serious about this he should get off the podium and get himself to Washington to see about getting the embargo lifted.
Wow, Castro has flooded our shores with undesirables and managed to turn an island paradise into a Mordor-like land where citizens have to boil stones for food and get locked away in gulags if they are HIV+. Now we are supposed to listen to a fat, white, multi-millionaire tell us that our nation (the nation that has produced almost every single medical advance in the last 100 years.) is worse off than the "workers paradise". Puh-leeze.
I like Fidel Castro and his beard. And universal health care.
I don't think it's a matter of worse or better, but when employed, tax paying Americans suffer lifelong bankruptsy or even death because of an imbalance of healthcare coverage, we have a problem.
It's your problem as much as mine.
I think the whole point of the film is to demonstrate that even in a 'Mordor-like land' where life is tough, at least you know you can see a doctor if you've got an emergency.
I heart Castro.
I'm montel williams spokesperson for the greedy pharmacutical companies.
Shut up and watch the movie before you comment on it. Cuba is far from being a 'worker's paradise', but for some strange reason it has an exceptional health care system that reaches every person in the country. We need something like to to shed some more light into how pathetic our Health Care offerings really are.
I'd like to know more, even though he is a fat idiot. I'll give it a chance. Its a topic that needs more attention.
We need something like 'this'...
I hope my offering pleases the grammar police. Spare me your ridicule. I am not worthy.
Wow. I hope guest [2] never loses his job/insurance coverage.
"Question: Does Canada like Moore after Canadian Bacon?"
Sometimes you guys really just blow my mind.
Yeah Cuban doctors are great treating stuff like colds....Everyday diseases. But try getting a more complex medical procedure done in Cuba......
Here's a shocker, some republicans liked the movie.
#10 -- Cuba has some of the highest quality health care in Latin America. Better than the "rich" countries like Chile or Argentina, and arguably in some cases better than what we have here if you're uninsured.
#2 -- I don't agree with locking up HIV positive people, but there isn't a single HIV/AIDS patient in Cuba who goes without any of the medicine or other care needed to live a high quality life. Yes, you don't have the freedom to live in your own house, but it's not gulag-style either. I think most people without insurance or quality health care (whether here or other places like Asia or Africa) would rather be well cared for but with fewer freedoms, rather than being able to do WTF they want but suffer without treatment.
"I think most people without insurance or quality health care (whether here or other places like Asia or Africa) would rather be well cared for but with fewer freedoms" Well I prefer to leave that choice to the individual concerned, not to the state. That kind of "government as all-knowing father figure" thinking leads to trouble.
What's there not to love by Canada about Michael Moore?
Boomer: "There it is, men. Toronto."
Roy Boy: "It's beautiful. Like no other city I've ever seen. It's like Albany...only cleaner. "
Secretary of State: "We were thinking, what could be a bigger threat than aliens invading from space?"
General Panzer: "Ooh boy! Scare the shit out of everyone. Even me, sir!"
President: "Jesus, is this the best you could come up with? What about, ya know, international terrorism?"
General Panzer: "Well, sir, we're not going to re-open missile factories just to fight some creeps running around in exploding rental cars, are we, sir?"
Very prescient.
Cuba is a very poor little country that spends a lot on healthcare. It grows sugar cane, makes some highly mediocre rum and has some excellent beaches (filled with Canadians and Europeans).
It is no workers' paradise; will not stand up as a model for communism or socialism; and is subject to an embargo primarily due to the handful of anti-castro cuban exiles that own a good chunk of dade county (who apparently would have preferred to continue to own a good chunk of havanna and varadero).
The embargo should be lifted. Americans can fly to Harare but not to Havana.
And where do you get this info that the quality of health care is any good in Cuba. There's all types of shortages in Cuban hospitals
#16 -- See http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/review_summer_02/677cuba.html or
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/53087/ or http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1733
Could you tell us about where you're getting your facts from about there being shortages and poor care?
I want to know why it's ok for Matt Lauer to go to Cuba to film a bullsh-t puff piece for the Today show, but it's not ok for Mr. Moore to go there to film his documentary. Moore's works may be slanted, but they're by far more journalistic than anything that has appeared on the Today show in the last 10 years.
Such bitter people. Long live El Presidente Castro.
F Dade county.
I think you people are missing the point. Moore doesn.t go to cuba to show off the cuban health care system...he goes there because the people held at gitmo are getting free medical care paid for by the us taxpayers, and he is saying that the heros of 9/11 are not as well taken care of as those who caused it. The cuban healthcare system [it.s pros and cons] is not the point he is making. If he wanted to do that, he could have taken them to France which has the best healthcare in the world.
For all you numbskulls who think Michael Moore is your enemy and think that healthcare in the US is the best we can expect, consider that the US ranks #36 in infant mortality rates, just ahead of Croatia (#37) and 2 slots behind impoverished, authoritarian Cuba (#34).
Check it: http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/ranking_Infant_Mortality_Rate_aall.htm
If you think it's OK for the world's wealthiest nation to lag so far behind the rest of the 1st world in this key indicator of public health, you're a heartless (and brainless) ghoul.
The US government can't figure out how to run Social Security... a program that, at it's base, is designed to take money from people at one point in their life and give it back to them later.
And there are some among us that want them to run an entire healthcare system.
"I think most people without insurance or quality health care (whether here or other places like Asia or Africa) would rather be well cared for but with fewer freedoms" Well I prefer to leave that choice to the individual concerned, not to the state. That kind of "government as all-knowing father figure" thinking leads to trouble."
Nice job clouding the issue with a "FALSE CHOICE." The issue/debate shouldn't be focused on an either/or approach, but how we can tweek our system to have both. FACT: our system is built so that we excell at expensive treatments, however we fail miserably at using effective preventative medicine.
Im on UR island eatin all UR foodz.
If Cuba's health care system is so great, why did Castro have to fly in a Spanish doctor to take care of him after his own quacks couldn't get it right?
Our system may not be a model of efficiency and equity, but there's not a chance I'd trade it for Cuba's.
Anyone can see a doctor? Good luck to them... they'd probably stand better chances with any of the U.S.'s veterinarians.
Why are we so quick to believe the claims about their health care system when they don't even have a free press? I suppose North Koreans are feasting on their latest bumper crop of rice, too....
#25
don't you think that your knee-jerk reactionary statements sound every bit as much like propaganda than what comes from castro's own mouth?
the only thing you got right was that "our system may not be a model of efficiency and equity" - and i'll take it one step further by replacing 'may not be' with 'is not'. that's the point of this movie - to rouse debate and encourage political solutions to our own health care problems.
Your "infant mortality rate" arguement is a joke!
Every nation individually determines how young a person is before they are no longer an infant. In Japan it was about 3 days until recently. Most other countries keep it very short-the US has nearly the longest period where someone is an infant-it's shocking that the rate isn't higher in the US.
We have Cuba beat-if you need a doctor in the US-you see a doctor-the middle class will pay for it. You'll even get a prescription for 3 tylenol if you need it, then get it for free. Try it at Bellevue, it works.
Rich people don't go to Bellevue.
I bet you don't, too. you go to the celeb hospital.
The last guy on the face of the planet that I want to be preached at over anything related to healt care is a guy who has been morbidly obese for the past I don't know how many years.
I'm all for nationalized health care . . . but we would have to outlaw smoking, promiscuous sex (and anything not missionary), drinking, and Prosciutto cream sauce.
Additionally, we'll need a nationwide PT program: 5am 4 mile run; ten push ups for every year till 30 years old; and 'youth camps' where the young ones can learn the benefits of the fatherland that so graciously fulfills all their needs and keeps them from harming themselves.
I can't take a health care lecture from a morbidly obese person. He looks like a bloated baby bird saying "save me, I lack the self control to help myself. You owe this to me, I'm a citizen. Clean up all my messes and make sure that I never want for anything."
Moore has said himself that he saw the absurdity of being overweight while promoting good health care, and he has started eating better and lost a few. Even so, who cares? Because he's fat he should not point out the flaws in our system?
exactly, he joked he found out these two new food groups,
fruits and vegatables.
He was not lecturing on obesity but the healthcare system.
I heart Moore and Castro.
Look the jackass may be a troublemaker of sorts . Just think about a few things concerning Michael Moore . His penchant for creating controversy serves it's purpose by tuning our attention to matters that affect us all ! The Documentary he did on 9/11 opened the eyes of many and caused wide spread speculation about our own Government !I won't hate on his new project until I see it for myself . Those of you who decide to do so are really being ignorant to the facts !
Look, there is nothing to love about Castro. You're not helping the argument by claiming such ridiculous crap.
I guess you also love Kim Jong-Il? Big fan of the erstwhile dictator Saddam Hussein? Big Mugabe fan?
#27, you're wrong and I think you know it. You're just trying to muddy the water.
The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is a standardized measure, looking at the number of deaths of infants per 1000 during the first year of life. The U.S. is currently #36. Cuba is #34. Get it?
If you don't want to acknowledge that fact, check out the rate of deaths of children under the age of 5: The U.S. ranks #32.
Something to be proud of, right?
As long as we have so many right-wing clowns and industry hacks confusing the issues, we'll never make any progress in improving access to health care.
Michael Moore is going to really shake things up with his film and the folks who have a stake in the rotten system we have don't want you to make any changes. They like the obscene bucks they're making keeping things as they are.
#26
These weren't knee-jerk reactionary statements. That's why I said that our system may not be a model of efficiency and equity. It sounds to me like you're making the knee-jerk reactionary statement by stating so unequivocally that our system IS neither efficient nor equitable. If you really want to "rouse debate" you wouldn't be shouting down my opinion about Cuba's healthcare system saying it's just as propagandistic as Castro's claims (which, incidicentally, I'm glad to hear you understand as propaganda).
My point is that just because someone can see a doctor for free in Cuba doesn't mean that it's quality healthcare. You may go into debt getting your healthcare here, but you're much more likely to get quality care. When was the last time you heard about U.S. citizens not involved in a Michael Moore stunt voluntarily seeking healthcare in Cuba?
As to my propaganda, it was widely reported by free press organs around the world that Castro was treated by a Spanish doctor after a botched surgery by his own Cuban doctors during his last death watch. If that's propaganda, somebody's got it dialed in tight.
OK, I'll admit, the rest of my post -- Cuban quacks, U.S. vets, and North Korean rice orgies -- were just designed to inflame knee-jerk reactionaries like you. I guess it worked....
Come on #35, "guest", say it... you know you want to... Come on, Frenchy, say it!
Looks like we got ourselves a fox news channel flunkie here.
Long live El Presidente Fidel Castro.
Long live Cuba.
Hmmm... not so much... I don't have cable.
Just old-fashioned red-baiting!
But thanks for watching.
#38. It just dawned on me... you didn't get my reference in #37.
You really should be watching more tube, if not Fox News Channel, then at least Fox (for the Simpsons, Frenchy... chowda).
"#27, you're wrong and I think you know it. You're just trying to muddy the water.
The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is a standardized measure, looking at the number of deaths of infants per 1000 during the first year of life. The U.S. is currently #36. Cuba is #34. Get it?
If you don't want to acknowledge that fact, check out the rate of deaths of children under the age of 5: The U.S. ranks #32."
#35, You're wrong and I think you know it. You're just trying to muddy the water.
No... you're just lying.
Many countries look at the issure of stillborn children and other difficulties at birth and "fudge" how they report. Get it?
"Some of the international variation in infant and neonatal mortality rates may be due to variations among countries in registering practices of premature infants (whether they are reported as live births or fetal deaths). In several countries, such as in the United States, Canada and the Nordic countries, very premature babies with relatively low odds of survival are registered as live births, which increases mortality rates compared with other countries that do not register them as live births."
From the Organization from Economic Development.
Switzerland doesn't consider children below 30 cm a live birth-so they can't even be figured into the mortality rate.
I would never trust Cuba to report anything correctly, I don't trust the NYPD to get the crime rate correct.
The truth is the system is NOT standardized, I haven't seen "Sicko", but I'll bet if their is a reference to the IMR-Moore won't point that out.
By the way, the "rate of death under 5" is widely debated-depending on your source. By the age of 5, that has less to do with healthcare and more to do with parenting, trucks, falls, drowning.....
Enjoy Moore's Movie-But guess what! They weren't bowling that morning in Columbine.
They weren't making weapons of mass destruction in Littleton.
The US didn't give millions to the Taliban in 2000-it gave millions to the UN-who gave it as food aid to Afghanistan.
I could go on allllll day.
Moore is famous for not having a clue what the truth is. Hey #35 are you him?!?
#41, Are you Anne Coulter?
You cite "The Organization FROM Economic Development?" What the hell is that? It doesn't even come up in a Google search when I substitute "for" for "from". That's because it's just more right-wing garbage from a Bushbot.
So let me see if I understand you: All this "fudging" is what makes the U.S. #36 in infant mortality? You probably believe Saddam ordered te 9/11 attack too, right?
I'm sure you could go on "alllll" day --you're a tool.
If you repukes and conservative thinkskanks want to "fudge" a number, can't they fudge a ranking higher than number 36?
#42, while #41 leaves a lot to be desired, the cite is from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development), one of the major international NGOs and stat sources, it's a VERY legit organization.
http://caliban.sourceoecd.org/vl=1170095/cl=17/nw=1/rpsv/factbook/11-01-02.htm
Moore didn't fill out the paperwork to go to Cuba as a journo. The Treasury dept wrote him to ask for the details of the trip so that it could determine whether it was legit (which it would almost certainly be under the gubmint's own rules). Then, instead of responding to DC with the information they want, Moore says he's being harassed and has to hide his film in Canada.
The embargo and US Cuba policy in general may be dumb, and US healthcare certainly sucks, but this is what you call a publicity stunt.
#44, If #41 was citing the OECD, it makes no difference. I don't know anything about their credibility but there's nothing that I could find on that site that supports his b.s.
Bottom line: The US has an absurdly high infant mortality rate and very high mortality rate for children under 5. Ther's no way around that. We spend collossal amounts on health care but our overall statitical picture --avg. life expectancy, child mortality, etc. is pathetic.
The system is broke and Michael Moore is pointing that out. He's doing a public service while big Pharma, corrupt politicians and tools like #41 defend the indefensible.
I just feel that his whole shtick (US sucks, let's take them to Cuba) was just designed to create controversy and therefore $$$$ for Mr. Moore. No changes will come from this, sadly, it's a product, like Fast Food Nation etc.
M Moore is what Cubans would call "un manipulador".
"Bottom line: The US has an absurdly high infant mortality rate and very high mortality rate for children under 5. Ther's no way around that."
Actually we already pointed out that your stats and Moore's stats are bull.
You're continuing to lie, indexing parental care into health care.
I can understand why you can't argue with the truth-you're probably to tired out from arguing that Rudy blew up the Twin Towers over on Kos.
#48: Do you see the connection between parental and health care? Do you think you can separate the two? Do infants and children take themselves to the doctor when they are sick? Are people with access to good healthcare A)more or B)less likely to have a child or infant die a preventable death?
Try to put your massive denial aside for a moment and try to find it it your 10 sizes too small heart to understand.
The US provides very good health care to those who can afford it. It fails miserably for those who cannot. That's an embarassment to me but all you can do, in your childish way, is grasp at any straw to deny there is a problem. Do you work for an HMO?
OK, you can go back to Fox news now. Enjoy the fantasy!!!
"The US provides very good health care to those who can afford it. It fails miserably for those who cannot. That's an embarassment to me but all you can do, in your childish way, is grasp at any straw to deny there is a problem. Do you work for an HMO?
OK, you can go back to Fox news now. Enjoy the fantasy!!!"
WOW I think I've met the biggest moron in the world. You're in complete denial and keep indexing a system that takes into account about 50 factors to explain one.
EVERYONE in the US gets healthcare-one way or another.
The middle class pays for it-go to a hospital, complain, you get treated. Even without insurance. The healthcare that the indigent get in this country is far better then a good chunk of the rest of the world's healthcare. They also don't wait months for it and the US leads the world in health technology.
MOORE did this movie to GET RICH-for no other reason.
But idiots like you still buy into it.
Or are you a "health care" advocate, you know involved in organizing protests or something like that to change-because that is as much or a racket as the HMOs!
I guess this great healthcare is why that woman in LA was left dying in a hospital.
i just heard on the radio this evening about a rescue worked at ground zero who was fighting for health care of the volunteers, just was buried today after succumbing to his illness post 9/11.
it's crazy to think, that as much as I wanted to be down there on 9/11, I didn't go - but these brave people who spent nights and days working for fruitless results are getting such a crap deal by the government now - it's not even funny.
I applaud Michael Moore for what he's doing. I just hope this time we're collectively motivated to make a change.