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Jun 21, 2007 6:00 pm US/Pacific
Michael Moore Protests With Chicago Nurses
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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A scene from the movie "Sicko"
The Weinstein Company
Filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore visited Chicago Thursday afternoon for a rally with nurses to highlight what they're calling a health care crisis.
It's also to drum up publicity for Moore's newest documentary, "Sicko," which is about to hit the big screen.
The movie is presented as a black-humor criticism of health care in America. It follows ordinary Americans struggling to navigate the health care bureaucracy.
Thursday, Moore joined a group of nurses who are part of a group called "Scrubs for Sicko" to demand universal health care
Afterward, the group planned to march to the nearby Blue Cross-Blue Shield building.
"I don't spend a lot of time in the film pointing out how broken the system is because I assume people already know that," Moore said.
Dorothy Ahmad, a nurse at Stroger Hospital of Cook County, said she is participating because she believes people should not be refused health care.
"We hope to expose some of the things that the insurance companies are doing to actually just take away and to refuse people health care," Ahmad said.
Ahmad said she expected public hospitals would be affected by new insurance billing procedures, and that patients could pay a price.
"It hasn't been a past practice of ours to see a lot of patients have to make choices. However, while everyone knows that with the new billing system that's coming into the future for a lot of the patients' coverage for hospital care, I'm sure that the public health care sector will also be affected," she said.
Ahmad said she believes a model where all citizens are guaranteed health care is superior to the American model.
"In a lot of other countries – Canada, Cuba – everyone is allowed to have health care. Good quality health care," she said.
But Moore's critics say socialized medicine is not the answer. The film had a red carpet premiere in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, and protesters showed up with signs shouting, "Your worst nightmare, socialized health care."
As part of the film, Moore took 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba for medical treatment, which prompted a federal probe. Moore's attorneys said he received a letter saying he was under investigation for possible violations of the US trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.
There was speculation that the federal government might confiscate that part of the film, but it ended up staying in.
But former U.S. senator and rumored presidential candidate Fred Thompson wrote an op-ed in the National Review condemning what he said was Moore's claim that Cuba's health care system is better than the United States'. Moore responded by challenging Thompson to a debate on health care.
At the premiere, he demanded that the presidential candidates focus on changes to the health care system.
"When you get sick, sickness doesn't know Democrat or Republican," Moore said. "It's not a political issue. It shouldn't be made a partisan issue we should find common ground with people across the political spectrum."
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