Michael Moore, controversial documentary film maker, has done it again. His newest film,"Sicko" is about health care and insurance. He raises some pretty serious questions about the nature of US health care versus socialized medicine found in countries like Canada, France, Great Britain, and Cuba. The question he asks is, "if these countries can provide universal government sponsored health care, then why can't we? Anyone can walk into a health care facility in those countries and be treated with no charge, no id cards, nothing. Americans have moved to these places for their health care and child care services. He talks about insured Americans who have struggled to pay their enormous medical bills. He doesn't even talk about the 50 million uninsured Americans. While insurance companies call the medical shots and raise the costs of medical care here, so that middle class americans are becoming impoverished by their medical debts, other countries provide for their citizens medical needs as if their governments have a moral obligation to provide for everyone. Sounds democratic to me. I frankly think I like democratic socialism better than the broken system we have here. And Moore makes the point that many systems of American life are socialized---i.e., public schools. Why not health care? If we believe that everyone over the age of 5 should be able to go to school, then why shouldn't everyone receive health care? Not just basic puiblic health,but total universal care? Hillary Clinton would have movede us toward that during President Clinton's tenure, but she was shut down by the conservative republicans using anti-socialist rhetoric to scare Americans away. Their argument being that government should not be able to choose your doctor. So why do we allow HMO's to choose for us? (He reminds us that the history of the HMO program comes from the Nixon administration). I would prefer that I have to go to a government-approved doctor, if I knew that my poor neighbor could receive the same health care as I do. There is a moral obligation that Americans do not realize, because the god of our culture is 'mammon'. Someone once said that the love of money is the root of all evil. Our idols have distracted us from our obligations to the poor and the needy in our midst. Won't someone heed the words of the prophets? Won't someone listen to Jesus,"When you did these things to the least of these, you did them unto me." When we serve the poor, we serve the living GOD. We serve Jesus by caring for the poor. Mother Theresa said, "Each one of them is Jesus in disguise."
Sicko provokes strong feelings--the main one being, what is and from where do we collectively receive our sense of moral obligation to provide for the neighbor's needs? Who is my neighbor? And how do we level the playing field so that all are offered a sufficient, sustainable livelihood? Watch "Sicko" and tell me what you think...Do we have an obligation to see to it that all people have access to quality health care ands that non one is turned away becaus they can't pay? Whose in charge? Insurance companies, HMO's, big businesses? or are we, the people in charge? What about big oil? And green energy? Why don't we demand that big oil use its record profits to develop greener energy now? And why don't we demand cleaner fuels now? If we know that the US has fallen below the Kyoto agreement and that we have a global climate crisis directly related to our consumption of carbons, why don't we demand another way? What if the Christian movement is meant to resist, reject these corrupt ways of living in order to promote global harmony and peace? How might Christians unite under certain moral criteria? hat we are all equally under sin. That God loves the world. That Jesus' death and resurrection reveals God's saving intentions for everyone? That participating with Jesus in the healing and redemption of the world is a faith-initiated task that leads to alternative ways of life? That Christians have the responsibility to steward counter- culturally. That the church's mission is for the poor to be made rich, the hungry to be filled, and the captive released? We are Jubilee workers, kingdom builders, mustard seed planters.God requires our participation in the global enterprise to renew the face of the earth, because love requires a lover and a beloved in a living union of purpose. We are in covenant with God. And it is with God's grace and power that we are free to love by our actions. We have a moral calling to love and heal the world, to provide for the least, and to share what God has given. And we must advocate. We must speak the truth to power. So, thanks Michael Moore for doing what Christians are called to do.
