BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

More Moore: Health next

26 comments on More Moore: Health next

More Moore: Health next

: Well, this is good news/bad news:

Michael Moore plans to tackle health care next.

Well, the good news is that health care is a subject that damned well needs tackling. It’s shameful what’s happening in this country: millions uninsured; people trapped in the wrong jobs just because of health benefits; money wasted on exploding insurance bureacracy; doctors’ time wasted with insurance time-wasters; proper and necessary care withheld from the sick; costs skyrocketing; malpractice rates driving doctors away…. Oh, Lord, it needs tackling.

The bad news: If Moore does as blunt and bad a job of it as he did with war and politics in Fahrenheit and gun control in Columbine, it ratchets-up and dumbs-down the debate. What we don’t need is more polemic and preaching to the converted and the sick. What we do need is intelligent, well-researched, strongly argued media that will set and change the agenda in both parties. Once upon a time, I might have thought that Moore could contribute to that debate. But that’s my real problem after Fahrenheit: He merely seethes and it’s too damned easy for the other side to ignore the slob seething in the corner.

26 responses to “More Moore: Health next”

  1. justin @ RSR Avatar
    justin @ RSR

    This is how Fahrenheit 911 should have begun and ended

  2. Citizen Keith Avatar
    Citizen Keith

    Michael Moore is not a journalist. He can put whatever he wants in his movies, I could care less. The fact that he is the one starting this national conversation should be applauded. Attacking health care for his next movie GREAT news. Maybe he will instigate change in our health care system finally. Maybe people will actually realize that something can be done.
    Whether or not his facts are 100% spot on (and the fact checking going on in blogs and the media can be debated), people will talk, and hopefully some good will come out of it.

  3. Michael Zimmer Avatar
    Michael Zimmer

    What we don’t need is more polemic and preaching to the converted and the sick. What we do need is intelligent, well-researched, strongly argued media that will set and change the agenda in both parties.
    Couldn’t agree more. The only benefit will be an increased awareness of the problem, and hopefully, increased dialogue outside the confines of his polemic (something I think is happening because (in spite of?) Fahrenheit.

  4. Steve Kirks Avatar
    Steve Kirks

    Jeff:
    I agree and disagree with this post. Agree with the need for intelligent debate, but disagree that Moore needs to change his tactics. Moore’s films get the “general public” off the sofa and participating which I believe is good for the debate overall.

  5. nando Avatar
    nando

    I agree that Moore doesn’t use the best tactics (journalism-oriented research, fact-oriented discourse, etc) in his movies. But I’ll take him over nothing, that was EXACTLY what was going on in America before Michael Moore. It’s doubtful means to right ends, while George W. Bush is wrong means to wrong ends. Is there anybody (more intelligent) home? No? Okay, then I’ll take Michael Moore.

  6. Rube Avatar
    Rube

    Yep, just the way to clear out all that bureaucracy; let the government take it over.
    Anybody in favor of nationalizing health care has never had to live with it. “Universal” (i.e. “mandatory, under pain of imprisonment”) health insurance and government-run hospitals just plain suck. Maybe in a couple of years all the old people in America can die of heat stroke, just like over here in Europe! Should soften the blow of that Medicare bill, anyway.
    I love the fact that part of every dollar an honest man earns is taken away from him to pay the hospital bills for some crack-head who would stab him in the back if they ever met. Reward failure, punish ambition, and pretend it’s good for the country.
    Feh.

  7. syn Avatar
    syn

    I wonder if Moore will address the health care issue by telling people they must learn to set priorities when it comes to health care concerns by not spending so much of their own money on entertainers, high fashion, and partying?
    Instead of spending all their hard earned money enriching the lives of ‘Madonnas’ “Moores’ and ‘Mobys’, people might want to considered taking responsibility for for their lives instead of simply entertaining themselves.
    When we have shows like Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Sex in the City” encouraging the coolness in purchasing a $500 pair of shoes instead of paying for their own health insurance no wonder people have bad health care.
    Just because people are more interested in entertaining themselves does not mean I should in turn be forced to take responsibility for their health care.

  8. Ken Avatar
    Ken

    Syn, you mean Moore might be interested in the cost of the future angioplasty procedures he is going to have to have?

  9. Dexter Westbrook Avatar
    Dexter Westbrook

    If you’re looking to Michael Moore to make a fact-filled “documentary” about health care or anything else, you’re dreaming.
    It’s hilarious that someone who obviously has no sense of personal responsibility for his own health is going to make a polemic on the health care system.
    To the posters who think there’s no debate going on about health care, and that there wasn’t any debate going on about Iraq before Sir Michael delivered his phillipic to us — what freaking planet are you living on? Does all of your knowledge have to come from a movie theater?

  10. Peter Jesperson Avatar
    Peter Jesperson

    I’m sure whatever project Moore undertakes next will have the same “get the public off the sofa” impact that his last project, that “Columbine” one did – I believe that was the one that caused such a drastic rethinking and sebsequent rewriting of our gun control laws recently.

  11. Dr. Weevil Avatar
    Dr. Weevil

    The last two posters are halfway there, but I’m surprised no one has commented on what’s missing from the list of shameful deficiencies in American health care: the epidemic of obesity. (Yes, I think ‘health care’ necessarily includes how we take care of ouselves.)
    Depending on how you look at it, Moore is either the very best person or the very worst to tackle this particular angle. Most likely the worst, but if he were to go on a very public (i.e. filmed and documented) diet and exercise regimen, take off roughly half his current poundage, and keep it off for a year or two, he could do a world of good. I’m not counting on it, though. If he doesn’t do something like that, it will be very difficult to take seriously anything he says about any aspect of health. It would be like going to a marriage counselor who’s been divorced seven times: what the Hell could he possibly know about his subject?

  12. Dr. Weevil Avatar
    Dr. Weevil

    P.S. By “the last two posters”, I meant Ken and Dexter Westbrook. By the time I hit ‘post’ they weren’t the last two any more.

  13. Walter Wallis Avatar
    Walter Wallis

    With Michael Moore editing you can take the ten commandments and write pornography.

  14. nando Avatar
    nando

    hello Dexter,
    I don’t know about the others, but I live on planet Earth, with certain amusement, I must recognize. But I work with facts, not flames, so let’s cut down to them: name one fellow american who made you aware of the fact that this government took all members of Bin Laden family out of the country on September 11th with charter flights, without using Michael Moore’s name. Now ask the same question to all of the viewers of Fahrenheit 911. There you go.

  15. Joe Baby Avatar
    Joe Baby

    It’s possible to instigate debate, awareness, or dialogue (insert other appropriate platitudes here) by punching someone in the throat or mailing cats by the dozen.
    BTW, I’m not sure Moore is interested in any of the above three.

  16. MrAcheson Avatar
    MrAcheson

    the fact that this government took all members of Bin Laden family out of the country on September 11th with charter flights
    My problem is that Moore’s movies are always concerned with “this” government. They are never objectively concerned with actions of “the” government. He’s a partisan.
    Plus Moore’s movies are not about rational discourse, they are about emotional polemic. Some rational discourse may occur, but its like thanking the perpetrators of the holocaust for bringing about the existence of Israel.

  17. Joe Baby Avatar
    Joe Baby

    Not to mention that the bL family didn’t leave on Sep. 11.

  18. nando Avatar
    nando

    I agree, MrAcheson. But the fact the Moore could be (way) better doesn’t annul the fact the we are more well informed about this government than before (although many ppl will say that, but just rhetorically). I think that alone is a great service in a democracy.

  19. mmiller Avatar
    mmiller

    Gee, I haven’t seen F9/11 and yet somehow I do know about the Bin Laden family leaving the US after September 11. How did I come by this top secret information without Moore’s help? I saw it on Fox News months ago.

  20. Dexter Westbrook Avatar
    Dexter Westbrook

    Mr. Nando, you work with your own fantasies, not facts. Don’t kid yourself.
    Your “fact” about the bin Laden family isn’t even a fact, as has since been pointed out.
    Re knowledge about the bin Laden family’s travels, try the Congressional Record (Senate remarks), the 9/11 Commission Web site, Snopes.com, Fox News, MSNBC, etc. etc. This was discussed at some length more than a year ago, if not two years ago. I don’t remember the exact timeline, and I’m not going to look it up to benefit a moron such as yourself.
    As I figured, you rely on the movies to get your information. BTW, has the deep freeze hit NYC yet?

  21. nando Avatar
    nando

    Despite the FACT you (Dexter) (sorry all of you, but I need to talk) don’t know how to relate respectfully, I’ll try once again to talk to you and say that what I called it a fact I just called it because several serious sources pointed to that as one (I wasn’t there, you weren’t there, but man landed on the moon, for God’s sake). Don’t sue me, sue who reported as a fact. P.S.: Those are MEDIA links, NOT movies.
    I might have been mistaken about the extensions of the discussion about the reported fact, but internationally it was weakly discussed, or not discussed at all. One way or another, I guess the movie rises it again very appropriately (more than any unsufficient “some lenght”), and it is not a flaw whatsoever. It’s a goal.
    I mean, so Michael Moore isn’t lying, he’s just trying to make a point, to discuss facts. And by what you’ve said and by HOW you’ve said it, I could wasily assume you don’t want any of those. But in my world of fantasy, I do see democracy and freedom. And some respect too. Sorry about that.

  22. MortifiedPenguin Avatar
    MortifiedPenguin

    Dexter, I too was somehow able to stumble over the secret and nefarious Bin Laden family flights without sourcing the vast intellect of Mikey Moore. Rather amazing considering I live in a Red State. We don’t get out much.
    Only when I heard the story it was about the FBI vetting them after they requested to leave the country of their own accord. They weren’t accused of any crimes, and Richard Clarke himself advised the president that all bases were covered and our government had no reason to detain them. They left immediately after commercial flights were resumed, taking charters on their own dime.
    But that doesn’t make our government look nearly as sinister. So I’m sure my information was somehow skewed.
    Oh, one more thing. There were reports immediately after 9/11, trumped up by the usual suspects on the left, that mass hysteria in Red State Amerikka was surely to lead to Redneck-on-Muslim violence of epic proportions. Which, as we all know, was simply horrible as countless Arab-looking citizens were murdered by legions of slack-jawed redneck yokels weilding garden rakes and pruning shears. Or not. Hard to tell. Perhaps we need to ask Mikey actually happened then. I can’t remember. It was so long ago. Oh, the Simpnsons are on! Oooh, doughnuts!
    Of course the simple reason the Bin Laden family got out of the USA asap was because of mundane reasons such as fear for their lives (however irrational but keep in mind, they were from Saudi Arabia where such fears aren’t nearly has irrational…)

  23. Sandy P Avatar
    Sandy P

    If he’s going to tackle HC, how’s he going to handle it if Kerry wins?
    Or is he implicitly acknowledging that W’s going to win?

  24. Bryan C Avatar
    Bryan C

    This thread raises the problem I have with people who take the “Moore is controversial, but at least he gets people talking” approach. Yeah. He gets people talking about stuff that he distorts, resequences for greater dramatic effect, or just makes up. From that point forward everyone who really wants to talk about the topic has to play whack-a-mole with the pseudo-facts that he’s help infiltrate into the debate. And, amazingly, people often have meaningful conversations that aren’t prompted by what celebrities think.

  25. Kirk Parker Avatar
    Kirk Parker

    > Once upon a time, I might have thought that
    > Moore could contribute to that debate
    That was before you saw Roger and Me, right? The tone and excess of Moore’s rhetoric may have worsened over the years, but the basic mendacity was there from day one.

  26. The Business Card Web Site Avatar
    The Business Card Web Site

    Click here to get FREE four-color business cards! An
    $85 FREE gift!  A special introductory offer lets you receive
    beautiful full color cards for only the cost of shipping. Business-Cards.ws