Original subtitles

We got an issue in America.

Too many good docs are getting out of business.

Too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this

country.

I don't have a job. I don't want to have any more debt out to anybody else I

already have out there.

This is Adam.

He's one of nearly 50 million Americans with no health insurance.

But this film isn't about Adam.

So this is the table saw.

It was spinning that way.

This is Rick.

I was ripping a piece of wood and I grabbed it right here and it hit a knot.

He sawed off the tops of two of his fingers.

And it was that quick.

His first thought?

I don't have insurance. How much is this going to cost? I'm going to have to pay

cash for this, $2 ,000, $3 ,000 or more.

Does that mean that we're not going to get a car?

Rick also doesn't have health coverage, so the hospital gave him a choice.

Reattach the middle finger for $60 ,000 or do the ring finger for $12 ,000.

It's an awful feeling to just try to put a value on your body.

Being a hopeless romantic, Rick chose the ring finger for the bargain price of

$12 ,000.

The top of his middle finger now enjoys its new home in an Oregon landfill.

I can do that thing where, you know, the old man used to, like, pull the finger

off.

This movie isn't about Rick either.

Yes, there are nearly 50 million Americans with no health insurance.

They pray every day they don't get sick because 18 ,000 of them will die this

year simply because they're uninsured.

But this movie isn't about them.

It's about the 250 million of you who have health insurance.

Those of you who are living the American dream.

It's moving day for Larry and Donna Smith.

They've packed everything they own in these two cars and are

driving to Denver, Colorado to their new home in

their daughter's storage room.

This is home sweet home.

Look at all that stuff. We'll get everything organized.

Yeah, we will.

We will.

What do we do with the computer?

It stays there.

So this is where Heather talked about we might have to put our bunk bed.

I see what she's talking about. Yeah.

It wasn't supposed to end up like this for Larry and Donna.

They both had good jobs.

She was a newspaper editor.

And he was a union machinist.

They raised six kids who all went to fine schools like the University of

Chicago.

But Larry had a heart attack.

And then another one.

And then another one.

And then Donna got cancer.

And even though they had health insurance,

The co -pays and deductibles soon added up to the point where they could no

longer afford to keep their home.

If somebody had told me 10 years ago this was going to happen to us because

health care, I would have said, if not possible, not in the United States, we

wouldn't let that happen to people. Are we going

to

quit?

It's just hard.

They were bankrupt, so they moved in with their daughter.

We'll get it all figured out.

We emptied the dressers. Oh, nice.

Very nice.

Even their son Danny popped in from across town to welcome them to Denver.

What do we do about people like you guys? I don't know. That's a good

Seriously. You're supposed to pay a deductible for $9 ,000, which I

That's part of health care. What about the people like Kathy and I that have to

come up there and move you every five years, every two years, every year

you don't have enough money to stay where you are? That's what Russell keeps

saying, too. I'm sorry. It's not what we wanted to have happen in life, and

we're doing what we can to make the change.

You don't know what that feels like inside at 50 -some years old to have to

reach out to my 20 -something -year -old.

for help.

It's going to be hard for four, five, six, seven months. It's going to be

Yeah, I'm having an overwhelming feeling of you bring your problems with you no

matter where you go.

But I don't know what to do about that.

By sheer coincidence, their daughter's husband, Paul, was leaving on a job the

very same day they arrived.

Paul was a contractor, but there weren't many jobs lately, so he found work out

of town.

I'm sure you'll keep a telephone conversation.

Weird situation, isn't it?

Can you tell me where Daddy's going?

Iraq.

Where's Daddy going to Iraq?

To do some plumbing.

Oh, boy.

This I do early in the morning. First thing I do is I clean here.

At age 79...

Frank Cardiel should be kicking back on a beach somewhere.

But even though he's insured by Medicare, it doesn't cover all the costs

drugs that he and his wife need.

Being that I'm an employee here, my medicine is for free. So that's why I

keep working until I die.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Okay.

I always got to keep my ears open because there's always spillages.

Sometimes you get a gallon of milk, tomato sauce.

You're in trouble because you take a half hour to put that up.

And I look up at every house so everything is clean. If I see something,

pick it up, whether it's paper or garbage.

One day I had the keys in my hand, and they went in there.

And I had to climb in there to get the keys out.

It's a sad situation.

There are golden years. I can't find them.

I tell you that.

She had a painkiller for her head. And the girl said, Frank, this is $213.

What, for a painkiller?

I didn't take it.

No, I backed off. I said, no, I've got to come back.

What's in these new drugs that they distribute?

$213. I don't believe you need half of the things they tell you because I have

never taken medication now if I'm getting old. Unbelievable.

I don't even like to take an aspirin.

I do like a little brandy.

I don't really know how this happened, but the trunk kind

of came forward into the back seat.

Laura Burnham was in a 45 -mile -an -hour head -on collision that knocked

out cold.

Paramedics got her out of the car and into an ambulance for a trip to the

hospital. I get a bill from my insurance company telling me that the ambulance

ride was not going to be paid for because it wasn't pre -approved.

I don't know exactly when I was supposed to pre -approve it, you know, like

after I gained consciousness in the car, before I got in the ambulance.

I should have grabbed my cell phone off of the street and called while I was in

the ambulance.

I mean, this is crazy.

I applied for health and insurance for Jason. They rejected him because of his

height and weight.

Jason's 6 feet tall and 130 pounds.

That's what it's like to be rejected.

I applied for health care through Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they told me that

my body mass index was too high.

I'm 5 '1". I weigh 175 pounds.

I always thought the health insurance companies were there to

help us.

So I posted a note on the Internet asking people if they had had any

stories about problems with their insurance company.

Within 24 hours, I had over 3 ,700 responses.

And by the end of the week, over 25 ,000 people had sent me their health care

horror stories.

Some of them decided not to wait for me to get back to them.

Like Doug Ngo, who took matters into his own hands without my permission.

His daughter, Annette, was nine months old when they discovered she was going

deaf. His health insurance company, Cigna, said they pay for an implant in

one of her ears.

According to the letter they sent, it's experimental for her to hear in two

ears. If a cochlear implant is good for one ear,

it doesn't even make any sense that it wouldn't be good for the second ear,

especially when a child is just starting to learn how to talk. She has to learn

from both sides of her head.

That's when he sat down to write Cigna a letter. This is to Cigna.

Noted filmmaker Michael Moore is now in the process of gathering information for

his next film. I've sent along information concerning Cigna's lack of

its policyholders.

Has your CEO ever been in a film before?

Before he knew it, he received a call in his voicemail from Cigna headquarters.

Tuesday, 8 .54 a .m.

I'm Mr. Nell. This is Ed. I was giving you a call in regards to Annette. Got

some good news for you. The specialist review has come back, and the decision

to overturn the previous denial.

The specialist has approved the appeal for the second cochlear implant.

Thank you.

Obviously, all this worked because Annette is going to get her second

July. Dear Mike, I work in the industry.

I worked for an HMO. I started to get hundreds of letters of a different sort

from people who work inside the health care industry.

They'd seen everything, and they were fed up with it.

Health insurance companies suck.

Flats suck.

Like Becky Melke, who was in charge of keeping sick people away from one of

America's top insurance companies.

I work in a call center, so people call in and they're asking for insurance

quotes. There are certain pre -existing conditions, basically industry -wide,

that will not be covered.

Diabetes, heart disease, certain forms of cancer, that if you have these

conditions, you are most likely not going to get your health insurance.

How long is this list of conditions that would make you ineligible?

It would be a really long list.

It would be a long list.

It could wrap around this house.

Sometimes you know ahead of time that they're going to be declined at the end

the application.

And they're like, God, you know, like one time I had a couple, and they were

happy to get, I'm going to start crying, they were so happy that they were, that

I took them to this application.

And the husband was late for work, and the wife said to him, well, don't worry,

baby, it's going to be okay because we have health insurance now.

And when I looked at the end of the application, I could tell they were both

going to get declined because of their health conditions.

And they were so happy.

And I thought, oh God, they're going to get that phone call in a couple weeks

telling them that they're not eligible for insurance.

And I just felt so bad because I just really thought and I knew and I couldn't

say anything to them.

I just felt like crap.

And that's why I'm just such a bitch on the phone to people because I don't want

to get to know them. I don't want to know about their lives.

I want to get in and get out and get done with it because I can't take the

stress of it.

In spite of Becky being a bit of a pain on the phone, a quarter billion

Americans are still able to get health insurance. Every American deserves

affordable health care. Call toll free.

Let's meet some of these happy insured customers.

Maria has Blue Shield.

And Diane, Horizon Blue Cross.

BCS insures Laurel.

And Carolyn has Cigna.

And it's a good thing that they're all fully covered.

I ended up being diagnosed with retroperitoneal cancer.

Brain tumor, breast cancer.

Brain tumor on the right temporal lobe. Because they were insured, they got the

red carpet treatment at the doctor's office.

She requested for me to see a neurologist.

The way they were going to treat it was to remove it. Surgery was scheduled for

December 9th. There is a test that you can take that will show whether or not

you actually would benefit from chemo. Oh, they got their treatment all right,

but not before battling with their insurance companies.

They were investigating whether or not this was a pre -existing condition.

It's not medically necessary.

They claim that it's experimental.

We don't consider that life -threatening.

Diane died from her non -life -threatening tumor.

Laurel's cancer is now spread throughout her body.

Her experimental test proved that Carolyn needed chemo.

While vacationing in Japan, Maria became ill and got the MRI that Blue Shield of

California had refused to approve.

The doctors in Japan told her that she had a brain tumor.

Blue Shield had said repeatedly she didn't have a tumor.

That's when she said, Well, I'm pretty sure I have a lawyer.

March 13, 2003.

I'm going to direct your attention to Exhibit 1.

Please describe for me what it is.

It is a denial for referral to an ophthalmologist.

Is it your signature on the document?

Yes. I'd like to direct your attention to Exhibit 2.

This is a denial of...

Request for referral for a magnetic resonance imaging test of the brain.

It has your signature?

Yes. Doctor, directing your attention to Exhibit 3, please review this document.

This is a denial of a referral to a neurosurgeon.

Can you explain for me how you came to sign the denial letter?

This is a standard signature that's put on all denial letters.

Is that your signature or is that a stamp?

That is a stamp.

Did you ever see the denial letter before your signature was stamped on it?

No, but the denial letters are fundamentally the same.

The denial letters that are sent out... The answer is no. No.

The very definition of a good medical director was somebody who can save the

company a lot of money.

Dr. Linda Pino was a medical reviewer for Humana.

She left her job because she didn't like their way of doing business.

I was told when I started that I had to keep a 10 % denial.

And they were actually giving us reports on a weekly basis that would have all

the cases we reviewed, the percent approved, and the percent denied, and

actual percentage denial rate.

And then there would be another report that compared me to all the other

reviewers. The doctor with a high percent of denials was actually going to

bonus. Really? I mean, so you as a doctor working for the HMO, you denied

people health care?

You got a bonus?

That was the way they had set the system up.

Any payment for a claim is referred to as a medical loss.

That's the terminology the industry uses. I mean, when you don't spend money

somebody, you deny their care or you make a decision that brings money in and

you don't have to spend it. It's a savings to the company.

This is Tarsha Harris.

Blue Cross didn't deny her her treatment and actually approved her operation.

But then they discovered that in the distant past, she had had a yeast

infection.

Apparently it's common. Men, women can get a yeast infection.

So was prescribed the yeast infection cream, general cream, and it went away.

She later applied for health insurance, and that's what you're supposed to be

disclosing, serious ailments. The yeast infection was independent, and it's not

a serious ailment. There was nothing else she could have done. It wasn't

they were going to have to spend money that they looked.

If they had taken five minutes beforehand and wanted to clear up the

infection, they could have looked at her medical records, they could have talked

to her doctor.

Because of the undisclosed yeast infection, Blue Cross dropped Tarsha

She thinks she's put this behind her.

And then Blue Cross changes their mind, tells the doctors, we're taking the

money back.

Go get the money from Tarsha.

The fact of the matter is, it was a yeast infection.

That's all it was.

I'm still a little bitter because I don't trust insurance companies now. To

it seems they're always going to be looking for a way out. You know, what

happened to helping the person that's sick?

Don't make their problems worse.

This is Lee Einer.

If they weren't able to weed you out in the application process or deny you the

care your doctor said you needed and somehow ended up paying for the

they send in Lee, their hitman.

His job is to get the company's money back any way he can.

All he has to do is find one slip -up on your application or a pre -existing

condition.

You didn't know you had.

We're going to go after this like it's a murder case.

And I mean a whole unit dedicated to going through your health history for

last five years, looking for anything that would indicate that you concealed

something, you misrepresented something, so that they can cancel the policy or

jack the rate so high you can't pay them.

And if we couldn't find anything he didn't disclose on the application, you

still get hit with a pre -existing denial because you don't even have to

sought medical treatment for it.

In some states, it's legal to have what's called a prudent person pre

condition, and that's a mouthful, I know, but what that says is if prior to

insurance kicking in, you had any symptom which would incline a...

normally prudent person to have sought medical care, then the condition of

that symptom was a symptom is excluded.

I know.

It's labyrinthine, isn't it? But that's how it works.

They're supposed to be fair and even -handed. But with an insurance company,

it's their friggin' money.

So it's not unintentional. It's not a mistake.

It's not an oversight.

You're not slipping through the cracks.

Somebody made that crack and swept you towards it.

And the intent is to maximize profits.

Looking back, I don't know that I killed anybody.

Did I do harm in people's lives?

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

I haven't worked for insurance companies for a long time and I don't think that

really serves to atone for my participation in that mess.

I am glad I'm out of it, though.

Julie Pierce was struggling to get care for her husband, Tracy, who was

suffering from kidney cancer.

Julie works in the intensive care unit at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Kansas

City, Missouri, which provided her family with health insurance.

Every month there was a new drug that the doctor wanted to try.

My insurance denied it.

One letter might say, not a medical necessity.

One letter might say, it's not for this particular type of cancer. And they

denied it.

Then we came up with the bone marrow.

to stop it, sometimes completely get rid of it.

Tracy's doctor said that this treatment had been successfully tried on many

other patients.

If one of Tracy's brothers turned out to be a suitable donor, there were

promising bone marrow treatments for beating Tracy's cancer.

Two weeks later, the bone marrow nurse at KU called me, and she goes, we've got

the results back. His youngest brother is a perfect donor match.

We were ecstatic.

You know, I think that's the happiest I had seen him in

a while.

So submitted it, and they denied it, said it was experimental.

So I found out that there is a board of trustees over our medical plan.

that actually work at my hospital, and they are the final decision makers on

what gets approved and what doesn't get approved.

Julie and her husband and their son Tracy Jr.

demanded a meeting with the Health Plans Board of Trustees, the very people who

had the power to approve their claim.

They told Julie that they were sympathetic to her situation.

I said, your sympathy does me no good when I'm burying him next year.

And I told him, I said, if I was, Bruce Van Cleave is our CEO. I said, I bet you

if it was Bruce Van Cleave's wife, it would get approved.

No, it's nothing like that. It's nothing like that. I said, or maybe if my

husband was white.

And I got up and walked out of the room.

When we got home, I found him up in the bathroom.

And I knocked on the door and I said, what are you doing in there?

And I opened the door because usually he'll say, well, what do you think I'm

doing in here?

And he was sitting in there and he was crying.

And he said, why me?

I'm a good person.

And I said, but we're not done fighting this.

We're strong, yeah. And then he said, you know, he goes, I can see now that

going to die.

He said, but I can leave everything in the world.

But I don't want to leave you and Tracy.

The doctor told me he would die in three weeks.

And on January 13th, which was my birthday,

he went to sleep.

And he died five days later here at home.

He was my best friend.

He was my soulmate. He was my son's father.

I mean, we were going to grow old together.

They took away everything that matters.

I want to know why.

Why my husband?

Why wasn't he given a chance to live?

You preach these visions and values that we care for the sick, the dying, the

poor.

that we're a health care that leaves no one behind.

You left him behind. You didn't even give him a start.

It was as if he was nothing.

And I want them to have a conscience about it.

And I don't think they do. I don't think it has fazed them one bit at

all.

There was one person in the health care industry who did have a conscience,

Dr. Linda Pino, a former medical reviewer at Humana.

My name is Linda Pino.

I am here primarily today to make a public confession.

In the spring of 1987, as a physician, I denied a man a necessary

operation that would have saved his life and thus cost his death.

No person and no group has held me accountable for this, because in fact

did was I saved a company a half a million dollars for this.

And furthermore, this particular act secured my reputation as a good medical

director, and it ensured my continued advancement in the health care field.

I went from making a few hundred dollars a week as a medical reviewer to an

escalating six -figure income as a physician executive.

In all my work, I had one primary duty, and that was to use my medical expertise

for the financial benefit of the organization for which I worked.

And I was told repeatedly that I was not denying care. I was simply denying

payment.

I know how managed care maims and kills patients.

So I'm here to tell you about the dirty work of managed care.

And I'm haunted by the thousands of pieces of paper in which I have written

deadly word, denied.

Thank you.

How did we get to the point of doctors at health insurance companies actually

being responsible for the deaths of patients?

Who invented this system?

How did this all begin?

Where did the HMO start?

Thanks to the wonders of magnetic tape, we know.

Now, let me ask you, you know I'm not too keen on any of that.

This is a private enterprise.

Well, that's cute.

And the reason that he can,

the reason he can do it, I had a supervisor come in and talk to me about

And I want to do it someday.

I am proposing today a new national health strategy.

The purpose of this program is simply this.

I want America to have the finest health care in the world.

And I want every American to be able to have that care when he needs it.

The plan hatched between Nixon and Edgar Kaiser worked.

In the ensuing years, patients were given less and less care.

Bigger log jams at the nearby public hospital and less quality medical care.

What looks cramped and unsightly can also be dangerous.

While the health insurance companies became wealthy, the system was broken.

37 million Americans are without protection against catastrophic illness.

The losers are the poor, who may now postpone urgently needed health care

it's too late.

This went on for years, until this man rode into town.

Bring him with him, his little lady.

Sassy.

Smart.

Sexy.

Some men couldn't handle it.

Today I am announcing the formation of the President's Task Force on National

Health Reform, chaired by the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Hillary Rodham Clinton decided to make health care for everyone her top

priority. Universal coverage now.

And will not depend upon where you work, whether you work, or whether you have a

pre -existing condition, health care that can never be taken away.

Some Republicans complain Mrs. Clinton is getting a free ride because she's the

president's wife. It's fairly risky business, I believe, as President

did, to put his wife in charge of some big policy program.

And while I don't share the chairman's joy at our holding hearings on a

government -run health care system, I do share his intention to make the debate

and the legislative process as exciting as possible.

I'm sure you will do that, Mr.

Army.

We'll do the best we can. You and Dr.

Kevorkian.

I have been told

about your charm and wit, and let me say it.

The reports on your charm are overstated and the reports on your wit are

understated. Thank you. Thank you very much.

She drove Washington.

Insane. Do you really want the federal government to control your health care?

You won't have a choice of your own doctor government mandate.

Less government. More government control.

More government. And less control for you and your family. When your mama gets

sick, she might talk to a bureaucrat instead of a doctor. This is a total

and it's about to get messier. Not this big bureaucratic socialistic plan that

they have.

Socialist takeover.

Socialized medicine. What really amounts to a giant social experiment.

Socialized medicine, nothing put more fear in us than the thought of that.

And the chief fear mongers against socialized medicine have always been the

doctors of the American Medical Association.

This would put the government smack into your hospital, defining services,

setting standards, establishing committees, calling for reports,

gets in and who gets out.

After all, the government has to treat everyone fair and equal, don't you know?

Take us all the way down the road to a new system of medicine for everybody.

Yes, medicine for everyone.

The AMA didn't want that.

And to drive the point home further, they held thousands of coffee clutches

over the country where they invited their neighbors to come and listen to a

record made by a well -known actor.

on the evils of socialized medicine.

My name is Ronald Reagan.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a

been by way of medicine.

The doctor begins to lose freedoms. It's like telling a lie, and one leads to

another. A doctor decides he wants to practice in one town, and the government

has to say to him, you can't live in that town, they already have enough

doctors, you have to go someplace else.

All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the

government can determine a man's working place and his working methods.

And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of

freedom as we have known it in this country.

Until one day we will awake to find that we have socialism.

The White House said today it's time to tone down the rhetoric reacting to the

burning and effigy of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The times may have changed, but

the scare tactics hadn't.

The health care industry spent over $100 million to defeat Hillary's health care

plan, and they succeeded.

And I want now to introduce to you the president because he loves the Easter

roll. For the next seven years in the White House, she wasn't allowed to bring

it up again.

Is anybody here older than two?

A decade and a half went by, and still America had no universal health plan.

The United States slipped to number 37 in health care around the world, just

slightly ahead of Slovenia.

But that's understandable, because Congress was busy with other matters.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to offer congratulations to the confectioners at

Born Incorporated as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of their most

recognized and celebrated products, not to mention my daughter's favorite,

marshmallow peeps.

And thus the health care industry went unchecked into the early 21st century.

Humana more than doubles its fourth quarter profit, lifts its earnings

for the year as well.

UnitedHealth has tripled its share price. Making obscene profits.

Etna beat their estimates. Better than expected earnings. One of them was Etna.

There's a lot of really wealthy shareholders out there right now. Are

willing to actually share some of that wealth?

Turning their CEOs into billionaires and skirting the law whenever they wanted.

But their biggest accomplishment.

was buying our United States Congress.

This is Washington at work.

Lobbying has become so brazen, the money is being collected... With four times

as many health care lobbyists than there are members of Congress, they even

managed to buy off old woes.

For her silence, Hillary was rewarded, and she became the second largest

recipient in the Senate of health care industry contributions.

We've given the entire health care system over to the insurance industry. I

mean, they have total control.

Well, not total control.

The drug companies like to buy their members of Congress, too.

Here's what it costs to buy these men.

And this woman.

This guy.

And this guy.

And him, too.

And the biggest check was saved for last.

Why did they hand out all this cash?

They wanted a bill passed.

A bill to help seniors with their prescriptions.

Let there be no mistake about it.

Republicans love their mothers and their fathers and their grandparents as much

as anybody else on this hill, and we're going to take care of them in this

country.

Of course, it was really a bill to hand over $800 billion of our tax dollars to

the drug and health insurance industry by letting the drug companies charge

whatever they wanted and making the private health insurance companies the

middleman. Everybody was going to get their cut, and the man they appointed to

get the job done was Congressman Billy Tozin.

He was the right man for the job because he had a secret weapon.

There's no one in this house loves their mother more than I love my mother.

I challenge you on that, sir. There's nobody in this body that loves their

mother any more or any less than any one of us.

I love that woman.

Do you think for a second you love your moms and dads any more than we love

ours? Do you think the Republicans and Democrats who will vote for you really

believe that, Mr. Stark?

God bless you.

Oh, they all love their mothers.

It's just that they didn't love our mothers as much.

Now I'm honored and pleased to sign this historic piece of legislation, the

Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003.

What they didn't tell us was that the elderly could end up paying more for

prescriptions than they did before.

Over two -thirds of senior citizens could still pay over $2 ,000 a year.

And when it was all over, 14 congressional aides who worked on the

their jobs on the Hill and went to work for the health care industry.

As did one congressman. Because I've got a golden ticket.

Billy Tozin left Congress to become the CEO of Pharma, the drug industry lobby.

for a salary of $2 million a year.

Oh, it was a happy day in Washington.

And many Americans knew they were never going to see universal health care.

And that's why some of them decided to look elsewhere for help.

We're driving across the Detroit River.

Back there is the Renaissance Center. You can see the Renaissance Center,

General Motors headquarters, downtown Detroit, the skyline.

You get a really nice view from driving over the bridge.

This is Adrienne Campbell, a single mother who at the age of 22 came down

cancer.

I got cervical cancer, and I was denied through the insurance company. They

said, we're not paying for it because you're 22, and you shouldn't be having

cervical cancer.

You're too young.

Forced into debt, but now cancer -free, Adrienne was fed up with the American

health care system.

She had a new plan.

I have everything ready before I even hit the border. I got my passports

I got my money out for the, you know, the $3 .25 to get across one way.

And I got everything just sitting up here on my visor, just ready to go.

Aurora,

be very quiet.

U .S.

Where do you live?

I live in Michigan.

That's not on, right? No. Okay.

She may live in Michigan, but ten blocks across the border, Adrienne becomes

a Canadian.

How long have you been living here?

Three months?

A couple, but I haven't applied for the OHIP card yet. Okay.

It takes ten minutes.

That's fine.

I don't mind.

Okay, thank you.

I put down Kyle's address at the clinic, and when they ask what my relationship

is, I put down his common -law partner.

I don't like to lie, and I don't like liars. It's a little white lie, but I'm

saving the money.

You don't have to bring your checkbook when you go to the hospital here.

It's provided to us.

It's something you don't have to worry about. You don't have to go out of your

way to get.

Stress -free.

They're calling the cops.

The presence of our camera crew had alerted the clinic that something was

And I don't think I'm going to get seen now.

So I have another idea.

I'm going to go down to the other clinic.

There's a clinic down the one that we passed.

The police showed up over there.

Hey, look.

Yes, what Adrian was doing was illegal, but we're Americans.

We go into other countries when we need to.

It's tricky, but it's allowed.

It's kind of frustrating having, you know, I mean, you know, I just get

and I'd solve everything. It should be covered automatically.

Americans marrying Canadians just for the health care.

Being used.

Sounds like a good idea.

See if it works.

Start something. Start a trend.

In Canada, they give everybody free health care. Doesn't it work up there?

Well, no, unfortunately, it doesn't. You wait months to get treatment. You can

get it in a week or a few days here.

In Canada, he'd have to wait nine to ten months for bypass surgery.

Many Canadians believe it's the health care system itself that's truly fit.

pay their doctors less.

Surgeons can only do a certain number of operations each year with only so many

expensive new pieces of equipment.

Easier for your cat or dog.

To receive an MRI here in America.

You die of cancer waiting for that chemo because, like, all of Ottawa has one

chemo machine. And if you think socialized medicine is a good idea, ask

Canadian.

So I thought, who better to ask than my Canadian relatives, Bob and Estelle.

But they wouldn't cross the border into America.

They wanted me to meet them at Sears in Canada.

Now, what are you guys doing here?

We're buying insurance. We're going over to the states. We're going to the

states to see you.

Right. You know, that's just across the river. Yes.

You wouldn't even go over to see us over in Michigan for a couple of hours

without this insurance?

No, we wouldn't. We're just adamant about it. We would not do it. If

punches us in the mouth or something, something like that. You don't want to

caught in the American health system. That's right. Yeah.

We have nothing against Americans or America or anything like that at all.

nice and simple people. Well, not very simple, but certainly very nice.

I decided to explore their anti -American views further over some fine

cuisine. We have a friend who went to Hawaii, and he sustained a

head injury while he was there.

And before he was well enough to come home, he had chalked up a bill of over

$600 ,000.

So what middle -class Canadian could absorb that?

I guess I feel bad that you would have to worry about something like that.

not criticizing your country. We're just giving you the facts that we could not

afford to be without insurance.

Even for a day?

Even for a day.

To prove their point even further, they sent me over to a local golf course to

talk to Larry Godfrey, who had a golfing accident while on vacation in Florida.

I could hear a noise and feel a pain, and the tendon snapped off this bone

that holds the bicep in place. So this bicep muscle was released like on an

elastic, and it ended up here on my chest. The muscle came right up your arm

ended up right up in your chest? Ended up right here.

Like all good golfers, Larry finished his round before seeking medical

attention.

That's when he got the bad news.

I wasn't too worried because I had out -of -country insurance, but when he told

me it was $23 ,000 or $24 ,000, then I... $24 ,000?

Dollars, yeah.

So if you'd stayed in the United States, this would have cost you $24 ,000. $24

,000, yes. Instead, you went back to Canada, and Canada paid your total

expenses, paid for the operation, and it cost you... Nothing.

Zero. Zero.

Zero. I'm wondering why you expect your fellow Canadians who don't have your

problem, why should they, through their tax dollars, have to pay for a problem

you have?

Because we would do the same for them.

It's just the way it's always been, and it's the way we hope it'll always be.

Right, but if you just had to pay for your problem and don't pay for everybody

else's problem, just take care of yourself.

Well, there are lots of people who aren't in a position to.

be able to do that.

And somebody has to look after them.

Are you a member of the Socialist Party here?

No. Green Party?

No.

Well, actually, I'm a member of the Conservative Party.

Is that bad?

Well, it's just a little confusing.

Well, it shouldn't be. I think that where medical matters are concerned, it

wouldn't matter in Canada what party you were affiliated with.

If any. But to us, as we look across the river here, you know, why don't you

think we'd believe that? What's wrong on this issue with us?

I guess the powers that be don't share our belief that

health care ought to be universal. I mean, Canadians didn't until we met up

a guy named Tommy Douglas, who pretty much changed everyone's mind.

One guy.

One guy, yeah.

One guy did it.

Can he come over and do that? He's dead, unfortunately. In fact, he's just most

recently been revered as Canada's singular most important person. We think

much of him. You mean in your history?

In our history. Of your whole history? In our whole history. More than your

first prime minister? Absolutely. Even more than Wayne Gretzky.

No way.

Absolutely.

Great hockey player.

Great singer.

More than Celine, yeah? More than Rockin' Bo Winkle?

Maybe.

As the blade went through, it caught the glove that I was wearing, and it sliced

through the entire group of fingers and completely taken them off, and I

realized that I needed help immediately.

Well, obviously putting on amputated fingers or arms or limbs is one of the

dramatic things that we can do.

If you're looking at five fingers, you're potentially looking at a 24 -hour

operation. So there actually was four surgeons, as well as all the nurses, two

different anesthetists to carry out an operation of that magnitude.

When somebody like Brad came in, we didn't have to worry about whether or

could afford it. He needed help. He needed a great deal of help. And we

just concentrate on finding the best way to bring him through it.

I met this American.

He cut off the ends of two of his fingers with a saw. So when he arrived

hospital, they told him that, well, one finger's going to cost you around $60

,000, and the other one is going to be $12 ,000.

He had to choose which finger he could afford.

We've never told someone that they couldn't put a finger back on because

system wouldn't allow it. I'm very glad I work within a system that allows me.

The freedom to look after people, not have to make choices like that.

It seems that nothing we were told about the Canadian system was true.

Maybe I was just in the wrong part of town.

So I went across the city to a crowded hospital waiting room.

How long did you have to wait here to get help?

20 minutes. 45 minutes.

I got help right away. You can see how crowded this is.

They really do an amazing job.

Did you have to get anyone's permission to come to this hospital?

No, no, no.

We can go anywhere we want.

You don't have to get it pre -approved? No, no.

By your insurance company?

Oh, no. Oh, heavens, no.

Can you choose your own doctor?

Oh, sure.

Oh, yeah.

What's your deductible?

Nothing. I don't think we have any.

I don't know.

I don't think there's any, as far as I know.

So would this set you back?

Nothing. We know, like, in America, like, people pay for their health care,

I guess we just don't really understand, like, we don't understand that concept

because we don't have to deal with that. And we're dealing with Parkinson's,

stroke, heart attack.

We're very, very lucky. Really, we are. I mean, we complain.

You know, people complain about everything, right? Right, you're

on the whole, it's really a fabulous system for making sure that the least of

and the best of us are taken care of.

It turns out that Canadians live three years longer than we do.

That's not hard to believe when you meet fellow Americans like Eric.

Eric Turnbow of Olympia,

Washington, saved up his whole life so that he could visit the famed Abbey Road

crosswalk in London.

But it wasn't enough for Eric to just walk across the road like the Beatles

He had to do it his own special way.

Here's Eric about to walk in his hands across Abbey Road.

Hey!

Try it again.

Are you in pain?

Yeah. The British hospital didn't charge

Eric anything for his stay.

And only about 10 bucks for all the way cool drugs they gave him.

You're all flung up.

I'm going to be okay.

I decided to go to Great Britain.

to find out how a hospital stay could be free and drugs could cost only $10.

I come in here and I have a prescription, and it requires 30 pills.

How much is that?

It's $6 .65.

That's the standard charge.

$6 .65, so that's like, what, $10 or so? Yes.

What if I needed 60 pills? How much is it?

Same charge.

120 pills.

6 .65 still. It doesn't matter. How many pills? No. What if it's like an HIV

drug or a cancer drug?

6 .65.

If they are under 16 or over 60, they're automatically exempt.

So only a working adult who earns enough money.

pays for £6 .65, and everybody else gets their medication for free.

There's no money being exchanged here.

There's no money being exchanged.

And what's the purpose of the cash register?

I'm just wondering, where's the bread and the milk and the candy in here?

I can't pick up any laundry detergent here?

No. I haven't been trained for that many years to be selling detergents, so no.

I next went to a state -run hospital operated by the National Health Service.

I'm due in seven weeks, and I get six months off paid, and then I can have six

months off unpaid as well. So I'm actually taking a year.

That sounds like a luxury where I'm from.

Really, it's not like that in the U .S., no.

Not at all, no.

So what do you pay for a stay here?

No one pays.

Even with insurance, there's bound to be a bill somewhere.

So where's the billing department?

There isn't really a billing department.

Yeah, that's fine.

What'd they charge you for that baby?

Sorry. You've got to pay before you can get out of here, right?

No. No, no, no.

Everything's on the NHS.

No, you don't. It's not America.

Maybe I'd have better luck in the part of the hospital where things can get

seriously expensive.

This guy broke his ankle.

How much will this cost him?

Sorry? The emergency room visit.

He'll have some huge bill when he's done, right?

Yeah, NHS everything is free.

I'm asking about hospital charges.

You're laughing at me. I was never asked this question in emergency department,

that's why.

I was starting to fall for this everything is free bit, and then I

this.

So this is where people come to pay their bill when they're done staying in

hospital. No, this is the NHS hospital, so you don't pay the bill.

You get to just go home.

Why does it say cashier here if people don't have to pay a bill?

All we have is a little man who stands behind the counter and gives people

if they've had to pay for transport.

Those who have reduced means get their travel expenses reimbursed.

So in British hospitals, instead of money going into the cashier's window,

comes out.

The criteria for letting you out of the hospital are not if you've paid your

bill. The criteria are, are you fit to go and are you going somewhere safe?

Clearly, I was just the butt of a joke here.

What I needed was a good old -fashioned American who

would have some understanding.

Well, I first came to London in 1992, and we just ended up staying, and we

had... three children here.

I had them all on the NHS, which is the National Health Service, the British

National Health Service.

I think, like a lot of Americans, assumed that socialized medicine was

bottom -of -the -rung treatment.

You know, that's the only possible way. It would be, you know, dingy and

horrible, and it would be like the Soviet Union. I mean, that's kind of

It's terrible. That's what I thought.

That's what I thought, too.

After having a baby, it's right back to the wheat fields.

And then it occurred to me that back home in America, we've socialized a lot

things.

I kind of like having a police department and fire department and the

And I got to wondering, why don't we have more of these free, socialized

like health care?

When did this whole idea that every British citizen should have a right to

health care?

Well, if you go back, it all began with democracy.

Before we had the vote, all the power was in the hand of rich people.

If you had money, you could get health care, education, look after yourself

you were old. And what democracy did was to give the poor the vote, and it moved

power from the marketplace to the polling station, from the wallet to the

ballot. And what people said was very simple. They said in the 1930s, we had

mass unemployment.

But we don't have any employment during the war. If you can have full employment

by killing Germans, why can't you have full employment by building hospitals,

building schools, recruiting nurses, recruiting teachers?

If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.

Right.

This leaflet that was issued, very, very straightforward.

What year was this?

This was 1948.

Your new National Health Service begins on the 5th of July. What is it? How do

you get it?

It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care.

Everyone, rich or poor, man, woman or child, can use it or any part of it.

are no charges except for a few special items. There are no insurance

qualifications, but it is not a charity.

You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers and it will relieve your money

in times of illness.

Now, somehow the few words sum the whole thing up.

I was amazed when he said this all started in 1948.

The British had just come out of a devastating experience through World War

The country was destroyed and nearly bankrupt.

They had nothing.

In just one eight -month period, over 42 ,000 civilians lost their lives.

What we went through in two hours on 9 -11.

They went through nearly every single day.

Remember how we all felt after 9 -11?

All of us pulling together?

I guess that's how they felt.

And the first way that they decided to pull together after the war was to

provide free medical care for everyone.

Even Mrs. Thatcher said, the National Health Service is safe in our hands.

It's as non -controversial as votes for women. Nobody could come along and say,

why should women have the vote now? Because people wouldn't have it, and

wouldn't have in Britain. They wouldn't accept the deterioration or destruction

of their national health. If Thatcher or Blair had said, I'm going to dismantle

national health... That would have been a revolution, yeah.

A report from the American Medical Association into the health of 55 to 64

-olds says Brits are far healthier than Americans. For every illness that we

looked at, Americans had more of it than English.

Cancer, heart disease, hypertension, strokes, lung disease, all significantly

higher for Americans.

Even the poorest people in England, with all the environmental factors that give

them the worst health in the country, can expect to live longer than the

wealthiest people.

In America.

I was

wondering, though, what's it like for the doctors here in Britain who have to

live under this kind of state control?

And you're a family doctor?

Yeah, I suppose we'd call them GPs or general practitioners here.

Right, so you have like a family practice.

Yeah, it's an NHS practice. We have nine doctors within that practice.

You're paid for by the government?

Paid for by the government, yes. So you work for the government? Oh, yeah,

absolutely. You're a government -paid doctor. Absolutely. A patient comes to

you before you treat them. Do you have to call the government insurance company

before you can treat them?

No, I don't deal with money at all on an everyday basis.

Have you ever had to say no to someone who was sick and needed help? No, never.

Have you heard of anyone being in the hospital and being removed because they

couldn't pay their bill? No, never, and I wouldn't want to work in that system.

So working for the government, you probably have to use public

No, so I have a car that I use and I drive it. An old beater?

Do you live in the kind of rough part of town?

I mean, I live in a terrific part of town. It's called Greenwich.

It's a lovely house.

It's a big story house. How many other families have to live in that house with

you? So we would live, there's four bedrooms, but my wife and my son, you

it's just the three of us there.

How much do you pay for that?

550 ,000 pounds.

So a million dollars.

You're a government -paid doctor on a national health insurance health care

here, and you live in a million -dollar home.

Yeah.

I think probably my friends think we do quite well. Really? How well do you do?

I earn around £85 ,000, including pension.

£85 ,000?

£85 ,000 a year, and that includes pension that they would pay into me.

probably earn just over £100 ,000 within my practice.

£100 ,000, so that's almost $200 ,000.

Yes, absolutely.

The money that we earn, we get paid by what we do, so the better we do for our

patients, then the more that we get paid.

What do you mean?

So there's a new system, and in that new system, if the most number of your

patients have low blood pressures, or you get most of your patients to stop

smoking, or you get most of your patients to have things like mental

reviews if they're unwell or low cholesterol, then you get paid more.

In other words, this year, if you get more people that are your patients to

smoking, you'll get more money this year. You'll earn more. Oh, yeah,

absolutely.

So doctors in America do not necessarily have to fear.

having a universal health care no i think if you want to have two or three

million dollar homes and four or five knife cards and six or seven knife

television then maybe yeah you need to practice somewhere where you can earn

that but i think we live comfortably here and london is an expensive city but

think we live very comfortably and you're getting bio cam the million

home the audi and the flat screen tv yeah we're coping with those

I think democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world, far

revolutionary than socialist ideas or anybody else's idea, because if you have

power, you use it to meet the needs of you and your community. And this idea of

choice, which capital talks about all the time, you've got to have a choice,

choice depends on the freedom to choose. And if you're shackled with debt, you

don't have a freedom to choose.

It seems like it benefits the system if the average working person is shackled

with debt. Yes, and people in debt.

become hopeless, and hopeless people don't vote.

See, they always say everyone should vote, but I think if the poor in Britain

the United States turned out and voted for people who represented their

interests, it would be a real democratic revolution, and so they don't want it

to happen. So keeping people hopeless and pessimistic.

See, I think there are two ways in which people are controlled.

First of all, frighten people, and secondly, demoralise them.

An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.

And I think there's an element in the thinking of some people. We don't want

people to be educated, healthy and confident because they would get out of

control.

The top 1 % of the world's population own 80 % of the world's wealth. It's

incredible that people put up with it. But they're poor, they're demoralised,

they're frightened.

And therefore they think perhaps the safest thing to do is take orders and

for the best.

And hope for the best is what we do right from the moment we're born.

We've got the worst infant mortality rate in the Western world.

A baby born in El Salvador has a better chance of surviving than a baby born in

Detroit.

But it gets better when we go to school.

Classrooms with 40 students. Schools with no science labs.

No wonder the majority of our young adults can't find Britain on the map.

that's okay. There's always college.

And by the time we graduate, our ass is still in hush. We're deep in debt before

we even have our first job.

I'm at about, we'll say about $35 ,000 in debt.

And that's for my third year in college. That way you'll be the kind of employee

they're looking for.

One who needs this job. 3 ,904, 3 ,905. And what employer wouldn't want to

employ someone thousands of dollars in debt? Because they won't cause any

trouble.

In addition to having to pay off your college debt, you need a job with health

insurance. It would be horrible to lose that kind of job, wouldn't it?

You can always quit, you know.

There's no law that says you have to work here.

And if that one job doesn't pay all the bills, don't worry. You can get another

one. And another one.

And another one.

I work three jobs, and I feel like I contribute.

You work three jobs?

Three jobs, yes.

Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing

Get any sleep?

And if you're not getting enough sleep, take pharmaceuticals. You're tired all

the time. You may feel sad, hopeless.

If you suffer from excessive worry, you could be suffering from generalized

anxiety disorder. It could be adult ADD. Talk to your doctor. Ask your doctor.

Ask your doctor. Ask your doctor. Ask your doctor. Yes, ask your doctor and

him for more drugs.

That should keep you pretty doped up until it's time to retire.

Did I say retire?

Well, if you do make it to 80, I'm sure your pension won't still be there,

unlike the new employees for these companies who will never see a pension.

But don't worry. I'm sure our kids will take care of it, considering the great

life we've given them.

Oh, and remember, let's defeat the terrorists over there so we don't have

fight them here.

Kaiser Permanente is the largest HMO in the country, and Don L. Keyes was

fortunate enough to be fully insured by them.

It's a good thing because one night her 18 -month -old daughter, Michelle,

developed a fever of over 104.

So like any responsible mom, she called 911 and the ambulance took Michelle to

the closest hospital.

The hospital checked with her HMO and they were told that Kaiser would not

the tests and the antibiotics necessary to treat Michelle.

She would have to take her to an in -network.

Kaiser owned hospital.

Kaiser said that I should bring her by car to the hospital and that she

shouldn't be treated at Martin Luther King.

And I just continued to ask them to treat her and they refused.

My daughter got worse and she had a seizure.

Donnell begged the doctors to not listen to Kaiser and to treat her daughter.

I was escorted out of the hospital because they felt that I was a threat.

After hours of delay, she was transported to Kaiser and got there just

to go into cardiac arrest.

They worked on her for about 30 minutes trying to revive her. And the doctors

came in and let us know that she had expired.

I was in a day, a real day, that just didn't seem real.

I just held her.

I held her and I told her that mommy tried her best to help her, to make sure

that she was going to get the treatment that she needed to receive.

And that I was sorry that I wasn't able to help her.

This is Karina and her daughter Zoe.

Karina is a graduate of Michigan State University and a native of my hometown

Flint, Michigan.

Six months ago, Zoe, like Donnell's baby Michelle, came down with a high fever.

What happened is she stopped breathing for a little while, turned blue and

passed out my arms, which was...

I mean, it was the most horrible moment in my life, I think, just because I

thought that she was either dead or dying, and I had no clue what to do.

At the hospital, they gave her some medicine to bring the fever down and

examined her, took some blood.

And what did they determine was wrong with her?

It was a throat infection, but we stayed at the hospital from Friday to Sunday

just so they could keep an eye on her.

You stayed there that long?

Yeah. They just basically kept an eye on her.

And how much did all this cost you, the three -plus days in the hospital?

Nothing. Nothing? Nothing.

Nothing at all. And that's because?

I live in France.

You live in France.

Yeah.

Ah, France.

They enjoy their wine, their cigarettes, and their fatty food.

And yet, just like the Canadians and the Brits, They live much longer than we

do. Something about that seemed grossly unfair.

This is Alexei Krumo. He spent his entire adult life in the U .S. without

insurance.

I lived in America for 13 years. I loved my life there.

But then when I discovered that I had a tumor and I didn't have health

insurance, unfortunately I had to come back here.

And even though I had never paid any taxes in France, because I'd never

here, I left when I was 18, I didn't even have a social security number.

For them, I was saying, well, he needs treatment, he has no income, so we're

going to give him, you know, the treatment he needs.

How are you doing now?

I'm healthy now, but I had three months of intense chemotherapy.

So after the three months, I saw my doctor and he said, do you want to go

to work? I said, no, I don't feel like it.

Right now I'm not ready. He said, well, how much do you need?

I said, well, I don't know.

He said, would three months be okay? I said, I think three months would be

He said, okay, so take three months off. So he wrote me a note that I gave to my

employer to make sure that I get paid.

So I went to the south of France. Wait a minute, you get three months off with

pay? Yes.

Yes. I get 65 % paid by the government.

And then the other 35 % is paid by my employer.

So to make sure you get 100%. So it was April. It was spring again. So I started

right away sucking up some sun.

And it really helped me a lot. It gave me a lot of recharge my batteries.

I mean, it was like night and day. In three months, I went from a 95 -year

man to a 35 -year -old man again.

But that's because I had that time.

to take care of myself.

I'm not really in a position to make any judgment concerning the American

system. I think the United States is a great, great country.

American or Greek people really love them.

But as a doctor, as a citizen, second, and eventually as a patient,

third,

I'm very glad to be in France.

It's kind of luxury here. You are sick, you step in the hospital, you get the

care you need. It doesn't depend on your premiums. It depends on what you need.

Well, the principle is solidarity.

People who are better off pay for those who are worse off.

You pay according to your means and you receive according to your needs.

Do you think that will ever work in America?

No.

He could barely contain his seething anti -Americanism, and I just didn't

to listen to any more of it.

So I found a group of Americans currently living in Paris

who I know would tell me the truth.

I was diagnosed five years ago with type 1 diabetes, and I was actually a little

bit nervous.

to tell them that I had... To tell the French. To tell the French. There's a

place where you have to check off whether or not you have a chronic

And I was nervous. I thought they were going to charge me more or something.

instead, I went into a hospital and had round -the -clock care, and they do an

amazing amount of preventative care as well. So they ask you if you have a pre

-existing condition not to punish you, but to give you more help. Yes. I was in

the hospital for a year. And as soon as I was in, it was, well, don't worry,

just... Rest. You know, people say, rest.

How many sick days do you get a year? Three, four?

I think it's unlimited.

Yeah, you're sick, I mean. Unlimited? Yeah, so how can you limit sick days?

If you're sick, you're sick. I've gone to emergency rooms numerous times with

four boys and have never waited more than an hour. Never.

I can call and have somebody come to the house within half an hour. No way.

Yeah. Making a house call? Making a house call. At your place? How many of

have had a house call from a doctor? No.

Last 3 a .m., last Friday. And how much does this cost you? Nothing. Reimbursed.

What's the service called?

Where are we going?

We are going to see a man who has a dental pain.

A dental pain? Yeah.

How many times have you vomited?

200.

Can you take a picture of your parents' faces? Yes.

SS Médecins was created 40 years ago by Dr.

Marcel Lascar. Dr.

Lascar had a common problem with plumbing.

He had a leak in his bathtub.

He called SS Plumbery and he was able to find a plumber who came to his house in

less than an hour. He said, we are in a country...

where you can have a plumber who comes to you in an hour and you can't find a

doctor as quickly.

Where do we go next?

The next visit?

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you.

One thing that I say to anyone who asks me why I'm in this country is that I

think it's one of the family's friendliest countries that I know of and

about family values. I mean, child care, health care.

We don't have a daycare.

The daycare where I spend my dollar, and I was a teacher. I mean, the standards

are very high.

So how much does it cost you to have two children here in daycare? How much per

hour?

Are you happy with how they're cared for?

Here, my kids, they're sure that they're going to get a certain level of care, a

certain education, college I don't have to worry about. What do you mean?

You don't pay for it. You're kidding.

Nothing? You can get a college education.

for free. No way. Yeah.

That's the worst part. And they rest, they enjoy it. And they're happy. And

always spend time with their kids. You know, the vacations, there's family

So how many weeks of paid vacation?

Minimum of five weeks.

Five weeks?

Minimum of five weeks. That's the French law. Unless you work for a large

company, you get sometimes eight, ten weeks. Remembering that there is a 35

-hour week. The productivity rate is so high here. I read that it was higher

than the United States. Yeah, they're relaxed. They're working more than 35

hours a week. week, they'll get extra days off. And are there part -time and

full -time employees as well? You get five weeks paid vacation even if you're

part -time employee?

If you get married, the year you get married, you get like an extra week or

extra seven days for your honeymoon. In addition to your five weeks. You're paid

to take your honeymoon. Correct. So I don't know. You want to move to France

now? Yeah, if you move. You mean if you're going to move from one apartment

another? One day.

You get a day to move and they pay you that day.

When my daughter was three months old, there was a free service that will send

somebody to your home to give you tips on what to do with your child, how to

them to sleep, every single day, for free.

And they'll come to your house and do your laundry.

He will! He will! No!

Stop!

Stop!

What are you doing?

You from the government?

Did she do anything else?

If I want, yes.

She's, of course, taking care of the children.

And I think if I ask her to prepare a meal for tonight, she can do it.

No problem.

She's coming.

twice a week, four hours a day. So I can do everything I want for me, for the

house, for my husband, during four hours.

It's very precious for me.

You don't have any associations, nothing to help like that?

No. Nobody from the government comes to your home in America and does your

laundry for you, if you're a new mother.

Difficult. Yeah.

Something that I experience a lot of with my own family is guilt.

Guilt for being here almost and seeing the advantages and the benefits I have

such a young age and things that my parents worked their whole life for,

even come close to touching.

It's really hard to know that you're here in a very privileged position, you

know, not living the high life, but in comparison, definitely.

And that seems completely unfair.

One of the things that keeps everything running here is that the government is

afraid of the people. They're afraid of protests. They're afraid of reactions

from the people. Whereas in the States, people are afraid of the government.

They're afraid of acting up. They're afraid of protesting. They're afraid of

getting out.

In France, that's what people do.

On the contrary, at least 160 ,000 young people, according to the police, have

been deported this afternoon.

In Bordeaux, more than 2 ,000 people have protested for the employment, the

maintenance of public services.

Free college education, free medical care, government -issued nannies. I

to wonder, how do they pay for all this?

And then I realized, they're drowning in taxes.

I wanted to see what effect this would have on a nice French family.

So I went to find out.

Hello. Hello. Thank you. Welcome.

What is your combined income for the two of you together for, say, one month?

You're an engineer. She's an assistant.

And how

much do you pay each month on your mortgage?

How many cars do you own?

Two. Do you own any money from medical bills?

No. Is there any other debt, loans, anything?

No, only the apartment.

And what are your other big expenses?

The fish.

Fish and vegetables.

Vegetables are a big monthly expense for you.

Yes. Fruit.

Yogurt. Yogurt.

What are your other big expenses?

Holidays.

Very much.

Masai Maha, Kenya.

Are you happy?

Yes.

After

seeing

all this, I began to wonder.

Was there a reason our government and our media wants us to hate the French?

Are they worried we might like the French?

Or like their ways of doing things?

It was enough to make me put away my freedom fries.

Meanwhile,

back at home, hospitals had found a new way to deal with patients who didn't

have health insurance and couldn't pay their bill.

I was standing up against the wall and I saw a cab.

Do a U -turn and pull up to the curb, and I watched to see what was happening

because I had a feeling what was going to occur because it's not a new thing.

They pulled up right here by this yellow fire hydrant and dropped Carol off and

immediately pulled away.

And as soon as they pulled away, she walked out into the street about out to

here. She then walked all the way down to the driveway down here, completely

confused, not knowing how to, has no shoes on whatsoever, and just a hospital

gown. If you've ever been to a hospital, those gowns are thin.

And that's when one of our staff members went out and asked Carol if she needed

any assistance and found out that she was confused and disoriented and didn't

know where she was.

Kaiser Permanente in Bellflower Hospital had put her in a cab and directed them

to bring her to this drop -off point. But the names of the hospitals had been

taken off of both bracelets before she arrived here. I have seen others here

that have come through our doors who've got IVs still in their arms.

They told me that at their shelter alone, over 50 patients had been dumped

by hospitals.

The options are very few.

open the front door and let them out, which is not the humane thing to do.

something we don't want to do, or we try to find some place for them to go.

And right now, Skid Row is the best bed in town.

In fact, the night before we were there, the county hospital run by the

University of Southern California, one of the richest private schools in the

country, dumped another patient off on the curb, a woman unable to pay her

hospital bill.

Ma 'am, are you in pain right now?

Are you in pain right now? Is there anything we can do?

She at this time has broken ribs, broken collarbone, and stitches that are not

completely healed.

across the top of her head and on the side of her head.

Now let me ask you, ma 'am, before they dropped you off, did they ask you if you

knew where you were going? No.

So they didn't ask you any questions about your orientation or whether or not

you knew what was going on?

No, they just told me to take care of myself.

May I take a minute to ask a question that's been on my mind?

Who are we?

Is this what we've become?

A nation that dumps its own citizens like so much garbage on the side of the

curb because they can't pay their hospital bill?

I always thought and believe to this day that we're a good and generous people.

This is what we do when somebody's in trouble.

Anybody gets sick, we all get together now.

People with a good heart.

You feel like you're sacrificing, but then you get a blessing from doing this,

and that's the way we all feel.

And a good soul.

We've got a lot of community support, and we're going to all keep working

we locate this child.

Neighbors who are quick to lend a helping hand to anyone in their hour of

I deliver meals to them, but my life has been so blessed, but, you know, this is

the least that I can do.

They say that you can judge a society by how it treats those who are the worst

off.

But is the opposite true?

That you can judge a society by how it treats its best?

Its heroes?

Your firefighters and police, rescue and recovery workers have responded with

true heroism.

It was their initial heroism that thwarted the objectives of the

Without regard, in many instances, to their own...

safety and security.

They truly are heroes.

We owe them everything.

Here they are, the men and women who've been on the front line for New York and

for all of us in America.

Tonight is dedicated to you.

Don't forget about the raffles going on over there. We got one dollar each.

I spent two and a half years down there.

I got upper and lower breathing problems.

I need a double lung transplant, but I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. I

haven't slept in a bed in over five years. I sleep on a chair with a blanket

the living room because if I lay down, I can't breathe.

There were hundreds of rescue workers on 9 -11 who were not city employees, but

rather ran down to Ground Zero on their own to help out. We need volunteers for

the first day.

And many.

develop serious respiratory illnesses.

That's when the government said, they're not our responsibility because they

weren't on our payroll.

John Graham is an EMT volunteer from Paramus, New Jersey.

He was in lower Manhattan when he heard the planes hit and rushed over to help.

He worked in the rescue effort for the next few months, but then had trouble

receiving benefits.

for his illness.

William

Marr is a

volunteer member of New Jersey's fire service.

He spent two months working near the pile at Ground Zero, recovering bodies

body parts.

and it deeply affected him. I'm experiencing a lot of disturbing dreams,

whatever you'd like to call them, and it affected what I was doing at night,

and, you know, unaware of it because I was asleep and I just kept grinding and

grinding. The teeth, the upper fronts are damaged correctly beyond repair

because of my constant grinding over the last three years.

I've been before a workers' comp board already for the 9 -11 volunteers fund,

and I've been denied three times, and hopefully...

I will go on my fourth appeal soon if I can get the necessary documentation.

Of course, there was a $50 million fund set up, supposedly to help rescue

workers. Ladies and gentlemen, the governor of New York, George Patashin.

But the government, like the health insurance companies, made it very

for people to receive help.

You have to have spent a certain amount of time here at Ground Zero. You have to

be able to establish that. You do have to file an affidavit within the next

relating your work experiences at Ground Zero. And then even with all of that,

it's not automatic. There is a presumption when certain illnesses

that presumption can be rebutted by other medical evidence.

We think it is a very fair approach that protects our heroes.

Reggie Cervantes was a volunteer emergency medical technician on 9 -11.

Nothing makes it go away sometimes.

Not water, not cough medicine, not anything. It's just...

burning in my throat and irritated, and it just gets me to coughing, or

sometimes I have trouble breathing because I can't catch my breath.

Reggie spent her days at Ground Zero carrying bodies and treating other

workers. My airway was totally burned that first week. I had trouble breathing

by then.

But we wanted to see if we could dig anybody up alive. We wanted to see.

If we had lost anybody, if we were still missing somebody, I wanted to help. I

was trained for this.

You know, you see somebody who's in need, you help them.

Reggie had difficulty getting treatment.

Too sick to work and with no income, she was forced to quit her job and used her

savings to move her and her kids out of the city.

It's hard to figure out how you're supposed to get help.

We're trying to go about it the right way.

But we're ignored.

But not everyone after 9 -11 was ignored by the government.

We're now approaching the five -year anniversary of the 9 -11 attacks.

So I'm announcing today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin

-Shib, and 11 other terrorists in CIA custody had been transferred to the

States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

On that island today are some of the world's most hardened enemy combatants.

These detainees are deadly and include the 20th hijacker, as well as a number

Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguards and others who had a direct role in the

September 11th attacks.

The kind of people held at Guantanamo.

include terrorist trainers, bomb makers.

Many of them have American blood on their hands, and they are certainly the

elite of Al Qaeda.

It seems to me we have an obligation to treat these individuals as enemy

combatants.

And then I learned it wasn't all bad news at Gitmo.

Detainees representing a threat to our national security.

are given access to top -notch medical facilities.

They have acute care 24 hours a day in which surgical procedures, everything

be performed right there in the detainee camp.

This is the dental clinic or the health clinic slash dental clinic. We have a

physical therapy department.

We have x -ray capabilities with digital x -rays. We have one single operating

room. The health personnel to detainee ratio is one to four, remarkably high.

They do a sick call on the blocks three times per week, care for them there if

they can, or bring that detainee back to the clinic to be seen there.

Screening for cancer has taken place there.

Colonoscopy is a procedure which is performed there on a routine basis.

We have diabetes. We have high blood pressure, high cholesterol.

We do periodically monitor the weight and nutrition of the detainees so that

can track those detainees to make sure we're seeing them frequently, monitoring

their labs and their overall health. Their medical attention, they get way

better medical treatment than I've ever had.

So you think it's as good as most HMOs in the U .S.? Certainly very similar and

it's good, sir. I leave with an impression that health care there is

better than they received at...

and as good as many people receive in the United States of America.

Wow. So there was actually one place on American soil that had free universal

health care.

That's all I needed to know.

I went down to Miami, Florida, got myself a boat, and

loaded up Bill and Reggie and John.

John. Welcome, sir.

And anyone else I could find needed to see a doctor and couldn't afford one.

So many people showed up, I had to get a couple extra votes. Donna?

And I called up Donna Smith from Denver, who is now on nine different

medications, and asked her if she'd like to come along.

I figured she'd like to get out of her daughter's basement for a while.

All right, let's go.

Which way to Guantanamo Bay?

Can we go?

We're not going to Cuba. We're going to America.

It's American soil.

We made it.

There it is.

There's the runway.

That's the prison over there where the detainees are.

We're very close.

Yeah, we're very close.

Wow.

The white building is the hospital, I think.

Okay, let's go.

We commandeered a fishing boat and sailed into Guantanamo Bay.

As we approached the line in the water between the American and Cuban side of

the bay, we were told to be careful for mines.

Permission to enter!

I have three 9 -11 rescue workers.

They need some medical attention.

These are 9 -11 rescue workers.

They just want some medical attention.

The same kind that Al -Qaeda is getting.

No one in the guard tower was responding and then suddenly we heard a siren and

we figured it was time to get out of here.

But what was I supposed to do with all these sick people and no one to help

them? I mean, here we were, stuck in some godforsaken third world country.

And communist, no less.

When I was a kid, these people wanted to kill us.

What was I supposed to do?

I'm on the way to Cuba.

Where all is happy.

Cuba, where all is gay.

Why don't you plan a wonderful trip?

Excuse me, we're looking for a doctor. Is there a doctor here in Cuba?

All in

this one block?

All right, thank

you very much. Thank you.

Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking.

Cuba is where Lucifer lives.

The worst place on Earth.

The most evil nation ever created.

How do we know that?

Because that's what we've been told for over 45 years.

That a series of offensive...

Missile sites can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability

against the Western Hemisphere.

I'm not going to yield until Fidel Castro allows freedom on the island.

See?

You can count on it.

Put it in the bank.

It seems that what really bugged us about Castro was that he overthrew the

dictator that we liked and replaced him with a guy we didn't like.

himself. And so now, after all these years, one thing is clear.

The Cuban people have free, universal health care.

They become known around the world as having not only one of the best health

care systems, but as being one of the most generous countries in providing

doctors and medical equipment to third world countries.

In the U .S., health care costs run nearly $7 ,000 per person.

But in Cuba, They spend only $251, and yet the Cubans are able to have a lower

infant mortality rate than the United States, a longer average lifespan than

United States.

They believe in preventive medicine, and it seems like there's a doctor on every

block.

Their only sin when it comes to health care seems to be that they don't do it

for a profit.

Anybody need medication right now for the pharmacy?

Are you the pharmacist?

You have this?

Is this one similar to yours?

Yeah.

$120 in the U .S. This is $120 in the U .S.? Yes.

$320.

So how much is that in American dollars?

It's like five cents.

Five cents?

Yeah, more or less.

Thank you very much.

Muchas gracias.

$120 is a lot of money when you're getting $1 ,000 in Social Security

and you need one or two a month.

Type sense here? It's like the biggest info.

It just doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't make any sense.

I want to fill a suitcase up and go back home with it.

I took my group of sick Americans to a hospital to see if they could get some

care.

They didn't ask for money or an insurance card, just

their name and date of birth.

That was the entire intake session.

Thank you very much for doing this.

I asked them to give us the same exact care they give their fellow Cuban

citizens. No more, no less.

And that's what they did.

I'm Dr. Roque. I'm an internal medicine specialist.

How are you feeling?

My lungs hurt. I have pain.

I get pretty severe nosebleeds at times.

I get terrible headaches in the middle of the night, but I haven't been

evaluated for the sleep apnea for nine years.

Yeah, I have many medications.

Almost every medication for lung problems.

After 9 -11, since some things that have happened, my teeth started falling out.

Because of certain conditions, I was grinding.

The one test that they recommended I take is about $5 ,000 to $7 ,000.

The dentist that I talked to, it's like $15 ,000 or more.

Now it's two years I have no medical coverage, so I can't go for the last

of the test.

It's okay. Everything's going to be okay, right?

Yes.

It's so hard for me to digest somebody saying it's free because 20 years of our

lives have been spent fighting.

So I am so grateful.

I don't know. You don't need to say that.

Okay? Thank you.

Okay.

Come on, don't cry.

Everything's going to be okay, right?

Thank you. And this is what we can do. Thank you.

Cuba es una pequeña islita del Caribe con muy pocos recursos.

Se puede hacer mucho por la salud del ser humano.

Y eso no ocurre en Estados Unidos de Norteamérica.

¿Por qué nosotros podemos y ustedes no?

Ahí sí tendríamos que darnos cuenta porque un país, mientras más produce,

Reggie was diagnosed with a series of pulmonary and bronchial problems.

The Cuban doctors gave her a treatment plan to follow back home, along with

of those five -cent inhalers.

William Marr received a number of treatments on his neck and his back, and

having ground down his teeth for three years straight due to post -traumatic

stress disorder,

He left Cuba with a new set of teeth.

After a series of tests on his heart, lungs, blood, and stomach, John now knew

what his ailments were.

He was given a strict plan to follow plus a number of treatments and was

better than he had in years.

The Cuban doctors were able to take Donna off five of her nine medications

with the correct diagnosis, gave her a treatment plan.

to help her live a more normal life.

When the firefighters and paramedics in Havana heard that the 9 -11 rescue

workers were in town, they invited them over to one of their firehouses.

And so on our last day there, as we arrived, they stood at attention

they said, they wanted to honor the heroes of 9 -11.

that have decided to visit my fire station, as you call it.

I knew about the events on September 11th. It gave us a

very sad impression.

From a human point of view, we would have liked to be there to cooperate with

them and help in the rescue of the victims and the injured.

The brothers we lost on 9 -11 with belts around the world.

Don't hesitate to hug a brother.

It's very important for them to wear the SCBA so they don't end up like me.

If this is what can happen between supposed enemies, if one enemy can hold

his hand and offer to heal, then what else is possible?

That's when I heard that the man who runs the biggest anti -Michael Moore

website on the Internet was going to have to shut it down.

He could no longer afford to keep it up because his wife was ill.

and they couldn't afford to pay for her health insurance.

He was faced with a choice of either keep attacking me or pay for his wife's

health.

Fortunately, he chose his wife.

But something seemed wrong about being forced into such a decision.

Why, in a free country, shouldn't he be able to have health insurance and

exercise his First Amendment right to run me into the ground?

So I wrote a check for the $12 ,000 he needed to keep his wife insured and in

treatment and sent it to him anonymously.

His wife got better, and his website is still going strong.

It was hard for me to acknowledge that, in the end, we truly are all in the same

boat.

And that, no matter what our differences, we sink or swim together.

That's how it seems to be everywhere else.

They take care of each other, no matter what their disagreements.

You know, when we see a good idea from another country, we grab it.

If they build a better car, we drive it.

If they make a better wine, we drink it.

So if they've come up with a better way to treat the sick, to teach their kids,

to take care of their babies, to simply be good to each other,

then what's our problem?

Why can't we do that?

They live in a world of we, not me.

We'll never fix anything until we get that one basic thing right.

And powerful forces hope that we never do, and that we remain the only country

in the Western world without free, universal health care.

You know, if we ever did remove the chokehold of medical bills, college

daycare, and everything else that makes us afraid to step out of line, well,

watch out, because it'll be a new day in America.

In the meantime, I'm going to go get the government to do my laundry.

Don't be shy.

Just let your feelings roll on by.

Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there.

Lift your head and let your feelings out instead.

Don't be shy.

Just let your feelings roll on by.

On by, on by.

On by, on by, on by. On by, on by.

On by, on by.

You know love is better than a song.

Love.

Love is where all of us belong.

So don't be shy.

Just let your feelings roll on by.

Don't wear fear or nobody will know you're there.

You're there. You're there.

You're there. You're there. You're there. You're there.

You're there, you're there.

Don't be shy.

Just let your feelings roll on by.

And don't wear fear.

Oh, nobody will know you're there.

Just lift your head and let your feelings out in bed.

No, don't be shy.

Just let your feelings roll on by, on by, on by.

Oh, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by.

On by, on by.

Sick of waiting and praying and hoping.

Sick of the cold whispered dreams and not knowing.

Sick of the strength that it takes to keep going.

Sick as I'm losing this fight and it's showing.

Unforgivable but true.

Without you.

It's sick as I'm stuck on the wrong side of town.

It's sick as I'm pulling but still thinking down.

It's sick as I can't turn this whole thing around.

It's sick as I'm too weak to hunt somebody down.

Unforgivable but true.

Without you.

So close to nature, tell me