Psyche Yourself to See Sicko

Cub reporter Peaches Chekouras was in Sacramento this afternoon to listen to Michael Moore testify before State Senators and Assembly members about the critical importance of passing California SB 840, the single payer, universal health care legislation sponsored by State Senator Sheila Kuehl.
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Mr. Moore was in Sacramento to unleash the U.S. premiere of his new documentary, Sicko, the healthcare exposé which opened in Cannes earlier. Both Kuehl and Moore believe the situation in California is dire, especially after the state legislature and people of California worked to pass universal health care legislation only to have it vetoed by Gov. Schwazenagger.
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California lags most other states when it comes to the percentage of working residents with health insurance coverage, according to a report released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The study ranks California 32nd among states. In 2003, the most recent year for which data are available, California had 2.371 million uncovered workers, who represent 15.9 percent of the state's working population.
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Mr. Moore entered Senate Hearing Room 4042 at about 12:30 p.m. to a roar of applause from the packed gallery -- mostly nursing professionals and doctors who support the single payer solution to the coverage crisis. Outside, on the capitol lawn, a much larger crowd of thousands stood and cheered his image on big screens set up in multiple tents spread out over the lawn in the hot afternoon sun. Although Senator Kuehl had asked for quiet in the hearing room, no such rule applied on the lawn and the crowd screamed and chanted its approval of Mr. Moore's informational presentation.
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Wearing his signature open collared white shirt and dumpy dark suit, Mr. Moore stood before the dais and told stories of people made bankrupt or homeless by the very insurers who were supposed to protect them. Again and again, Moore returned to his theme that there is no room for profit when a life hangs in the balance and that there is something deeply corrupted and wrong with a society that will not even care for its own children.
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"What happened to us?" Moore asked with passion. "If too many people are left to fall through the cracks, the whole of a society suffers." We become profit driven to the point of negligent murder. "We know right from wrong," Moore railed at the insurance industry. And again, the warm June afternoon erupted into applause.
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Moore's remarks were followed by a showing of Sicko in Sacramento. The film is tough to take. It is hard to watch us be our own ruin. Chekouras was among the many who left the experience enraged, in tears, and ready to fight.
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[The opinions expressed here are those of Peaches Chekouras and do not necessarily reflect those of Ruby Montana or the Coral Sands]