Sicko, Healthcare rally coverage

Sara Crocker of the Denver Post did a good job covering the story. She led with Moore telling the audience that we'll see single-payer universal care within our lifetimes (wait — we're hoping for 2008!) and she listed Moore's charge to politicians: "to take a four-part pledge: to support free, universal care; to eliminate private insurers; to regulate phamaceutical companies; and to refuse money from the health care industry. 'In fact, let's get the money out of politics all together,' he said."

Raj Chohan of CBS4Denver also did a good job, ending with this:

Critics of the movie say it fails to critically explore the potential downsides of a single payer system including delays in care because of what they call the rationing of service.

"I'd be willing to wait a couple of weeks," said Moore. "Statistics Canada, which is the governmental statistics office in Ottawa will tell you the following: there is a 4 week wait in Canada to see specialist. There's a 3 week wait for diagnostic testing. And there's a 4 week wait for elective surgery."

Moore's movie appears to make a compelling case for a single payer socialized system. And it underscores a real problem with health care in the United States.

Now there's some radical reporting: there is a real problem with healthcare in the U.S.

Fox got it wrong. Their reporter — or maybe his editor — repeated an earlier, erroneous story that Moore was here to support a nurses group. Fran Ricker, the new director of the Colorado Nurses Association, called me Sunday morning to apologize for having been out of town and out of the loop on the rally. She was wonderful, and did everything she could Sunday morning to get nurses to the rally.

In fact, Moore was in Colorado to promote "Sicko" and to do that while promoting single-payer universal healthcare. The Colorado Nurses Association does support single-payer universal healthcare, and we at Health Care for All Colorado are lucky to be working with them. They have clout — witness the fact that the Denver Post edited out the names of all the other sponsoring organizations for the rally.