Friday, August 24, 2007

Michael Moore Unveils 'Sicko' in Italy, Praising Italian System- Warns of Tinkering

The ANNOTICO Report

Michael Moore, US documentary maker ,of "Sicko" targeting health care in the United States, praised Italy's system as one of the world's best but warned against complacency.

"Please present to me one Italian who has lost their home because they got sick,"  "Medical bills now in the United States are the number one reason for personal bankruptcy ... for homelessness."

Michael Moore Unveils 'Sicko' in Rome

ABS-CBN News

From Agence France-Presse

August 24, 2007

ROME - US documentary maker Michael Moore, in Rome on Friday for the release of his latest film "Sicko" targeting health care in the United States, praised Italy's system as one of the world's best but warned against complacency.

"Please present to me one Italian who has lost their home because they got sick," Moore said at a news conference attended by Italian Health Minister Livia Turco. "Medical bills now in the United States are the number one reason for personal bankruptcy, ... for homelessness."

Referring to Turco, he quipped: "She's the minister of health and I'm the minister of un-health."

Noting that 50 million Americans have no health insurance, Moore said: "All health care systems have problems, but at least you have a health care system that covers everyone. That's a human right, isn't it?"

The 53-year-old filmmaker repeatedly slammed Italy's right-wing former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for slashing spending on health care, urging his centre-left successor Romano Prodi, who narrowly won elections last year, to "clean up the mess that Berlusconi left behind."

Moore jokingly apologized for referring frequently to Italy as number two, behind France, in a 2000 World Health Organization ranking that placed the United States at number 37 in performance despite leading in spending on health care.

He suggested that Italy, which already "beat France on the football field" to win last year's World Cup, could become number one in health care by making pasta from "whole-grain flour instead of processed flour, which turns to sugar in your metabolism."

Moore, who won an Oscar in 2003 for "Bowling for Columbine" and the Palme d'Or at Cannes for "Fahrenheit 9/11" the following year, said "Humor is very necessary when you're living in dark times."

He warned of "dark forces at work backed by US capitalists and US corporations that are not doing much good in the world."

Commenting on new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Moore said his predecessor Jacques Chirac had intended "to dismantle the social state (but) when he tried to do that, people went out into the streets. So he became realistic. ... The same will happen with Mr. Sarkozy."

He added: "If you try to privatize things more, the more you try and do that, the more you are going to look like the United States.".....

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryID=89818

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