It looks like Sicko is having quite an impact on some of the head honchos at Blue Cross. This lengthy memo by Barclay Fitzpatrick, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Capital Blue Cross, speaks of Michael Moore’s impact as a force to be reckoned with in the health insurance industry. From the memo:
You would have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore’s movie, he is an effective storyteller. In Sicko Moore presents a collage of injustices by selecting stories, no matter how exceptional to the norm, that present the health insurance industry as a set of organizations and people dedicated to denying claims in the name of profit. Denial for treatments that are considered “experimental” is a common story, along with denial for previous conditions, and denial for application errors or omissions. Individual employees from Humana and other insurers are interviewed who claim to have actively pursued claim denial as an institutionalized goal in the name of profit.
It’s interesting to consider the bubble that Barclay Fitzpatrick lives in. In this bubble, the profit motive is not a problem in serving people’s health care needs. The cases where the profit motive impacts the delivery of health care are rare. If they’re so rare, then why did hundreds of thousands of people respond when Michael Moore put out a call asking for stories of health care problems in the US? But back to Mr. Fitzpatrick and his analysis of how Blue Cross must market their response to the “misperceptions cultivated by the movie”:
There are 4 key areas of misperception cultivated by the movie that we should consider in any messaging strategy:
1. That the industry is all about HMO’s. Moore cultivates this further in his interviews. The reality is that HMO’s are a minority product and have been for some time.
2. The movie attacks insurers for a profit motive, but makes no distinction among for-profit and non-profit insurers, and in its execution places the Blue Plans together with the for-profit insurers.
3. All plans and employees – from leaders to service representatives – are painted as motivated by profit to deny claims, and only those with crisis of conscience have come forward to confess their sins.
4. Perhaps most damaging of all, Moore completely fails to address the most significant driver of health care costs – our own lifestyle choices – and seeks to focus attention and efforts on the alluring ‘quick-fix’ of universal health care. It has taken a generation of poor nutrition and exercise to get obesity and related health issues – and subsequent costs – to their current levels, and Moore’s movie fails to acknowledge the causal relationship or need to change (he briefly touches the subject in a non-memorable way). Contrast this to the recent Health Care Symposium held in Harrisburg – where a panel of representatives from Government, Insurance, Hospitals, Business, Physicians, and even Lawyers agreed on one thing – that there was no quick fix and that Health and Wellness was the critical area of focus.
Sounds like quite the unproductive Kumbayafest there in Harrisburg. Hey, I know — let’s all get together and blame the patient!
But back to Mr. Fitzpatrick and his helpful talking points for employees who are asked about Mr. Moore’s film. My favorite one was this:
2) The Blues recognize the need for improvement of both the coverage and delivery of healthcare. But the divisive tone set forth by Michael Moore and his movie “Sicko” is not helpful. Positive change to our healthcare system can be best achieved through shared responsibility, not recrimination. To ensure Americans have access to the best healthcare that is both timely, efficient, and of high quality, requires the collective contribution of all stakeholders – consumers, providers, employers and the government.
Let’s see, we’ve already done Kumbaya, now let’s all hold hands and sing The Barney Theme Song. You know — “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…” Except it’s a little more complicated than that. A “divisive tone” is necessary when insurance companies stand in the way of giving people needed health care. People are outraged at how poorly our health care system works, when we spend more than any country on the planet. Skulls are getting left in freezers for weeks while Medicaid bureaucracy payment issues go unresolved. Or, as in Moore’s film, an uninsured man must choose between reattaching his ring finger for $12,000 or his middle finger for $60,000. In Canada, they just put both fingers back on, no questions asked. Yet in this land of plenty, basic care is inaccessible to many.
Kmareka.com 
It’s all about selfishness.
The people who oppose universal care have insurance, and cannot possibly imagine they would ever lose it. They’re afraid that, with universal coverage, they might lose their privileged status and–horrors!–be treated just like everyone else.
Can’t have that, can we?
The same people who oppose this oppose unions, because they threaten our competitiveness. Well, I got news for y’all: we’re already sixth in the world, behind those Free-Market Stalwarts Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, and Denmmark in competitiveness. Plus, not having health ins puts US companies at a competitive disadvantage. Toyota recently decided to build a plant in Canada rather than the US because the US lacks gov’t health care.
There are no good reasons to oppose universal coverage; there are only ideological ones. And you’ve heard them all. It’s socialism (it’s not, but, according to BusinessWeek, the best health care system in the country is the VA, which is pure socialized medicine), there will be rationing (it exists already–see the story about choosing which finger to re-attach), there will be waiting lines (when’s the last time you tried to schedule an appointment with a specialist? Three months? Easy), and on and on and on.
I don’t like the label ‘consumer’ in any context, and it’s being applied to people in all situations. A person who is having a heart attack is not a ‘consumer’ who is in a position to shop around for the cheapest hospital. A person who is well-insured, and well-informed is still at a disadvantage when they are sick and need medical people to inform them and care for them, because no matter how much you surf the net you are not a practitioner. We have by necessity to invest a high level of trust in the people who care for us, and we will get better care if those people are not having to worry about reimbursement, or worse–distracted by greed.
So, you’re citing a Medicaid mishap as evidence of the need for government-sponsored healthcare? No wonder it’s so difficult to have conversations about this stuff across the ideological divide.
If you’re referring to the ‘skull in the freezer’, I choose that story because it’s so extreme. I don’t mean to disparage Medicaid either. It’s a safety net and a lifesaver, and I’ve seen a lot of Rhode Islanders who would not have been able to get any health care without it. But the woman in the story was looking to Medicaid because it was the only insurer that would even consider taking her on. She had no private insurance.
In colonial times we had privatized firefighters. If you didn’t pay your fee, the guys would come out and laugh at you while your house burned. Eventually they figured out that in a city full of wooden houses you could lose the whole block if one house was uninsured. That’s our health care system now, everyone is scrambling to get coverage from work or some program. If we ever have another epidemic we’ll see how dangerous this is. For now, we’re bearing hidden costs from people out of work due to health problems that could be treated.