Clarence Page
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com --
HOLLYWOOD has found its own "axis of evil." It is not drug lords, the Red Menace or the Klingons.
It is managed health care.
In "John Q," which opened Friday, Denzel Washington plays John Q. Archibald, a peace-loving father and working-class Everyman, until his employer-sponsored health plan fails to cover the $250,000 heart transplant his son needs to stay alive.
With his son's life hanging in the balance, frustration drives John Q to put the hospital "under new management" at gunpoint. Police surround the place. So do TV cameras. Sympathetic bystanders cheer him on. It's "Dog Day Afternoon" with a kid's life, instead of a bank robbery, at stake.
Despite widespread revulsion since Sept. 11 over the sort of terrorism that this plot summary sounds like, Hollywood moguls have good reason to think this story will lure a lot of backsides into theater seats. It is hard to go broke, it seems, by demonizing health insurers.
Some audiences broke out in applause over Helen Hunt's character's cursing tirade against HMOs in "As Good As It Gets." Matt Damon milked similar reactions as the young lawyer who goes after a cold-hearted health insurance company that doesn't want to pay for a dying boy's treatment in the movie version of John Grisham's "The Rainmaker."
Warren Beatty in "Bulworth" plays a Washington politician who disregards campaign contributors, stops playing the Washington political games and launches a serious crusade to get universal health care. Washington regulars take all of this as evidence that he has gone insane, which, in fact, he has.
With its popularity down somewhere near that of Enron stock, the HMO industry is trying to put a good face on the bold assault waged by "John Q." As the movie opened, the American Association of Health Plans launched a newspaper ad campaign with the headline: "John Q/ It's not just a movie/ It's a crisis for 40 million people who can't afford health care."
Then the ad deflects the movie's fire to a new target: "Instead of offering solutions, some in Washington are making the problem worse - pointing fingers and even proposing new laws that will make it harder for employers like John Q's to provide quality, affordable health care. Sometimes it seems like health plans are the only ones trying to make health care more affordable."
That last little sentence aims to turn the industry's biggest lemon into lemonade. To make health care more "affordable," you have to cut costs, which means some people are denied care.
Which is why, as exaggerated as the melodrama of movies like "John Q" may be, it resonates with audiences as a familiar nightmare: health plan anxiety.
At least 40 million Americans were uninsured at the end of January, according to government estimates. Another 39 million are considered underinsured. Two million lost their health insurance in the last 13 months as unemployment rose and health care costs are expected to jump about 16 percent this year.
A week before "John Q" opened, the problem of the uninsured brought major union and corporate heads together in a coalition campaign called "Covering the Uninsured" to declare a "crisis" and announce their joint lobbying effort for change.
Yet, despite their earnest declarations, the leaders of the groups, which included the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and the American Medical Association, admitted that they could not agree on a solution.
Like Congress, big labor and big corporations seem to be looking for leadership in finding a way out of our national health coverage woes. The big political problem for the uninsured is that they don't have a powerful lobbying group in Washington that can focus on their agenda.
In a speech to doctors in Milwaukee a few days before "John Q" opened, President Bush announced a $300 billion, 10-year health care reform proposal. Like his earlier proposals, it is a reform, not a revolution.
Among other goals, it would expand medical savings accounts to help people pay doctors' bills and offer new tax credits of up to $1,000 for individuals and $3,000 for a family to help the uninsured pay for coverage. He also is proposing to spend an additional $190 billion for Medicare over the next decade.
Not surprisingly, Democrats and some Republicans say these and other proposals in the Bush plan are inadequate for the growing needs they try to meet.
Still, the Bush proposal contains the seeds of an achievable compromise. The real question is whether Bush, who came somewhat reluctantly to the health care debate, can cut taxes, fight a war, raise defense spending and fix the cracks in our national health insurance system at the same time. Miracles like that don't even happen in the
Comment on JWR contributor Clarence Page's column by clicking here.
02/12/02: Father of 'Manchild' leaves lasting message
02/08/02: $nookering the reparations crowd
01/31/02: Prisoners of a War of Words
01/29/02: One more Enron woe: Al Sharpton & company
01/25/02: Searching for slaves in bin Laden's attic
01/22/02: Andrew Young's newest 'friend'
01/08/02: Hard-earned lessons from 9-11
12/18/01: Whatever happened to questions about the birds and the bees?
12/14/01: The "White Negro" Taliban?
12/07/01: Jackson's turn to gloat
11/27/01: Friendly warning from a lover of liberty
11/21/01: The face of hunger is changing
11/15/01: Our troubled sense of trust
11/08/01: Lessons about terror from the 'hood
11/06/01: Getting used to the 'new normal'
11/02/01: Wicked ways to make them talk
10/30/01: It's not just about bin Laden
10/26/01: More than mail fell between the cracks
10/23/01: Terrorists threaten urban recovery, too
10/18/01: Sometimes, assassination warranted
10/15/01: Self-censorship rises again
10/12/01: Contradictions illustrate the complicated nature of the new terrorism
10/05/01: Look who's 'profiling' now
10/01/01: Don't trash liberty to save it
09/28/01: Life, love and cell phones during wartime
09/24/01: How to catch an elusive terrorist
09/21/01: The war I was waiting for
09/17/01: When rage turns to hate
09/13/01: Terror attack tests US, let's give right response
09/06/01: U.S. should have stayed and argued
09/04/01: Columbine killer's parents get upclose and personal
08/31/01: Virtual kids? Log me out
08/28/01: Two Africans, one black, one white, same fight
08/23/01: Sharpton for president
08/20/01: Shaking up the rules on keeping secrets
08/16/01: Bush's u-turn on racial goals
08/09/01: Outsider Bubba comes 'in' again
08/06/01: Not ready for 'color-blindness' yet
08/02/01: Immigration timing couldn't be better
07/26/01: Summer of Chandra: An international traveler's perspective
07/17/01: Overthrowing a régime is only the beginning
07/10/01: Big Brother is watching you, fining you
07/05/01: Can blacks be patriotic? Should they be?
06/19/01: Get 'real' about marriage
06/12/01: Amos, Andy and Tony Soprano
06/07/01: Getting tough with the Bush Twins
06/05/01: Bringing marriage back into fashion
05/31/01: "Ken" and "Johnnie": The odd-couple legal team
05/24/01: Sharpton's challenge to Jackson
05/22/01: Test scores equal (a) MERIT? (b) MENACE? (c) ALL OF ABOVE?
05/17/01: Anti-pot politics squeeze the ill
05/15/01: Was Babe Ruth black?
05/10/01: U.N.'s torture caucus slaps Uncle Sam
05/08/01: 'The Sopranos' a reflection of our times
05/03/01: 'Free-fire' zones, then and now
05/01/01: War on drugs misfires against students
04/26/01: Another athlete gets foot-in-mouth disease
04/23/01: 'Slave' boat mystery reveals real tragedy
04/19/01: McVeigh's execution show
04/12/01: Not this time, Jesse
04/05/01: Dubya is DEFINITELY his own man, you fools!
04/02/01: Milking MLK
03/29/01: The candidate who censored himself?
03/22/01: "Will Hispanics elbow blacks out of the way as the nation's most prominent minority group?"
03/19/01: Blacks and the SATs
03/15/01: The census: How much race still matters in the everyday life of America
03/12/01: Jesse is a victim!
03/08/01: Saving kids from becoming killers
03/01/01: Parents owe "Puffy" and Eminem our thanks