Spring Break
Good for your health
Heller Dean Stuart Altman on Michael Moore, the Clinton family and the future of American healthcare
by Ariel Wittenberg
Features | 11/13/07
Posted online at 9:25 PM EST on 11/12/07
/ Last updated at 4:03 AM EST on 11/12/07
Stuart Altman, Dean for the Heller School of Social Policy and Management is a short man who somehow gives off an air of importance without seeming to realize how powerful he truly is. He dresses well, and his manner is warm and friendly. His voice is quiet, and when he talks, even about the complexities of health care, it feels like he's telling a bedtime story.
Mention the name Michael Moore, however, and you've got something else coming.
Altman, who has spent his life working to alleviate the American health care crisis, is infuriated by Moore's latest movie, Sicko.
"Well, for a while, I thought it amused me," he says. "But then I began to get really ticked off."
Even though Altman turns a light shade of purple when he says this, it's hard to not smile a little when he says the words ticked off. It just comes as a surprise.
Altman, who has met with hundreds of people about health care throughout his life-from doctors to heads of hospitals, from presidents to senators-is used to butting heads with people who don't agree with his solution.
But Moore, Altman says, is a different story.
According to Altman, Moore's film, which attempted to expose the American health care system as a corporate, self-indulgent moneymaking machine, presented information that is no longer true about health care in America today.
"We do have problems, and we need to deal with them. And he identified some of them," Altman says. "But he made it so simple that if we just had an all-government system, all our problems would go away. And that's just pure, unmitigated nonsense."
Along with oversimplifying the problem, Altman complains that Moore provided misinformation about health care in other countries and was especially upset about the part in the movie in which Moore takes some Americans to Cuba to be treated for various medical problems.
"He made it seem like, you know, in France, England and Canada, everybody is just happy and everything is wonderful, which is just not true," he says. "Cuba has one MRI machine, so you know, [Moore] brought them to the one hospital that has an MRI machine, and these people got care. It's just nonsense, pure nonsense. So, at the end of the day, I got really ticked off."
Mention the name Michael Moore, however, and you've got something else coming.
Altman, who has spent his life working to alleviate the American health care crisis, is infuriated by Moore's latest movie, Sicko.
"Well, for a while, I thought it amused me," he says. "But then I began to get really ticked off."
Even though Altman turns a light shade of purple when he says this, it's hard to not smile a little when he says the words ticked off. It just comes as a surprise.
Altman, who has met with hundreds of people about health care throughout his life-from doctors to heads of hospitals, from presidents to senators-is used to butting heads with people who don't agree with his solution.
But Moore, Altman says, is a different story.
According to Altman, Moore's film, which attempted to expose the American health care system as a corporate, self-indulgent moneymaking machine, presented information that is no longer true about health care in America today.
"We do have problems, and we need to deal with them. And he identified some of them," Altman says. "But he made it so simple that if we just had an all-government system, all our problems would go away. And that's just pure, unmitigated nonsense."
Along with oversimplifying the problem, Altman complains that Moore provided misinformation about health care in other countries and was especially upset about the part in the movie in which Moore takes some Americans to Cuba to be treated for various medical problems.
"He made it seem like, you know, in France, England and Canada, everybody is just happy and everything is wonderful, which is just not true," he says. "Cuba has one MRI machine, so you know, [Moore] brought them to the one hospital that has an MRI machine, and these people got care. It's just nonsense, pure nonsense. So, at the end of the day, I got really ticked off."
Be the first to comment on this story