THE HEALTHCARE MOVIE (86MIN, CANADA, USA)
DIRECTOR: LAURIE SIMONS
WORLD PREMIERE
The health care system in the United States is “broken”. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation not to provide universal health care to all its residents. The government in the United States has been trying to introduce comprehensive health care for over a century, and has experienced one failure after another. Lindsay Caron, college student in Portland, Oregon, travels to Vancouver, Canada, with a video camera and asks people on the street what they think of their health care system. She is shocked by what she hears. Almost everyone loves their system in Canada. Passionately. On the street interviews back in Portland, Oregon, reveal that people in the U.S. know little or nothing about Canada’s health care system. In Weyburn, Saskatchewan, actor John Nolan explains why he wrote a play about Tommy Douglas, the Greatest Canadian. “A lot of people did great things for Canada, but nobody had the kind of vicious opposition that this guy had to face, and accomplish all those things”.The Honorable Allan Blakeney and others describe the turmoil when Medicare was introduced in Saskatchewan in 1962, and the defining moment that ended the strike. Fast forward to the present, where four Canadian families (three from Edmonton) experience the benefits and peace of mind of Canada’s universal health care system. Meanwhile, in the U.S.,the forces against change are now much stronger and have much more at stake financially. It is easy to “wallow in despair”. Is there hope for the United States?