Though the movie is very much a fun action-adventure film, we want to make sure there is substance behind it. Something to leave and talk about. Through the plot of the film, we reinforce this again and again. It is set in Cleveland, a town that has been down on it luck for years. Manufacturing, the core of the city's economy, has rapidly disappeared. It is a town that continues to lose population. It has large sections of poor neighborhoods that spill outside the city and run far south, east and west in what is known as the Rust Belt and Appalachia. It's filled with many who work very hard. love their country, state and city, their families, but have forgotten that ingenuity has been the cornerstone of this country since it's founding. They are left open and vulnerable to the big corporations and enterprises as their only true options for services such as healthcare. This movie is built on the idea that our government has lost touch with its people in many ways. In H&H, the landscape has become one where the government has backed a single company and its offering to provide free healthcare to the public but nothing is further from the truth. The company is a machine that is able in its wake to chew up any other through acquisition and pushing out of business. It serves it's own bottom line, its stock price. That to me is the climate we live in. We wonder why it is so hard to keep a job these days but then we scream when we see our 401's taking a hit or dividends for the quarter not being the $0.20 per share they were supposed to. Companies don't serve their customers these days. They serve their stock price.
A great example would be a pharma company recently making news for developing two drugs that combat blindness. One cost $80 and is already on the market as a cancer fighting agent while the other costs $2000. Guess which one won the battle inside the company.
Healthcare premiums have risen at astronomical rates since 1995. HIPAA compliance was supposed to streamline treatments and information sharing. Instead, it has cluttered doctors' time and leaves little for the patient. Healthcare providers in many ways have veto power over the care they will cover WHILE still raising rates. Malpractice continues to grow. Drugs that could really help are often out of reach. Generics have to wait years until patents expire. Coverage is easily denied. People lose their jobs when family members become critically ill. As premiums go up, one would assume that it would cover more and we would pay less but ironically, co-pays and deductibles have doubled, tripled and quadrupled.
I'm not taking a red or blue stance on this movie. I believe government is greatly blinded by the issue. Maybe an $80 drug would clear their sight. It's unethical that 1.85 million declared bankruptcy last year due to medical bills. It's crazy that we have to chose our doctors and our plans and hope that they line up with the stars so we are "in network". It's absurd that just over 10 years ago vaccinations that have been around for years cost $115 for a child entering kindergarten when in 2008, that same set of vaccines now runs over $900!
We need to do something as a people! I was recently in the Amazon and witnessed care being given by doctors there for what they said was between $5 and $15 dollars a handout. They saw over 50 patients in one town within 2 hours while I sat and watched. Each was listened to carefully, treated and off they went. The doctor that was administering the treatment said what he was doing there that didn't even require a true license would have taken a week to get through in the states and would have cost each patient hundreds of dollars.
I am by far not saying that H&H has any answers in it. I am not saying that I have them. I certainly have some opinions. But what I do want with this movie is to raise the issue, it's right there in front of us. It needs to be dealt with and We The People are the ones that need to take action personally and hold our institutions and government accountable, as well as ourselves. Think about the issue. Write your congressman,. Open discussions. Ask "Why?". Do you own stock in any of these companies? Look back, how did we get here? There is a reason why history is important, more so to learn the mistakes rather than what worked. Just some thoughts.
Jeremy Hughes
Director
