Susan Marie Fisher

Michael Moore

Michael Moore's debut piece for The Awful Truth was about a man who was denied a pancreas transplant by Humana, a HMO.

Now, while I believe the press and attention may have been instrumental in Humana approving dual kidney/pancreas transplants in general, his piece just rubs me the wrong way.

I guess my biggest beef with Michael is that people treat his work as a documentary, when it is in fact sensationalism.

In the piece, viewable on youtube, Michael claims that the patient could die tomorrow and stages a mock funeral at Humana headquarters.
No matter how uncontrollable your diabetes is, it is very very unlikely that you are going to die tomorrow because of it. His worst complication was hypoglycemia unawareness (which I have too) - and while it may not be fun, the safe secure alternative to a transplant is to test your blood sugar hourly (even setting alarms at night if you are that unstable). So the claim underlying the whole piece is a fallacy. Notably, Humana HAD approved the kidney transplant that he required, just balked at the pancreas. If I were on the receiving end, I too would be devastated and crying foul. But I still wouldn't claim that I was going to die tomorrow.

Second, he claims with the $28 million the execs were paid in a given year, that 473 transplants could have been performed by Humana. This claim is ridiculous. It doesn't even account for the cost of the surgery, nonetheless the years of treatment required after transplant.

I haven't seen Sicko yet - I will see it and I will probably resonate with much of what it says... but you have to take it with a grain of salt. The facts just aren't complete.

Posted by sfisher at July 11, 2007 07:55 PM