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Cuba says
Moore's 'SiCKO' highlights its humanism |
June 17, 2007 HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): Cuba's
Communist government joined the debate surrounding Michael
Moore's new documentary "SiCKO" on Friday, saying the film
will allow the world to get a glimpse of the humaneness of
its health system.
The film, due to open in the United States on June 29,
indicts the US health-care system as putting the profits of
insurance and pharmaceutical companies ahead of public
health concerns.
To make his point, Moore traveled to Cuba in March with
three volunteers who worked in the ruins of New York's World
Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said the three
are now suffering health problems tied to that work and are
struggling to get appropriate treatment in the United
States.
In Cuba, the film says, they received exemplary treatment at
virtually no cost.
Since coming to power in 1959, Fidel Castro's government has
built a universal health-care system that has won praise
around the world for delivering results on par with
wealthier developed nations'.
"There's no doubt that a documentary by someone of Michael
Moore's stature will help the world see the deeply humane
principles of Cuban society," Cuban Health Minister Jose
Ramon Balaguer said on a public Web cast.
The US Treasury Department is investigating Moore's trip to
Cuba as a potential violation of Washington's long-standing
embargo, which tightly restricts US citizens' travel to the
Communist nation. |
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Moore, who has stashed a copy of the documentary in Canada
in fear that the US government might confiscate it, has said
he did not break any laws because he traveled to Cuba for a
"journalistic endeavor."
"SiCKO" was met with a standing ovation at this year's
Cannes Film Festival, where Moore won the highest honor in
2004 for his anti-Bush polemic "Fahrenheit 9/11," which
became the most successful US documentary of all time.
But some critics have suggested he may have painted an
overly rosy portrait of Cuban health care, which is hampered
by medicine shortages and run-down equipment.
Balaguer said Moore's portrayal was accurate and denied that
Havana collaborated with him to tout the Cuban health
system. "Our country ... is always open to those cases that,
from a humane point of view, may need the services of our
public health care," he said.
Besides providing universal coverage for its own citizens,
Cuba has also sent doctors to more than 70 other countries.
Most recently, it has sent as many as 15,000 doctors to work
in the slums of Venezuela, its main political ally, in
exchange for oil supplies.
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