Michael Moore on Health Care: Kucinich Is Too Moderate, Cuba's Our Model

May 25th, 2007 1:36 PM

Just how leftist is Michael Moore on health care as he promoted his new "Sicko" documentary? Time found out:

TIME: Of the declared presidential candidates, down to the Dennis Kucinich level, say, who do you think has the best health-care plan? Including Kucinich? We could include him.

Michael Moore: Then Kucinich, but he doesn’t go far enough. He supports what he’s calling a single- payer nonprofit plan, but from my read, it would still allow [private] entities to control things, as opposed to the government. What’s wrong with the government? The right wing and the G.O.P. have done a wonderful job brainwashing people that government doesn’t work, and then, as Al Franken says, they get elected and proceed to prove the point. [Laughs.]

And then, this:

TIME: You also speak rhapsodically about the French and Cuban systems and travel to Cuba/>/>, where you interview Che Guevara’s daughter. France/>, Cuba/>/>, Che. Are you going out of your way to annoy the right?

Michael Moore: I give people more credit than the media and the political machine running this country do. The story line is: France, bad; France, cowards. What crime did France/>/> commit? We wouldn’t have had this country without their support in the Revolution. They gave us that statue that sits out in New York/> Harbor/>/>. They responded immediately after 9/11. And they remain eternally grateful for what we did during World War II.

As for Cuba/>/>, yes, when I’ve got a film crew there, they’re going to show us their best. But there’s a reason the World Health Organization ranks their health-care system [among] the best in the Third World and that people from Latin America/> come there for their health care. There’s also a reason Cubans live on average a month longer than we do. I’m not trumpeting Castro or his regime. I just want to say to fellow Americans, “C’mon, we’re the United States/>/>! If they can do this, we can do it.”