Editorials > Today's Filmwad Rant: Dear Movies, Realistic Depictions of Health Care Please?

35% of Americans ages 19-64 have no health insurance. Of the 66% who do have insurance, a large chunk of them have large premiums and complications with their coverage. Health Insurance is one of the main topics of debate for the upcoming presidential election. It was the topic of Michael Moore's last documentary. So with all that being said, why do movies still have one of the most unrealistic depiction of health care that exists?

It happens ALL THE TIME. A character gets shot…or is hit by a car…or is throttled by a super villain. He or she is then immediately rushed to the hospital, where their wounds are treated. Cut to…action in the next scene…

But wait, rewind that for a second. No one made the character wait in a long line. No one made the character fill out insurance forms. And if the character didn't have insurance, no one kicked said character out of the hospital, where he or she could toil in their own pain as they walked home.

"Waaait a minute…" I'm sure you're yelling at the screen, right now. "If they threw in scenes like that, it'd eff up the flow of the film, making things boring! Don't mess with our movies!" And under most circumstances, I'd agree. I'm one of those people who notices every last little bit of product placement in a movie (like, why is Spider-Man always drinking Dr. Pepper??)

But I think MOST of us can agree that the health care system needs reform (whether that be through universal health care, a drop in prices for pharmaceuticals and premiums, or just cleaning up wait times and keeping hospitals in check).  And I think we could get even more people to stop being so damned apathetic about the system if our fun, fluffy entertainment reflected the reality of what's going on.

Look, it worked with smoking. After years of lobbying, people like Rob Reiner got the MPAA to give films that featured characters smoking R ratings. That's a GOOD thing, because a kid seeing his role model smoking is far worse than hearing him say "fuck." I think my cause, my rant here, is more important than the no smoking lobby.

Sure, most filmmakers won't want to do what I'm proposing…just letting characters get unrealistically healed in movie magic hospitals is easy. But hopefully a few filmmakers (and more than a few movie fans) will demand that the reality of our flawed system is depicted.