The only way Democrats may be able to salvage November, according to Michael Moore, is to “find their courage” this week, add a public option back to the health care bill and start passing as much liberal legislation as possible.
“Maybe they won’t win. But their boat is sinking. And when your boat is sinking, I think you have to take radical measures to stop it,” Moore said in an interview with TPMDC. “Don’t just sit there and watch it sink.”
Moore, who’s promoting the DVD release of his latest movie, said he’d like to film the midterm elections. Watching Democrats explain what they’ve done for the past two years, he laughed, will be “one of the greatest comedies.”
“I can only sit here and imagine how they’re gonna run,” he said. “They were handed the ball and couldn’t take it 10 yards down the field. They’re in for a huge ass-whooping.”
We asked Moore if the current health care bill is better than none at all.
“I just feel bad to hear a question like that, that that’s what we’ve come to in this country. We accept the lowest possible way that we can do things,” he said.
What about instituting a universal single-payer system, something Moore advocated for in his 2007 movie Sicko, through a Congress that balked at a watered-down public option? According to Moore, all it takes is courage.
“We’ve been lied to for so long, and it works,” he said. “It’s amazing to watch a lie work. Only a strong leader, only a Roosevelt could confront this.”
The way to convince the people? Tell them it’ll save them money.
“They’re gonna have more money in their bank account at the end of the year,” Moore said. “I think the American people will absolutely go for it.”
As proof, he said, look at the recent rate hikes by insurance companies.
“Imagine Obama saying in front of a microphone, telling America he was gonna increase taxes 40 percent. There’d be riots in the streets,” Moore said. “But if a corporation comes along and decides to tax people by raising their premiums by 56 percent, people feel helpless and lost and nothing happens.”
“It’s immoral to attach profit motive” to health care, he said. The only way to fix it is to “remove the insurance companies.”
“It’s the only way to really pull ourselves out of the mess we’re in.”
