It has been five years since the release of Michael Moore’s documentary “SiCKO,” which portrayed the American health-care system as being in shambles while lauding the systems in Europe and Cuba. And in the wake of Thursday’s Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare, Moore now believes the United States is on track to catch up with those systems.
On Thursday’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” on MSNBC, Moore went on a victory lap, declaring there is no turning back now.
“It’s a huge day,” Moore said. “It’s a great victory. Now, as you know, you and I were very critical of the bill that got passed because we thought, you know, it was fairly watered down and not as far as it should go. And it’s going to need to go further in the years to come, obviously. And we all need to keep working toward a true universal health-care system that doesn’t leave 26 million people uninsured, as the current law does now, and as you so wonderfully and eloquently pointed out on your show last night.”
“But having said that, I mean, our side, we get so few victories that it’s important to celebrate when the ball gets moved down the field,” he continued. “Maybe you and I want the ball to move 50 yards down the field, and maybe it only went 20 yards down the field, but it moved down the field. And that’s the big news of the day — I think, is that there’s no going back now.”
Moore praised Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for going “the extra mile” and coming up with the tax clause in his majority opinion.
“Right, one of their own on their side of the political fence did the right thing,” Moore said. “I’m sure a lot of them are upset tonight — people that, conservatives, Republicans, people on the right. But at some point, I guess, I don’t know, maybe Mr. Roberts is a man of conscience and part of that conscience says that it would be immoral to upend this bill. What was so great about this, Lawrence is that — not just that he sided with the liberals. That would have been enough to just kind of blow all of our minds, right? But he then — but he was the one who actually wrote the majority opinion. And not only that, he felt that the government didn’t really make its primary argument about the Commerce Clause adequately. So he went and tried to help them essentially write their paper for them and came up with the tax clause. I mean, that — he went the extra mile to make this happen.”
Moore went on to reiterate his belief that the momentum toward universal health care will be too much for the Republican Party and conservatives to stop, so he advised them to get on the bandwagon.
“OK, we’ve got this piece of it,” Moore declared. “Now let’s move forward and get the next piece and the next piece. There’s no going back, though. This — we’re on the path that — of leading toward this universal health care. We’re not on the path back to Oliver Twist. Those days are gone. And, the Republicans and conservatives who are sitting around thinking tonight, ‘Yes, we’re going to turn this thing around.’ I’m telling you friends, this is a huge locomotive. And as the American public experiences the parts of this bill that are really great, they’re not going to want to turn that train around. So you better get on the train or watch your party implode. That’s my words of advice.”