John Q
Directed by Nick Cassavetes
With Denzel Washington, Anne Heche, Robert Duvall and James Woods
At major cinemas
REVIEW BY MARTHA GRUELLE
John Q is a drama about a man's love for his child and his desperate attempt to save the boy. But the story is premised on a refreshingly real-life dilemma: working people's struggle for access to health care in the US.
Denzel Washington is John Q. Archibald, a factory worker cut back to part-time hours. When he suddenly learns that his young son has a heart condition that will be fatal without a transplant, Archibald discovers the gaping holes in the US health "safety net".
At a dramatic moment, Archibald yells: "People who are sick deserve help!". It is a point that seems obvious to us all but it is immaterial in a market-based, for-profit health care system.
The movie's premise works because so many Americans have faced an insurer's denial of care (though seldom in so life-threatening circumstances). A 2000 Consumer Reports survey found that nearly 40% of US health insurance fund members reported difficulty getting needed care.
John Archibald's family simply experiences the worst extremes of a bad system: the shifting sands of employment-based health care; the mirage of insurance coverage that doesn't cover vital needs; the maze of paperwork for insurance appeals; the inadequte programs set up to patch the system; the well-paid doctors and administrators who explain how making people healthy would be "too expensive". All this is too familiar to those in the US who have needed health care beyond what they could afford.
Unforunately, the characters, good and bad, are exaggerated and simplified. Most hospital administrators, unlike the stony one in John Q, would feel terrible as they condemn the boy to death for his family's inability to pay. And even in the worst system, few doctors would deliberately overlook evidence of a potentially fatal heart condition.
No-one will be tempted to read John Q as a full analysis of the US health system's woes. It leaves out the role of the big drug and medical supplies companies. It doesn't address the impact of hospital understaffing. And even though Archibald's family is black, the film only hints at the system's disproportionate impact on people of colour.
The movie doesn't get beyond stating the principle — "Free health care for everybody!" (Archibald's proclamation as he takes over the emergency room) — to find the solution.
Still, John Q embodies all our reasonable fears about whether health care will be there when we need it. Archibald's wife's angry, "You've got to do something!", is meant for all of us.
[Abridged from US Labor Notes (<http://www.labornotes.org>). Martha Gruelle is a member of the Michigan Universal Health Care Access Network.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 22, 2002.
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