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Still SiCKO Five years after release of the seminal documentary, the film���s subjects reunite to discuss how little has improved in our healthcare system. BY DONNA SMITH W e were glad to be reunited, but it was bittersweet. Nine of the patients who were subjects in Michael Moore���s 2007 documentary film SiCKO about the broken U.S. healthcare system gathered in Philadelphia on June 30 to reconnect and educate the public that, five years later, Americans��� access to healthcare has not improved and, if anything, gotten worse.�� I was one of those patients. This five-year reunion, themed ���Still SiCKO After All These Years,��� was all about the SiCKO patients and what has happened to us in the years since the movie hit the big screen and opened up the eyes of millions of people to the absurdity, greed, and malice of health insurance corporations. The film was an instant sensation, and National Nurses United RNs were instrumental in promoting SiCKO and using it as a conversation starter about what���s wrong with a healthcare system that is run for profits, not for patients. In the film, Moore contrasted our corporate-driven system to more efficient and effective government-run ones in other industrialized countries throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. Sharing the stage in Philadelphia were Reggie Cervantes, 9/11 first responder; Dawnelle Keys, mother of baby daughter Mychelle who died when refused treatment in an out-of-network hospital; Julie Pierce and Tracy Pierce, Jr., wife and son of the late Tracy Pierce, who died when denied a bone marrow transplant; Adrian Campbell Montgomery, who slipped over the border into Canada with her little daughter, Aurora, when she couldn���t secure cancer 18 N AT I O N A L N U R S E care in Michigan;��myself and my husband Larry, who went bankrupt though we were insured as we fought for healthcare access; and Lee Einer, the film���s healthcare industry whistle-blower.��Billy Maher, another 9/11 first responder, also came to Philadelphia but was under the weather and couldn���t be on stage. The evening���s events were emceed by Patricia Eakin, RN, of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) and Chuck Pennacchio, executive director of Health Care 4 All Pennsylvania.��The opening portion of the program featured welcoming remarks by Michael Lighty, director of public policy for National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association, who framed the evening���s proceedings by talking about the nurses��� tour back when SiCKO was released and the ongoing work NNU/CNA is doing to bring improved Medicare for all, for life, to everyone.��Almost five years ago to the day of the reunion, nurses traveled down the East Coast in a shrink-wrapped SiCKO bus to promote the film as it opened in cities from New York to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and then in Chicago.�� What was most telling was how many of us (we call ourselves American ���sickos���) struggled even to travel to the reunion and relied on donated support to do so.��Starting months before the Philadelphia event, the SiCKO patients set up fundraising pages and sent emails seeking support.��Director Michael Moore offered his help, and as the evening unfolded, the audience learned that these brave souls who have already bared their struggles for the entire world to see on the big screen were once again willing to push the agenda and demand their voices be heard. My fellow film subjects have continued to experience great trauma in their lives following the film���s release. Reggie finally has W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G JUNE 2012