We’ve gone back and forth this week, with me writing here at Big Hollywood and you Tweeting responses. The lastest from @GhostPanther came directly to @Wilson_Michael and you asked me a question. I have an answer, but I think there’s a better way to have this conversation. And that’s what this should be… a conversation that takes place within the arena of ideas.

Adam McKay

This is important stuff and I’m fascinated by how two fellow Americans can see the world so differently. We probably both think we believe in freedom and liberty. We likely both think that we should take care of the poor. I know we both believe everyone should get the very best health care possible. How we get there while keeping our nation free is up for debate.

So let’s do it. Let’s have the debate. I challenge you to debate me on health care reform.

You have access to any number of websites, I have Big Hollywood. I suggest we go two rounds. And I’ll even give you the last word. Let’s show everyone that two guys can have a civil, respectful debate. In the end, no one will win and I’m okay with that. But let’s lay out our arguments about how health care should work. Feel free to explore any political or economic areas you wish. Maybe people will learn something.

And just as an aside to my conservative Big Hollywood friends who’ve criticized Adam on this issue, I’d like to point out that he and his colleagues are not entirely unreasonable. As evidence, I’d ask you to just take a peek at this bit about environmental hysteria.

I know that you’re currently directing a film and life must be a little crazy at the moment. I’m respectful of that. So just tweet. Let me know whether or not you accept the challenge and when you can do it. If you can’t do it until January, I’ll wait.  It’ll be just like trying to see a doctor in Canada.

I look forward to the chance to step into the arena of ideas with you.

Take care,

Michael Wilson
@Wilson_Michael

We’ve gone back and forth this week, with me writing here at Big Hollywood and you Tweeting responses. The lastest from @GhostPanther came directly to @Wilson_Michael and you asked me a question. I have an answer, but I think there’s a better way to have this conversation. And that’s what this should be… a conversation that takes place within the arena of ideas.

Adam McKay

This is important stuff and I’m fascinated by how two fellow Americans can see the world so differently. We probably both think we believe in freedom and liberty. We likely both think that we should take care of the poor. I know we both believe everyone should get the very best health care possible. How we get there while keeping our nation free is up for debate.

So let’s do it. Let’s have the debate. I challenge you to debate me on health care reform.

You have access to any number of websites, I have Big Hollywood. I suggest we go two rounds. And I’ll even give you the last word. Let’s show everyone that two guys can have a civil, respectful debate. In the end, no one will win and I’m okay with that. But let’s lay out our arguments about how health care should work. Feel free to explore any political or economic areas you wish. Maybe people will learn something.

And just as an aside to my conservative Big Hollywood friends who’ve criticized Adam on this issue, I’d like to point out that he and his colleagues are not entirely unreasonable. As evidence, I’d ask you to just take a peek at this bit about environmental hysteria.

I know that you’re currently directing a film and life must be a little crazy at the moment. I’m respectful of that. So just tweet. Let me know whether or not you accept the challenge and when you can do it. If you can’t do it until January, I’ll wait.  It’ll be just like trying to see a doctor in Canada.

I look forward to the chance to step into the arena of ideas with you.

Take care,

Michael Wilson
@Wilson_Michael

Adam McKay

While Adam McKay has been so good at his job at times that he’s left me rolling on the floor unable to breathe, and I think Ferrell is funny as hell, I am astonished that a self-righteous multimillionaire like McKay would tell you that you have to do something by force that he won’t do by choice.

That is cynicism in its purest form. McKay presumes that people are inherently bad and that they must be forced to do what is “good” or “noble” or “decent.” He presumes that human beings are hardwired to be un-compassionate and uncaring. Cynicism is a lie and it’s easy to convince others to be cynics right along with you. You can go on hating your fellow humans and you can all be miserable together, searching for a villain to direct your hate toward (like a CEO).

In his Tweet, McKay says that my “argument” was “sub-moronic.” What a profound retort. Instead of addressing the issue I raised – which is basically, “Why don’t guys like McKay and Ferrell actually DO something meaningful like buy tens of thousands of uninsured Americans an insurance plan for a year or so, rather than simply bitching about evil insurance executives?” – McKay dismisses me as stupid.

I believe that people are good for the most part – even those nasty CEOs . But I’m so tired of people telling me they’re “fighting” for something they already have the power to change. Adam McKay doesn’t care about poor people needing insurance. If he did, he’d buy them insurance. He’s rich and he could actually do it if he wanted to. What Adam McKay clearly cares about is that people in his social circles THINK he cares about poor people who need insurance.

If he genuinely cares, there is NO EXCUSE for Adam McKay to not go out right now and buy people some health coverage.  I wonder how much he will contribute to the soon-to-be-formed Will Ferrell Health Insurance Trust. I would be so, so proud if my “sub-moronic” argument resulted in guilting a few very rich cynics into buying health insurance for a lot of people who could use it, but I’m guessing he’ll do nothing but Tweet about the crazy libertarian who trashed him in that right-wing Hollywood blog.

Adam McKay, I know you’re reading this, so this is a direct appeal to you. DO SOMETHING THAT HELPS PEOPLE! BUY THEM SOME INSURANCE! Take a measly $500,000 and start with one hundred families in Detroit or LA or Topeka. Buy them a quality plan that pays their medical bills for a year. Then get a few of your friends to do the same thing. If you want to truly help people pay for services, lead by example and change things. And if you’ve already done so, let us know you’re leading by example.

After calling me “sub-moronic,” McKay says that 20,000 people die every year because insurance companies deny their claims. That’s just bullshit. Maybe he is citing the Harvard study that showed a correlation to a higher early death rate among those with no insurance, but I read that study and the authors were very careful to say that it was a matter of people choosing to not go to the doctor because they didn’t want to pay for the services and that there was no causation and it had nothing to do with evil insurance executives denying claims. Adam McKay just pulled that statistic out of nowhere. Why not say insurance executives kill 50 million people every day?

If you want to claim that something is killing people, as you did in your tweet, look no further than government-run health care. Here’s a story that illustrates the point.

Vera Wescott was a single-mother who worked in a factory and sprinted home during her half-hour lunch break to check on her kids during the summers. She had no high-school diploma and late at night after making dinner, cleaning the house and putting the kids to bed, she worked and worked, until she’d earned it. She went on to have a nice quiet life, remarrying a man named John, and the two traveled together, eventually retiring. But as they aged, the two decided to return to Canada so that their health care would be provided for. In the summer of 2004, Vera slipped in her apartment and was taken to a Canadian hospital. While there, they discovered that she had mid-stage, but treatable colon cancer. But because the government of Canada has to “cut waste” (sound familiar?) to have enough money to treat people, Vera was told she would need to wait 6 months for treatment. She was sent to a Convalescent Home near Toronto where she died in September.

I was a pallbearer at Vera’s funeral. She was my grandmother.

In the United States of America, her cancer would have been treated, and the treatment would’ve begun on the day they discovered it regardless of her insurance or ability to pay.

Adam McKay has never had to lower his grandmother’s casket into the earth because the government, acting as the final arbiter of life and death, decided it was time for her to die so that they could worry about someone a little younger or a little more healthy. I don’t expect him to understand.

I’m a big fan of comedy. I’m a stand-up junkie, growing up on late-night HBO comedy specials (I’d seen everything Carlin had done by age 11). I got into film making because Kevin Smith made it accessible through foul, filthy and hilarious dialogue that has always hit me where I live. And I don’t believe anything is off limits. It just strikes me as strange that people with extraordinary talent like Ferrell and company would be so off-the-mark with a piece that dives into the political world so deeply.

The irony of the piece is so clear to EVERYONE who sees it. Aside from the unsupported and false claim that 80% of Americans support government-run health care, Ferrell and company decide to pick on the rich executives who clearly make their money preying on innocent victims and drinking the blood of babies without offering the world anything in return… except, of course, for a service that, when paid for (as all services should be) saves lives and keeps you from losing everything you own when you get sick. The irony here is that Will Ferrell earns $20 million a picture (yup, even for “Land of the Lost”). Donald Faison (”Scrubs”), Jon Hamm (”Mad Men”) and others join in the fun as well.

We’re talking about net earnings in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The actors and comedians in the PSA could literally buy health insurance for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of uninsured Americans. And they don’t even have to wait for the government to take their money at gunpoint. They can just do it. And they should. It’s clearly being positioned as a moral issue, so is it immoral for these folks to hoard money while children are suffering?

Well, the answer is “no.” It’s their money. And I think Will Ferrell should be able to keep as much of his dough as possible, even if he uses it to buy a mini-zoo in his back yard for exotic animals like a white tiger or Pygmy horses. If he chooses to buy me and a hundred thousand or so of my fellow uninsured Americans some insurance, it would go a long way toward establishing credibility. It would also prove that we don’t need government to force Americans to help each other.

Which, putting the bullshit statistics, hypocrisy, and not-so-funny execution of the piece aside, is what bothers me the most.

The President keeps talking about “service” when he really means “government forcing you to do things.” I have debated health care with every one of my liberal friends who is willing to engage. And I always ask them the same question when they support the government-run plan. It goes like this: “I don’t have health insurance. Will you buy it for me for just one year?” I ask the question seriously. I mean it. I’d happily accept the gift from someone who wants to help. But they always backpedal. They always refuse.

Why? Because they have mistaken compassion for force. They believe that government will force someone else to pay, that they will not be affected, and that it’s okay because “they” or “the rich” have more than “they” need. But “they” have earned what “they” have, and so have Ferrell and his FOD pals.

The question is whether the folks who preach the message of forcing you to “give” to others are actually willing to do it on their own. Do they really care about those with less or only about appearing to care? I’ll wait with baited breath for the Will Ferrell Insurance Foundation to send a check. But I’ll probably be waiting a while.