Donna Smith is best known as one of the documentary subjects of Michael Moore’s 2007 movie, "SiCKO." Her journalism career includes 15 regional awards from the AP Managing Editors. Donna now works as executive director of the Health Care for All Colorado Foundation, and co-chairs the Progressive Democrats of America’s national "Healthcare Not Warfare" campaign.
Protestors' Message Pretty Simple and Clear: Enough is Enough
No matter how the media folks seem befuddled by what they claim is a lack of clarity from those at the Occupy Wall Street and its solidarity events throughout the nation, I hear one clear and concise message from them all. I am not speaking for them, but I live ...
Keep It Simple, Keep It Real – Hundreds Arrested on Bridge as Hundreds Die at Home
Hundreds of Wall Street protestors were arrested yesterday on the Brooklyn Bridge. Even the mainstream media is reporting that. That in itself is a milestone. For many years, groups organized by one faction or one political party or one self-motivated organization or special interest or another have tried to grab ...
I Am Not Your Austerity Measure or Your Entitlement Cut
I am a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a wife. I am not an austerity measure – in Greece or in any other nation. I am a caregiver. I am a worker. I am a patient. I am a taxpayer. I am not an entitlement cut or a medical loss ...
It’s a Haunting Time for the WC
It’s nearly fall again. That means if we make it through October and Halloween and early November, the holidays and all the expectations will be bearing down on us again. But, wait, those years are long gone. I failed to meet the expectations. I couldn’t keep a home for us. ...
America 2011: Whack-a-Mole (or a Poor Person) for Pleasure, Profit and Power
America 2011: Whack-a-Mole (or a Poor Person) for Pleasure, Profit and Power By Donna Smith The front page of the New York Times this morning said it all for me. Right column: 2.6 million more join the ranks of the poverty-stricken in America. Center-right column: Democrats see the perils of cutting healthcare ...
Worker’s Ode to Labor Day 2011
Work ‘till you drop. Stop. Drop. Get up. Do it again.Work. Be grateful to be working. Work harder. Work ‘till you drop. Stop. Drop. Get up. Do it again.Give up time with growing children. Work. Keep bills paid. Years pass. Chances pass.Work ‘till you drop. Stop. Drop. Get up. Do ...
The Hurricane’s Eye Wall: Andrew to Irene
As the early rain bands of Hurricane Irene inch into my neighborhood this morning, I am caught off guard by the flood of terror and emotion surfacing for me that is disproportionate to the impending threat (at least at this moment). The memories of the pain and the fear spent ...
Hurricane Irene: Finally A Jobs Plan We Can Believe In
While our friends on the left coast are chuckling about Tuesday’s 5.8 on the Richter scale earthquake on the East Coast and its apparent lack of sufficient disaster drama on the Hollywood scale, tens of millions of us are gearing up for Hurricane Irene’s strike. From North Carolina to Maine, ...
This Un-Labor Day: Disasters Natural and "Un"
Not earthquake, not hurricane, not blizzard, not dark of night – no, it’s not the Postal Service, it’s the nurses you and I expect to be there for us and with us and among us when health disasters strike us without any warning or with as much lead time as ...
Nurses say: Come Join Us on September 1 on Main Street, Don’t Return to DC
Main Street, USA – Nurses call their neighbors and their elected officials to come to Main Street on September 1, even as many of the elected officials continue chiding one another about returning to DC. Main Street is where the damage has been done and is being felt most deeply; DC ...
How Many Dead Children for Profit?
To the right is a photo of a dead child from Pakistan, Syed Wali Shah, 7, that Michael Moore’s site featured when showing the continued prospects of civilian deaths attributable to U.S. drone strikes. Syed is one of 168 children killed in seven years of CIA drone strikes, said the ...
Financially Motivated Murder-Suicides Trumpet Silent Suffering
Twice in the past week, those of us who live in the metro Washington, D.C. – Baltimore corridor have seen reports about murder-suicides that had at least some component of causation related to the dead families’ money problems. In one instance, a single mother who was also a psychologist killed ...
Making Ourselves Sick with Their Worry? Not Any More
For some time now, my disabled and retired machinist husband has watched with amusement when stock markets crash and rebound and broad financial indicators stutter and stammer. He has lived a lifetime of economic stress and difficulty and never once has he seen his personal wealth or lack thereof be ...
Dysfunction Junction Kills – Resolution is Not Absolution
By the time this is published anywhere, maybe the dysfunctional folks in Washington, D.C., will have reached some sort of deal that will prevent the second financial apocalypse the American people and the world have been threatened with in less than three years. But just because the current crisis reaches ...
Gaslight 2011: Making Us Clamor for Our Own Demise
Michael Moore is hosting his film festival in Michigan this week, and I sure hope they are showing “Gaslight” from 1944. The American electorate would be wise to watch it again and to put into context the messages of our elected officials as they work us to do their bidding ...
Why It All Sounds Like, “Blah, Blah, Blah”
When push comes to shove everybody gets their political cover moments in Washington, DC. Everybody, that is, except the average working-class American. The sound and fury surrounding debt ceilings and deficit reduction swirl on multiple levels, activists in the conservative right claim advancement and activists in the disenfranchised liberal left ...
‘Let ‘Em Eat Peas’ Can Be the Modern Age Elitist Mantra
It has been a challenging week for many people. While our elected officials have been broadly reported to be at odds about exactly how to raise the debt ceiling or not, millions of Americans have no work, are running out of ways to keep their homes – rented or owned, ...
Patients in the United States have known for a long time that they are not the decision makers in matters related to their personal health and well-being. Just as for-profit corporate interests control elections, candidates, public officials, policies and enforcement, for-profit health insurance companies control healthcare delivery. So when a ...
Why Not a Generation of Graft Dodgers?
If ever there were a crime being committed on a massive level in which many of us are being forced to participate, this is it. The funneling upward of money from those who need it most to those who need it least and the gutting of our social safety net ...
If You Had A Stroke Tomorrow: What’s Your Situation?
Wrapped in my own gratitude for my husband’s safe journey through a difficult surgery this week, I listened as another patient and another family struggled with a less favorable course. And my heart still hurts for this stranger. I will never see him again in all likelihood, but his trauma ...
If Ever This Nation Needed the Healing Arts, It’s Now
Just a few times in my life, I have been witness to real artistry. And during those rare times, I am usually caught quite off-guard. An ordinary moment somehow slows down and the good we can do in the world and for one another becomes so beautifully possible and necessary. ...
Assault on U.S. Patients Accelerates, Fight Back Does Too
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions that stand to further enrich and protect the huge pharmaceutical companies, and the Obama administration made it more difficult for patients to appeal insurance company denials of care. And almost no one noticed or put up a fight about it. America’s ...
SiCKO’s 4th Anniversary – Heaven Can Wait, Wall Street Needs a Protest
We were on an airplane returning from the NYC Ziegfeld Theater premiere of Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary film, SiCKO, and I told my husband that if the plane went down and we died, I would now feel just fine about that. Our story, so like so many millions of other ...
Would We Like to Have a Trillion More Every Year and No Recession?
Is anyone listening? Republican fiscal conservatives? Democratic Blue Dogs? Taxpaying, flag waving, deficit hating, market loving friends from coast-to-coast? "That means if we just scrapped our system and adopted any other wealthy country's system, at a minimum we would have a trillion dollars more a year for pay raises, for investment ...
Stained Then Blamed for the Stain
It’s no secret that Americans think bankruptcy is for deadbeats, losers and folks with substandard moral character and work ethics. The stain of a personal bankruptcy carries far wider and deeper than a negative credit rating. For the rest of a bankrupt American’s life, the stain will be used as ...
Click here to suggest an article
June 6th, 2013
How Many Precious Gifts, Like Andrea Bocelli's, Murdered for Health Care Profits in America?
Last evening, I was lucky enough to attend the best concert I have ever seen or heard. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli was in Denver for ...
June 2nd, 2013
Colorado Launches Quest to End Health Care Carnage and Suffering
As May closed its grip -- finally -- on the health care dead and broke and June began to log its own death and bankruptcy ...
May 24th, 2013
How Many U.S. Dead for Health Care Profits Does It Take to Cause Alarm?
We keep winning the race to see who can charge the most for health care services around the world. We also keep winning the race ...
May 22nd, 2013
Aetna Needs Their Money, I Just Need Health Care
I lost my health coverage because I could not afford to keep paying the COBRA premiums. As soon as I lost my coverage, Aetna set ...
May 19th, 2013
Saturday Night Dead ---- Courtesy of the U.S. Health Care System
There are 123 fewer Americans watching and laughing at the 2013 season ender for Saturday Night Live tonight because they were killed by the U.S. health care ...
May 16th, 2013
Tornadoes, Suicide Bombs, and the U.S. Health Care Dead and Broke
The news today is grim, to be sure. Tornadoes in Texas with the dead and the missing, Roadside, suicide bombs in Afghanistan with U.S. casualties. ...
May 15th, 2013
Protecting Angelina's Honor as U.S. Health Care System Kills 123 People Daily
Yesterday I wrote about the recent revelations from Angelina Jolie about her double mastectomy. I said nothing ill-willed about the mega-star nor did I imply ...
December 24th, 2009
A Patient’s View of the Senate Christmas Healthcare Gift
So, all the great fanfare and all the king’s horses. The great and almighty U.S. Senate has spoken. I will have to buy private health ...
July 15th, 2011
‘Let ‘Em Eat Peas’ Can Be the Modern Age Elitist Mantra
It has been a challenging week for many people. While our elected officials have been broadly reported to be at odds about exactly how to ...
August 15th, 2012
Dead Woman Working: American Dream Died Long Ago
It was a slow and torturous death, my American dream. And for millions of others, I am guessing it is the same. Nothing this current ...
October 21st, 2012
Dead Woman Working: Who is the Best Looking Candidate?
Several years ago, it made me angry when I heard a family member remark that she was voting for the candidate who she felt was ...
September 5th, 2011
Worker’s Ode to Labor Day 2011
Work ‘till you drop. Stop. Drop. Get up. Do it again.Work. Be grateful to be working. Work harder. Work ‘till you drop. Stop. Drop. Get ...
January 11th, 2010
White House Believes “Liberal Angst” Over Healthcare Will Go Away
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide ...
May 14th, 2013
My Breasts and My Life Not as Valuable as Angelina's
While women and men around the world applaud Angelina Jolie for her bravery in writing such a public opinion piece in the New York Times today about her ...
'The East'
Why have you started a comedy festival in northern Michigan in the middle of winter?
Because if you were here in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere (which is actually somewhere to us), you'd need a few laughs too ... Continue Reading
Michael Moore on MSNBC with Michael Eric Dyson, 3/22/13
Michael Moore on Democracy Now!, 6/28/12
Michael Moore on the Rachel Maddow Show, 5/11/12
Michael Moore on MSNBC, Super Tuesday, 3/6/12
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Michael Moore on the Rachel Maddow Show, 2/27/12
