What are Donna and Larry Smith Doing Now??

Dear Friends,

After watching Sicko for the second time, I wondered what happened to all the people Michael Moore had in the film?

And since yesterdays post written by Donna Smith, I found this, written by a member of the California Nurses Association, bringing us up-to-date on the lives of Donna and Larry Smith.

Kate Loving Shenk
Nursing Career Transformation

Colorado couple examined in 'Sicko'
By Erika Gonzalez
Rocky Mountain News
June 29, 2007

Six months ago, Larry and Donna Smith didn't even have a bed to sleep on.

Mounting medical bills not covered by their insurance, combined with high
insurance premiums and expensive medication, forced the couple to move
from South Dakota into a crowded storage room in their daughter's modest
Aurora home. Two years earlier, the Smiths had filed for bankruptcy to
deal with the debt they accumulated during Donna's treatment for uterine
cancer and Larry's heart problems and artery disease.

But the bills kept piling up, especially after Larry had his third bypass
surgery in February 2006. So, when the Smiths' six children urged them
to relocate to Colorado (where four of them reside), they finally conceded.
And filmmaker Michael Moore was there to document the move.

"When they (the producers) called to ask if they could film the process,
I said I didn't care at that point. I was so demoralized," said Donna Smith.

The Smiths are among many Americans featured in Moore's new film, Sicko,
which examines America's ailing health-care system.

The couple's trip to the big screen started last year when Donna Smith
answered a call on Moore's Web site asking people to share their
health-care stories.

"I just thought it was one of many stories they would hear, and I
would be added to the list," remembers Smith.

But producers talked to Smith and her husband several times over the course
of the year. The footage of the couple's move to Colorado is one of the
earliest scenes in the film. In January, the Smiths and other Americans
traumatized by problems with the health-care system (including several 9/11
rescue workers) were asked to go to Cuba to compare the country's health
system with what's available in America. Though Larry Smith was too sick
for the trip, Donna opted to go.

"I just thought that it was worth trying," said Smith, who also suffers
from sleep apnea and asthma.

Smith said she was amazed by the facilities and care she received in
the island nation. Doctors there performed a complete medical evaluation.
They gave her an eye exam and new glasses. They conducted a sleep study
for her apnea, the first study she'd had in nine years because insurance
wouldn't cover the treatment. They reduced the number of medications she
takes daily from nine to four, eliminating a beta blocker harmful to asthmatics
and a steroid nasal spray that was no longer effective.

"There was a difference in the mentality about care, and I did not expect
this gut-level, emotional tearing-apart feeling I got," says Smith. "I had
these feelings of sadness for us that we somehow convinced ourselves that
health care is something we have to pay for. It hurt so bad to think back
on signing all these payment plans before surgery and doing whatever we had to do to get care."

That trip, however, sparked an investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department,
which is determining whether Moore violated the U.S. trade embargo restricting
travel to Cuba - a charge that surprises Smith.

"If our government didn't know we were going, it wasn't for lack of people
telling them," says Smith, who carried a passport, a Cuban visa and an American
visa with her during the trip.

She also said that Moore required an "amazing" amount of paperwork from the
film's participants to back up their health care and insurance issues.

Says Smith: "I always get frustrated when people accuse Michael Moore of not
telling an accurate story because, from our perspective, the fact-checking
got to the point where it was annoying."

Smith is prepared for fallout from the film, especially from Moore detractors.
She says she's already heard some negative comments from friends and acquaintances.
In response, Smith simply asks people to see the film.

"The position they'll eventually reach is this is not a partisan film.
This film does not seek to make a Democratic or Republican point," says Smith.

In the meantime, Smith and her husband have kept busy jetting off to premieres
and talking to media about the movie. And they've been a bit overwhelmed by
their red-carpet experiences.

"We were not ready to pull up in front of a theater in Manhattan in a limousine
and have a dispatcher call to tell them we were arriving," laughs Smith.
"There were a hundred cameras flashing, and we held on real tight to each other.
We must have said, 'Oh my God,' a hundred times."

Though the Smiths seem to be living like celebrities, Donna Smith stresses
that the couple received no compensation for participating in the film.
They are still struggling financially but have made some important strides recently.

Smith, who quit her job as a newspaper editor when she moved last year, landed a
full-time, permanent position in April, allowing her to shed her $400-a-month
COBRA plan. And last month, the Smiths moved out of their daughter's home and
into a two-bedroom apartment in Aurora.

Smith hopes one day to emerge from bankruptcy and become a homeowner again.
She says Sicko has renewed her spirit by connecting her with other Americans
who've experienced similar health-care horrors. She's also had the opportunity
to talk with people who have the power to change the system and will testify
in front of Congress next month about the many benefits of affordable health care.

"I think a new world is opening for me. I feel hopeful that I can try again
to get back involved in life and come out of this period of real darkness
and start building back out of that," she says energetically. "On a movie
screen in Manhattan (last) Monday night, I started to reclaim my life."