UPDATE: Director Adam McKay Strikes Back

I have apparently raised the ire of Adam McKay, the rich and powerful film director who brought us “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Step Brothers.” In a Tweet on Tuesday, McKay says that my last article (about Will Ferrell decrying insurance executives) was “sub-moronic.” He also goes on in that Tweet to say that insurance executives kill 20,000 people a year by denying claims on purpose. My question to McKay: “Are you kidding me?”

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.