Seattle Arts and Lectures presents the noted health-care expert and author. Want to rebut the Republican threats to repeal Obama’s health-care law? There’s plenty of ammo in The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. Something like Michael Moore in Sicko, but with a considerably more measured tone, Reid tours around the world to see how other countries balance public health with private profit. (His trip was also documented on Frontline.) The ills of our own system he attributes to market fragmentation (many different plans, both public and private) and a corporate ethos that makes it unprofitable to insure the sick and needy. As Reid wrote in The Washington Post, Foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay peoples medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage. BRIAN MILLER
Tue., Oct. 5, 7:30 p.m., 2010
