Universal Healthcare is something that we often take for granted here in the UK. When Aneurin Bevan, under the premiership of Clement Attlee, helped to establish the National Health Service, he revolutionised the healthcare industry in this country, aiming to take care of regular citizens from the cradle to the grave. However, universal healthcare is a worldwide practice, with America being the prime example of a country that seems to scoff at the idea of universal healthcare – or at least many of its leaders do. This short film, If Dreams Were Lightning, explores the very real consequences on ordinary people who have to jump through financial and insurance hoops in order to get sometimes urgent healthcare.
The subtitle for the short is Rural Healthcare Crisis, and it accurately sums up the conflict. As the film opens, it reveals that, since 2005, over 190 hospitals in the southern states have shut down, making good healthcare harder to come by than ever before. It follows a small volunteer mobile group known as the Health Wagon, run by Paula and Teresa, who tour the southern states of America – characterised by their massively rural landscapes – and assist with the healthcare needs of various people. These people often cannot afford to pay for healthcare or make just enough from their often minimum wage jobs that they no longer qualify for insurance. By interviewing the various patients, director Ramin Bahrani is revealing the full scale of the healthcare crisis in America.
What this short does very well is humanise what has often been a political discussion in the States. Interviews with patients of the Health Wagon are conducted in the comfort of their homes, or in generally welcoming spaces such as churches. By asking seemingly generic questions about their lives or relative wealth, Bahrani is letting his interviewees demonstrate their humanity in how they discuss the ways that the lack of free healthcare, outside of the Health Wagon, has worsened their already non-ideal circumstances. A Vietnam War veteran, Mac, caught cancer from the army’s use of Agent Orange, yet couldn’t find anywhere that would take care of his needs. Another interviewee tells of how she is not entitled to healthcare insurance despite working as a waitress, a job whose income is largely determined by tips in the states. Another man, Danny, is a fulltime carer to his bed bound wife Melanie with no support from the government whatsoever, something that burns through their savings and ultimately ends up taking a horrifying turn when the effects of Carer Stress Syndrome become too much.
By placing people centrestage, this short is decrying the beliefs that dictate privatisation of healthcare over easy and affordable accessibility. The American Dream cites the importance of hard work in its ideology, which in theory is a fair belief to hold. However, when all of that hard work can become for naught over impossible to predict medical emergencies then it’s hard not to see the injustice of putting prices on one’s healthcare. As many of the interviewees note, once the first medical problem comes up, that’s a chunk of their wages gone to try and fix the problem and then it quickly becomes a downward spiral into poverty that can be near inescapable.
It is an especially interesting choice to set it in the southern states of America, a population that tends to vote for the very conservatives that deny them the healthcare they need through fear mongering falsehoods about socialism. One interviewee even pedals the lie that immigrants get benefits at the expense of Americans, a popular talking point amongst politicians who pin the blame on scapegoats to cover up their own misdeeds. Although the short could have perhaps done more to explore the harm or idiosyncrasies of this, it is still a compelling choice that benefits the short. Whatever one’s belief or circumstances, they still have the right to decent healthcare. Denying people that right is nothing short of criminal.
If Dreams Were Lightning is a fitting title as the dreams of universal healthcare often feel as brief and infrequent as lightning in the world this short showcases. One interviewee, Betty, makes a statement on America being the freest country in the world, a pretty ironic sentiment when you consider the lack of freedom regarding basic healthcare. Yet we can challenge the fallacies of privatised healthcare through empathy and compassion for everyone, regardless of background or political belief. Shorts like If Dreams Were Lightning do precisely that.
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Director: Ramin Bahrani
Country: USA
Runtime: 25 minutes
