“Today, what we see is that everyone but the one percent is at risk of financial disaster, from even a relatively minor healthcare encounter,” we are told in the new trailer for “InHospitable.” Sandra Alvarez’s documentary focuses on one of the biggest — yet largely undiscussed — factors of the U.S. healthcare crisis: hospitals. “Politicians, they’re always saying ‘bad pharma,’ ‘bad insurers,’ ‘bad device-makers’ — but no one goes after the hospitals,” one commentator says in the spot. “And yet, they are the biggest source of price increases in the last decade.”
Hospitals made $1 trillion last year, even though the “vast majority” of U.S. hospitals are considered not-for-profit. They are merging and forming conglomerates — like good capitalist businesses — leaving underserved communities, raising prices, and paying their executives “exorbitant” salaries.
“Our bodies are the ATMs,” an interviewee stresses.
“InHospitable” takes a micro view of this issue, following a group of patients and activists fighting University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), a multi-billion-dollar nonprofit hospital system that’s making vital care increasingly unaffordable.
“You have no conscience,” a cancer patient tells UPMC execs. “You have all lost your souls.”
“I want people to be angry,” Alvarez told us, when we asked her about the effect she wants “InHospitable” to have on viewers. “I want them to be as angry as I was while I was filming with the patients who were all very sick, and fighting for their healthcare.” She continued, “I was there when Beth was in the middle of very intense chemo treatment, and at the same time marching alongside healthcare workers and fighting her way into a UPMC board meeting just to be heard. I was there with Evie as she walked down the halls of the State Capitol in Harrisburg with her cane, knocking on the door of her state representatives while having to take many breaks just to catch her breath. I was on the plane with Maurice and his wife Vicki, after he was given a diagnosis of six months to live. He was forced to travel back and forth from Pittsburgh to Atlanta to get treatment because UPMC wouldn’t accept his insurance.”
A prolific documentary producer and director, Alvarez counts “Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On,” “The Nineties,” and “The History of Comedy” among her credits.
“InHospitable” will be in theaters and virtual cinemas September 30.
