Hollywood Discusses Health Care and Financial Security Crisis

The Hollywood Radio & Television Society (HRTS) has joined Divided We Fail to keep national attention on the two domestic issues that worry Americans most – health care and financial security.

An HRTS luncheon – sponsored by AARP, the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) and the Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF) – was held on May 29 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to bring together entertainment industry leaders from all parts of the business to encourage them to use their influence to keep the national debate on the health care crisis moving forward.

MPTF Foundation Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg highlighted why MPTF and EIF have teamed up with AARP on this initiative, and how Hollywood can play a pivotal role in building a national conversation around these issues. "As storytellers, we have a responsibility to both entertain and inform, and where possible to bring awareness to not only the health care crisis, but to potential solutions," Katzenberg said.

Academy award-winning actor Sally Field, as the keynote, shared real life stories and statistics about spiraling health care costs, and reinforced that the entertainment community is uniquely suited to play a critical role in communicating the urgent need for quality health care for all. "Our celebrity can give us the opportunity to affect how people think about very, very important problems. People pay attention to what we do," said Field.

The moderator for the discussion was radio/TV personality and producer Leeza Gibbons. Panelists included executive producer Neal A. Baer, executive producer John Wells, actor/comedian D.L. Hughley, Scrubs creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence, and AARP executive vice president of social impact Nancy LeaMond.

"We have a system that increasingly is not good for anyone, and we tend to focus on the uninsured as if that’s really the issue. And those who have health insurance discover at the time of a major health crisis in their family that they thought they were covered, and in many ways they weren't. It's just a fact of life that the system isn't working. And we need to continue to talk about the fact that the system isn't working, and that is the way we can be very effective in changing the national conversation," said Wells.