Barack Obama gave a speech to the American Medical Association yesterday in an attempt to get the organization’s members on board with his plans for healthcare reform. The president’s appearance alone may have been good for his cause, given that it was the first such address to the AMA in 26 years, but many doctors are apparently still skeptical of the government’s ideas and how they’ll actually work.

Meanwhile, the issue of healthcare reform continues to be a difficult topic in Congress, and the road to legislation is sure to be long and filled with much debate. So, to help Washington in the process, or at least to keep the politicians sane with a little entertainment, we’ve come up with a little healthcare movie marathon.

The ten films selected are admittedly more left-leaning in their potential influence, but that’s not necessarily a political move on our part. We simply chose titles we like, and maybe it just so happens that we like movies that show charity as good, greed as evil and healthcare as a right that all humans should be afforded.

Young Doctors in Love (1982)

Healthcare is no laughing matter, so first up is this terribly unfunny spoof of soap operas. What better way to break the ice and give evidence of the seriousness of the issue than with a comedy that fails to garner a laugh from its audience? Sure, we may have been amused with this Airplane!-in-a-hospital farce when we were young (and, unlike now, securely insured), but it’s a fair bet that most congresspersons and senators won’t be so humored. But they may at least come away from the film realizing that they need to stop dicking around and get the people taken care of already. Hopefully they’ll remember Dabney Coleman’s line, “While I’m down here trying to save this man’s life, you’re up there making fart jokes.” For Congress’ case, though, the fart jokes represent dissidence.

The Hospital (1971)

Arthur Hiller’s hospital-set black comedy is much funnier, but we’re still not trying to get Congress to laugh too much. Rather, they should watch this film with all seriousness and come away inspired to help the public as much as possible in their dealings with the medical industry, which is presented as greedy, incompetent and too bureaucratic. And even though this movie is close to 40 years old, Paddy Chayefsky’s script is hardly dated. Here is another bit of dialogue, this spoken by George C. Scott, which Congress must remember: “It is all rubbish, isn’t it? Transplants, antibodies… We manufacture genes. We can produce birth ectogenetically. We can practically clone people like carrots…and half the kids in this ghetto haven’t even been inoculated for polio! We have established the most enormous…medical entity ever conceived…and people are sicker than ever! We cure nothing! We heal nothing! The whole goddamn wretched world…is strangulating in front of our eyes.”

Critical Care (1997)

Another hospital comedy, this one from director Sidney Lumet, Critical Care deals more directly with health insurance, which it pretty much satirizes in a number of subplots. On one hand there’s the hospital’s practice of keeping hopeless patients alive as long as the insurance checks are coming in, while on the other hand there’s the usual bad guy hospital supervisor (Albert Brooks) who’s totally against treating the uninsured.

Like Father Like Son (1987)

The only reason this body swap comedy is included in the marathon is that it also contains a subplot involving a hospital’s stance on uninsured. Catherine Hicks’ character believes that everyone has a right to be treated and that the Hippocratic oath stipulates this ethic. Her boss disagrees, as does Dudley Moore’s character. Fortunately for her, Dudley Moore ends up body swapping with his teenage son (Kirk Cameron), who (naively?) sees things more charitably.

Monsieur Vincent (1949)

Maurice Cloche’s Oscar-winning biopic of St. Vincent de Paul is necessary viewing, certainly, because the 17th century priest was so instrumental in the development of public and charitable healthcare. Though he’s the namesake for many hospitals around the world, including some that don’t appropriately offer free services, he’s not the patron saint of medicine (that’s St. Rafael). However, he still is a good representative of the truly Christian stance on healthcare, which many politicians are surprisingly not aligned with. Of course, there are many problems with Catholic attitudes towards certain health issues and these problems carry over to Vincent’s followers, so Congressional alignment with the teachings of this film could end up being a little tricky.

Dr. Kildare Goes Home (1940)

This installment of the Dr. Kildare film series features an interesting take on health insurance. Having returned to his hometown to see to his father’s health, the title character sets up a “free” clinic for the townspeople, which operates through a 10-cent-per-week subscription service that all the citizens have to pay (the clinic also benefits from a generous donation of medical supplies). Of course, Kildare ends up facing opposition from the healthy townsfolk, at least up until one of them gets sick. The film is also on the side of preventive medicine more than curable medicine, which is something more Americans should be interested in and have greater access to.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

Though not set in the U.S., this Romanian film will show Congress how bad our country’s healthcare industry could be. For two and a half hours, the movie follows the tragic demise of its titular character (Ion Fiscuteanu), as he waits and waits for an ambulance and then, once in one, waits and waits for a hospital to admit him. And then he is sent to another hospital and then another, and then he waits and waits to be treated. And so forth. Obviously the film criticizes the specific medical system of Romania, but it’s not hard to imagine America’s healthcare being similar, whether it becomes more socialized or more privatized.

The Rainmaker (1997)

Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of the John Grisham novel involves a case in which a dying man has been refused treatment by his insurance company. The film’s ethical alignment is especially evident in the way the company’s lawyer (Jon Voight) is portrayed as a total sleazeball. On the other side of the trial, meanwhile, is the only somewhat morally ambiguous former insurance assessor (Danny DeVito) who helps a novice lawyer (Matt Damon) take on the big bad insurance company. And to keep with the tragedy of the modern medical industry, the outcome of the trial isn’t very good, even though the insurance company loses the case.

John Q (2002)

Nick Cassavetes’ film, scripted by James Kearns, is a very preachy thriller in which the title character (Denzel Washington) hijacks a hospital emergency room because his insurance won’t cover the cost of the heart transplant that his son desperately needs. Though based on a true story, the plot is heavily dramatized and exaggerated and way too pointedly anti-HMO. In a way it does for the healthcare crisis what The Day After Tomorrow does for the global warming issue. But it does at least involve a good cause and maybe members of Congress could use such a direct movie to hit them over the head.

Sicko (2007)

Finally, and obviously, Congress should end the marathon with a screening of Michael Moore’s Oscar-nominated documentary, which criticizes the American healthcare system and celebrates the more socialized systems of other nations. Even those who disagree with Moore’s ideas and/or are skeptical of his coverage of the issue can benefit from seeing the film, at least as a stepping-stone for discussing the problems and solutions he addresses.