SLAMDANCE 2021 – If anyone needs further examples of the American healthcare failures which continue many decades after any truly reasonable humans should have been able to work most of this out well look no further than How Much Am I Worth? This documentary short from directors Rachel Alana Handler & Catriona Rubenis-Stevens should hit close to home for the mass amount of uninsured & underinsured people out there. 

Rachel Alana Handler (also the director), Jaleesa Graham, Andrea Dalzell, and Denise Castelli each briefly share stories of how they lost limbs or were simply born a little different than most as well as how the American healthcare system continues to suck beyond belief for anyone in their situation. They’re all more eloquent and informational than that, by the way, even if I’m sure they wouldn’t mind letting a few expletives fly–the kind you’d find in a movie with a hard R rating.

What’s so wrong with how American healthcare “helps” people? If you’ve really never had any personal experience with how utterly ridiculous the healthcare/health insurance system is then How Much Am I Worth? thankfully has several people share what a nonsensical, bureaucratic nightmare it can be.

One participant who managed to find a new, better life in Norway (insofar as as her missing limb is concerned, at least–not saying it’s Utopia) couldn’t believe how different her experience from one country to another. Andrea, who works as a registered nurse in NYC and uses a wheelchair to get around, finds no real support system outside the kindness of friends/family/strangers. Jaleesa Graham was born with only one hand and in her pursuit of a prosthetic second hand encounters several obstacles because she doesn’t technically *need* two hands to brush her teeth (or other similar tasks).

As if the stories shared weren’t enough to boil blood there are also a few informational statistics while the credits roll to hammer home America’s healthcare failures that still plague us into 2021. I also have to say how much I appreciated the lack of sentimentality, schmaltzy music, or other manipulative elements often found in the documentary field.

How Much Am I Worth? is currently playing at Slamdance 2021.

9 out of 10 American Healthcare Failures