By ESTHER K. SMITH
News staff writer
July 9, 2007

A few years ago Hood River artist and herbalist author Rick de la Tour was fashioning the stem of a ritual pipe on his table saw when the unthinkable happened — he caught the ends of two of his fingers on the saw blade.

About an inch of de la Tour’s middle finger was severed completely and the end of his ring finger was nearly so. His wife, Shatoiya, rushed him to the nearest emergency room.

Like many Americans, the de la Tours are without health insurance, so some decisions had to be made right away about what was to be done to Rick’s fingers.

“It was going to cost $12,000 for an operation to reattach my ring finger, which was not completely severed,” he said. “But my middle finger would cost $60,000.”

The couple decided to have only the ring finger reattached. Life returned to a new kind of normal, and the story would have probably never been made public if not for filmmaker Michael Moore and his latest documentary.

“He had a place on his Web site where he was soliciting people’s horror stories relating to health care or health insurance,” de la Tour said. “A friend of ours sent in her story — but they didn’t like her story, so she sent in mine.”

Soon the de la Tours got a call from Moore’s “people” asking if they would be willing to share their story in the film.

“We’ve always been involved in alternate healthcare, so I said, ‘Sure — health care reform? I’m all for it!’” he said.

When the time came, de la Tour met the film crew in Portland where they spent a half a day filming in the park blocks downtown. Then the crew came to de la Tour’s home in the southeast hills of the Hood River Valley, and filmed him in his garden and playing guitar on his couch.

The final segment ended up being about two minutes long, he said.

“The movie compares my case to a case in Canada where a guy lost his fingers right at the base, and both of his fingers were reattached,” de la Tour said.

“My part is about people who don’t have insurance, but that’s just a single part of the movie,” he said. “The main point of the movie is the people who do have insurance and what isn’t covered despite paying all those premiums.

“I have absolutely nothing against the care I received,” he went on. “That’s the point of the movie — it’s not the quality of care; it’s the system. Profit for insurance companies is built into the system.”

Though de la Tour originally didn’t plan to seek publicity for his connection to the film, he changed his mind after seeing the completed product at its premier in Hollywood, where he also met Moore and many of the other participants — including the 9/11 heroes.

“Michael Moore is portrayed as the devil, but he’s a teddy bear,” he said. “The 9/11 guys loved him — one of them presented Michael his badge after seeing this movie.

“When you associate yourself with Michael Moore you open yourself to slings and arrows — and I’m ready for that,” he said.

“I’m not looking for sympathy,” he said. “It didn’t ruin my life; in fact, I have a sense of humor about it — my artist’s signature is a bear paw with a shortened middle claw.”