'SICKO' GETS RED-CARPET TREATMENT ACTIVISTS EAGER TO PUSH UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE

Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA -- Local activists will parlay a successful bid to have Michael Moore's "SiCKO' shown in town with a campaign advocating universal health care.

The film skewers the U.S. health care system and the group is heeding Moore's urging to overhaul it.

"We wanted to help people in Santa Clarita understand the various alternatives to our health care crisis," said Carole Lutness, a psychiatric social worker for the county's Department of Mental Health who works locally. "I see the problems with our health care system firsthand with our clients who do not have adequate health care because they lack insurance."

Lutness and others lobbied for more than a month to land "SiCKO" on a screen in Santa Clarita. Only one theater chain, Edwards Theaters, operates movie houses in town and Lutness says many who live here won't drive elsewhere in search of films not shown here.

Amid a sea of light summer fare, the two-hour movie began its local run Friday on one screen at the Edwards Canyon Country 10.

Edwards is owned by Knoxville, Tenn.-based Regal Entertainment Group, the world's largest film exhibitor. The company, which also owns Regal Cinemas and United Artists Theaters, operates more than 6,300 screens nationwide.

Internet blogs from around the country suggest some showings of "SiCKO" have promoted spontaneous powwows among viewers disgruntled with the status quo. Nurses nationwide organized to attend the movie's opening night show in June, where they handed out information on guaranteed health care using a single-payer model.

The local activists, many of them Democrats, planned to circulate petitions near the theater Friday backing a bill before state legislators that would guarantee universal health care statewide.

The single-payer health coverage plan proposed by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, calls for replacing private health insurance with comprehensive coverage managed by the state.

The group has invited a representative from Kuehl's office to discuss Senate Bill 840 at a local gathering later this month. Kuehl, who authored a companion bill that spells out funding mechanisms, called on Moore to testify before the Legislature in mid-June.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed Kuehl's single-payer plan last year and is expected to the same this time around, backs his own plan.

Kuehl's representative will speak at a health care forum planned July 31 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 24901 Orchard Village Road, in Valencia. For information, call Lutness at [phone].

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Photo:

(color) Michael Moore speaks to the media at a special screening of "SiCKO" at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre on June 26 in Beverly Hills.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images