Join Meaningful Movies Tacoma & Gig Harbor, along with Franke Tobey Jones, for a free screening and community discussion with guest speaker, Beth McCracken! Register here: https://FTJ_InHospitable.eventbrite.com

InHospitable exposes the big business of nonprofit healthcare – and the patients caught in the crosshairs. Following the story of patients and activists, as they band together in an effort to fight UPMC, a multi-billion dollar nonprofit hospital behemoth in western Pennsylvania. In its quest for market domination, UPMC was planning to make vital care unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable patients. These patients were taxpayers who had been subsidizing this supposedly nonprofit institution whose main mission as a charity was to serve the community. This illuminating documentary tells the inspiring story of these brave patients and activists who faced life-or-death consequences and fight to win the battle for their health — and their community.

“The film shines a light on a dirty little secret of the healthcare industry: that nonprofit hospitals often hold monopolistic power and employ business practices that seek to maximize profits rather than community benefits.”

Our Guest Speaker, Beth McCracken

After years of searching for the cause of pain in her ear and face, Beth was diagnosed with a rare cancer in late 2018. Having finally found a medical team that was familiar with this cancer and knew how to treat it, Beth was devastated when she was told that she was on the verge of losing access to those life-saving services due to a pending split between the two insurance giants that control the market in Western Pennsylvania. Unwilling to simply accept this, she banded together with other patients, community leaders and healthcare advocates to form a grassroots movement that took on the insurance companies, ultimately beating them and thereby ensuring hundreds of thousands of patients in Pennsylvania continued access to the medical services and hospitals that are vital to their positive healthcare outcomes. Their story is told in the documentary film, Inhospitable.’

About the director, Sandra Alvarez

Sandra has spent her career directing and producing a wide spectrum of documentary and television programs appearing on CNN, Netflix, Sundance Channel, History Channel, BBC America, A&E Network and Discovery Channel. Her previous work includes serving as one of the directors of the Netflix original documentary series HOT GIRLS WANTED: TURNED ON, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. She served as a producer for CNN’s documentary series THE NINETIES and THE HISTORY OF COMEDY.