Documentary on single-payer activist Young seeks funding

In lieu of a single payer coming forward to finance their effort, filmmakers Al Nowakowski and Cat Jarboe are seeking to crowdsource their documentary, “The Good Doctor Young,” via a 30-day Kickstarter campaign.

So far, the effort has raised just more than $13,000 to produce the movie telling the life story of Chicago single-payer and civil rights activist Dr. Quentin Young, and the filmmakers have less than a week to reach their $30,000 goal before the Oct. 28 deadline.

“If you don't meet your goal, you get bupkis,” said director Nowakowski, explaining the rules of Kickstarter fundraising.

“It's not running up to our expectations,” he admitted. “But a lot can happen quickly and, from what I understand, a lot happens in the last 72 hours.”

The money raised would be used to buy the rights to use historical film footage and photos. That $30,000 “isn't even a sneeze in Hollywood,” he said. Filming began back in March “on our own nickel,” Nowakowski said.

Young was named to Modern Healthcare and Modern Physician's 50 Most Influential Physician Executive list four consecutive times between 2005 and 2008. He is chairman of the Health & Medicine Policy Research Group board of directors and is treasurer and national coordinator for the single-payer advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program. Both groups are based in Chicago, and he retired from his internal medicine practice in 2008 to devote attention to his activist positions full time. “In a word, I'm a zealot,” Young told Modern Healthcare at the time.

Last year, he was named to the Illinois Sports Facility Authority board of directors by Ill. Gov. Pat Quinn, a former patient of Young's. Young, who turned 90 on Sept. 5, also released a book earlier this month on his life story, “Everybody In Nobody Out: Memoirs of a Rebel Without a Pause.” The title echoes the slogan of his “Medicare for all” healthcare policy.

Nowakowski is a longtime single-payer advocate himself, but the most memorable shoots for him so far involved Young conversing with 94-year-old Timuel Black, a former history professor with City Colleges of Chicago who helped organize the Chicago contingent in Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 march in Washington. “It was a goose bump moment as they just sat down and told their stories,” Nowakowski said.

The documentary could be released as early as next summer—if the financing campaign is successful.

Follow Andis Robeznieks on Twitter: @MHARobeznieks