"I sat there one night. I was kind of depressed, down in the dumps and frustrated and lonely - … and typed out a very terse message and just fired it in," she said.

She didn't expect to hear back. However, about six weeks after she sent the message, she got an e-mail from one of Moore's producers and, after providing further details of her situation, she and her husband were selected for the movie.

The movie is about families whose health problems sent them into financial disaster despite having full insurance, she said.

"(Moore) talked very specifically in the movie about it not being a movie about all of the uninsured folks in America, because we know that's a huge problem," she said.

"This movie is more for the 250 million of us who do have health insurance."

The Smiths lived in Lead until late 2006. Donna Smith worked in Spearfish as a newspaper reporter and editor. Larry Smith worked at a Deadwood casino, but Donna Smith said he lost his job because of health issues.

Larry Smith had long-time heart problems, which were difficult to handle on their own, Donna Smith said. Then, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer, which added to their financial difficulties.

Rising premiums and co-pays eventually became too much for the Smiths to handle, she said. Those premiums rose largely because of Larry Smith's increasingly poor health. "Even though we always carried insurance, we got to the point where there was no way we could cover the deductibles and out of pocket and the co-pays and the medicine," she said. "It just mounted up fast."

The Smiths reached their breaking point when a Rapid City physician's collection agency threatened to garnish her wages to collect on a medical bill.

"That was kind of the final straw, the final financial straw, anyway," she said.

The Smiths' financial situation forced them to move to the home of one of their children in Colorado in November of 2006. The move was chronicled by Moore's film crews.

The film also documents Donna Smith's trip to Cuba to receive free health care. She traveled there with Moore and the film crew, as well as members of Sept. 11, 2001, rescue crews who had health problems.

Donna Smith said she received excellent care in Cuba. She went there on nine prescription medicines and came back with only four.

"Cuba has its share of problems, there's no doubt about that, but they do seem to be able to provide health care for the people," she said. She said the best part of the whole experience was being able to meet the Sept. 11, 2001, rescue workers. Moore was also an interesting person to meet, she said.

The movie hasn't taken the Smiths out of their financial situation (they received no money for the film), but it was a nice break, Donna Smith said.

The Smiths were able to go to movie premieres in Denver, Los Angeles and other places.

Although she enjoyed doing the film for the most part, she said the main thing for her is to get a message across to United States citizens so they don't get into a similar situation as she and her husband.

"My hope is that the whole experience is going to generate a national discussion on a much more widespread basis about changing our healthcare system, so that fewer people end up like Larry and I were - fully insured but not insured well enough to keep you from financial disaster. Donna Smith is now working full time in Colorado. She is scheduled to testify before a House Judiciary committee on July 17.

She hopes that her testimony will be able to help fix the nation's health-care system.

And she wants the national discussion to happen so people can be prepared in case a financial disaster happens to them.

"We have to have that talk because any person who thinks they are fully insured won't really know until they are pressed to use that insurance," she said.

Contact Ryan Woodard at 394-8412 or ryan.woodard@rapidcityjournal.com