Dedicated rabble-rouser and liberal advocate Michael Moore has returned with a new documentary skewering the U.S. health care system. Whether you're liberal or conservative, most Americans have or most likely will have some horror story, thanks to our broken medical establishment. This is the footing from which Moore comes from, making his least divisive and most emotional film ever.
Possibly taking a note from his critics that he mucked the camera in his other films, Moore doesn't make an appearance in SICKO until far after the mid-point. The film starts with personal stories from folks who have been affected by bad HMOs. One uninsured man had to chose whether to reattach the tip his ring finger or his middle finger after a sawing accident. A woman's ambulance ride after a bad accident was rejected by her insurance because it wasn't pre-approved. Another woman was approved for surgery, but later rejected because her insurance company said she failed to list a yeast infection on her application, thus voiding her policy for withholding a prior medical condition. In two heartrending sequences, a mother talks about being forced to take her sick infant from one hospital to another because the closer hospital was not in her medical group and another woman who works at a hospital talks about the hospital's medical board rejecting her husband's bone marrow transplant, because it's an "experimental" treatment.
The central theme that for-profit health care prevents patients from receiving the best care comes over devastatingly powerful. Moore talks to former HMO workers from the tearful call center operator who just knows the people she is talking to will be rejected to the man whose job it was to find something in the medical history of a patient that will disqualify them from coverage to the doctor who knows her denial of coverage cost someone their life while her advancement in the health insurance industry hinged on finding ways to deny claims. Moore chronicles the birth of the HMO system, which dates back to Nixon. He lays out how much money politicians receive from the insurance and drug companies to keep them in line. He's even critical of Hilary Clinton, who during her husband's presidency fought for universal health care, but is now one of the largest recipients of the industry lobbyists' money.
After laying out our broken system, Moore shows the alternatives around the globe. It can be said that he paints a rosy picture of the socialized medical system in Canada, France and the U.K., without showing the real downside, however, there is no doubt that they have it better than Americans. In one interview, a Canadian talks about suffering an injury while playing golf in Florida. In the States, the surgery would have cost him more than $20,000, so he flew back home and had the surgery for free. A former British Parliament member states that universal health care in the U.K. is so revered that if the government tried to monkey with it, there would be a rebellion. He goes on to describe democracy as the reason for socialized medicine in the U.K., because the poor vote and in Europe the governments are afraid of their people unlike America where the people are afraid of their government. He states that a free society should provide its citizen the freedom from undue debt, which forces them into positions where they have less freedom of choice. And let's not get started on France where new mothers get nannies to help with the laundry. The case Moore makes for socialized medicine is compelling, because he address all the critics' attacks on the concept.
Though SICKO is his tightest and most mature film, Moore can't completely avoid sensationalized stunts. And though he saves it for last it doesn't have the awkwardness that the Charlton Heston stunt had at times in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, because it serves his final point well, which is that the U.S. needs to transform from a society of me to one of we, because we are a country of caring people and we need to show it in our policies. The stunt is classic. Moore outlines how we are giving top-notched medical care to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, while rescue workers from 9/11 are struggling with medical conditions that are a result of their heroic actions. He takes them to Guantanamo in a boat, asking over a megaphone if they can get the same medical services as "the evil doers." Then, he moves to the hospitals of Cuba where the 9/11 responders and other uninsured Americans are helped free of charge by Cuban doctors. It makes one furious when a woman can buy her medicine in Cuba for five cents, which costs her $125 in the U.S.
Again, Moore's Cuban adventure, isn't to wave the flag of socialism, it's to make the point that no matter where we live, we are all human beings. Whether it was staged or not, there is a touching moment where the 9/11 rescuers meet with firefighters from Cuba. America is the richest country in the world, but it is the only Westernized country that doesn't provide basic medical services to its people. It's not a left or right issue; it's a moral issue. What are we turning into when hospitals dump sick poor people on skid row, because they can't pay? Moore has made an important film — a lightning rod for debate. It's a film that remarkably balances between "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" and a message of uniting people from all walks of life via one very important common concern.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
