Sicko

“Sicko”

USA. 2007. Documentary written and directed by Michael Moore.

Rating: ★★★½

I’ll readily admit that I’m not a big fan of Michael Moore. He does make documentaries that are eye-opening but also makes them too sarcastic and manipulative with culturally familiar music and images to make more commercially accessible and entertaining as in “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11." And everyone knows he doesn’t always impart the balance and objectivity of a true documentarian and some of his points of argument have to be taken with a large grain of salt.

Those things are also true in his latest film, “Sicko,” a scathing attack on the American health care system. But they didn’t bother me much with this film. You would have to be an ignorant fool to think that the health care system isn’t a disaster and there is no denying that his new documentary incites anger and outrage and is a brutally effective wake-up call for change. Moore’s best documentaries such as “Roger & Me” have a noticeably sincere heart at their core and “Sicko” is his best work since that one because it has that quality, too, as it opens with troubling anecdotes of various real-life Americans who have been devastated by health insurance companies.

First, we meet the Smiths, a couple who had good jobs and lived a comfortable life until Jim had three heart attacks and Donna had cancer. Now, after paying hefty medical bills and filing for bankruptcy, they are forced to move into a small basement bedroom in their daughter’s home. Then there is another man who accidentally severed his middle and ring fingers while working with his saw and he had to choose which finger to reattach based on monetary value. In the film’s most disturbing scene, we see a patient in a hospital gown literally dumped on the side of the road because the hospital rejected them after they could not pay. They’re some of the 50 million people in America who don’t have coverage on health insurance.

The film presents much information about the way that health care works in America. This includes interviews with workers in health insurance companies such as one who breaks down and cries at the thought of turning down a patient whom she had to deny according to company policy despite knowing that the patient had a life-threatening condition. There is also a clip of Dr. Peeno, who made a public hearing on May 30, 1996 in front of the House of Representatives about how she had to deny a patient “a necessary operation that could have saved his life,” again according to company policy.

All this essentially highlights that the insurance companies and drug companies are just another group of privatized business enterprises. Businesses must make profit and to make billions of dollars, they can only do it one way: Charge hefty sums of money from the rich and deny claims for those who can’t afford it. Were insurance companies always made for profit? Moore presents a tape from the Oval Office of Nixon’s initiation of the original Kaiser plan for HMOs from 1971 and Nixon himself says, “It’s for profit.”

So should health care be made universal by the government like it is in other countries? The politicians during the time of the red scare didn't think so, fearing the evil of “Socialized Medicine” (this is one of the points where Moore’s withering sarcasm kicks in). Yet, as Moore correctly points out, the fire department, the police and the mailing system are all universal. And for all the talk by the politicians and the media trying to persuade about the evils of “socialized medicine” taking away the freedom to receive treatment, which system turns down more patients and actually takes away that freedom?

Moore doesn’t give any easy solutions to the issues he raises. He does, however, provide one sound voice of reason through Tony Benn, a former Member of British Parliament, which drew wide applause from the audience I was watching with. Benn philosophically argues, “Choice depends on the freedom to choose and if you’re shackled, you don’t have the freedom to choose.” He then adds, “The people in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote and I think if the poor came out and represented their interests, there would be a true democratic revolution.” Other American conservatives in the movie agree and argue for universal health care, much to the liberal Moore’s shock.

Moore visits other countries such as Canada, France, U.K. and Cuba and the generally rosy portraits of these countries is where I would take some of that grain of salt. Yes, they have universally free health care, medications require very little payment (in the U.K., all medications cost 6.65 pounds no matter what the prescription) and life expectancies are statistically longer. But those countries' citizens pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes. Yes, it is baffling that the richest country in the world is only ranked 37th in world health care, behind France (1st), U.K. (18th) and Canada (30th). But I had to do some research myself afterwards to find that Cuba ranks 39th, below the United States.

However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the 9/11 volunteer workers who bravely helped out on that fateful day cannot receive treatment because they were not on the government payroll. This forms the climax of the movie when Moore takes people to Guantanamo Bay where the prisoners including some Al Qaeda terrorists receive equal health care within the prison. Of course, they are rejected and they illegally move to Cuba where they apparently receive free health care and cheap medication. This whole sequence does feel a little too much like performance art but the point is valid and clear: the noble volunteer workers who worked to save lives should receive better health coverage than the terrorists who destroyed life.

It is true that Moore’s film is a little too biased and upfront in its views and therefore flawed as a documentary. But aren’t we all human beings and therefore flawed as well? And isn’t it a basic human right for help to come to the sick and needy? Moore’s main argument in “Sicko” is that it’s high time that the people involved in the health care system realize that if they haven't already.