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SICKO Send This Review to a Friend
Turning his attention to the failure of America’s health care system, writer-director Michael Moore, has produced a remarkably informative, sometimes deeply touching and at other times wryly entertaining indictment in his vaunted pseudo-documentary style. In “Sicko,” although less strident than some of his previous work, Moore nonetheless spotlights the failure of the United States to adopt universal health care and does it with amazing creative sparkle that makes so serious a subject come alive for all to understand in human terms. Moore remains the spirited rabble rouser but on a much higher level.
He ingeniously uses interviews, film clips, background music, comments with irony and even a nervy escapade. All is expertly and clearly blended as he examines the contrasts between the way even people with health insurance are cruelly denied treatment by the HMOs in deference to profits in contrast to the available care in England, France, Canada and, yes, Cuba. The drug companies are targeted as other culprits, as are the lobbyists who buy off members of Congress with contributions. Often the result of inability to pay for care is death. There are, of course, assorted jabs at politicos, some amusingly barbed.
Moore injects humor where possible. Moore cites the lavish descriptions of health care said to be provided to the incarcerated alleged terrorists at Guantánamo. He takes a small boatload of people in need of treatment to Guantánamo to get some the care the prisoners are supposed to be getting. Of course, the contingent is never permitted to land, so off they go to Cuba, where Moore explores the free health care available there, with free and sympathetic treatment for his group as an example.
Moore addresses some of the criticism of government-provided care in the countries that take pride in care for all, but the man objections fall by the wayside when compared with the dire situation in the United States. Although Moore doesn’t address the reported long waiting times for elective procedures in some situations, whatever the problems that may exist, the principle is striving to care for everyone, especially in emergencies, and he presents ample testimony from those who laud their care.
The logic of Moore’s film would be for all in the United States to receive health care paid for by taxes, as is the case elsewhere. He doesn’t go into specific plans, but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that given the billions ready to be squandered on the misbegotten Iraq war, the health care problem could be solved if the resolve were there—and if the job could ever be taken out of the hands of the insurance and drug companies.
But Moore’s opus relies more on specific, intimate stories, often wrenching, than on polemic. We meet the victims of the system, including those who rushed to help in the 9/l1 disaster and as a result contracted respiratory illness, yet can’t get free care and have problems affording private care. We meet a woman whose child died after being denied care at a hospital that sent her elsewhere. We meet a seriously ill woman dumped by a hospital onto the street because she can’t pay for the care, and are told this is an increasingly common practice.
As serious as the subject is, Moore covers the territory in such a fascinating way that one need not shy from it for fear of it being a dull documentary. Rather one can embrace it as an exhilarating movie-going experience marked by wit, insight, principle and the expertise of a man with talent to match his conscience. A Lionsgate and Weinstein Company release.
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