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Review #479 of 365
Movie Review of Sicko (2007) [PG-13] 113 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.50
Where Viewed: Harkins Ciné Capri at Northfield 18, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 9 July 2007
Time: 7:45 pm
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
DVD Release Date: 6 November 2007
Soundtrack: order the CD below
Directed by: Michael Moore (Farenheit 9/11)
Screenplay by: Michael Moore (Farenheit 9/11)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Michael Moore (Farenheit 9/11)
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Whether you love him or he makes you sick, there's no denying that Michael Moore has firmly established himself in the annals of USA History for adhering to his unrelenting principles of proving the First Amendment to the Constitution which, of course, protects free speech in the nation, is still alive and well. Unlike his volatile and highly inflammatory political joust, Fahrenheit 9/11, SiCKO takes an in-depth look, and some might say too focused look, at the heath care and health insurance industries in the United States. He begins with a figure. "53,000,000 Americans are without health insurance." Math was not my strong suit, but that seems like roughly 1/6th or so of the population. This means that 1/6th of the legally accounted for citizens cannot walk into any hospital in the nation and get emergency room care for themselves or their children. He follows this up by saying, however, that the film is not really about the 53,000,000 uninsured.
"Michael Moore…a more tactful approach, at times, he hasn't lost his edge one bit."
No, actually, it's more about the ones who have the all-too-coveted health insurance. It makes sense that people without insurance wouldn't be able to get health care. Right? I mean, after all, in the USA you have to pay to play, right? Mr. Moore then goes on to show countless examples of people with insurance who were not able to get the health care they supposedly could afford due to their insurance. Wait, I thought if you paid, you could play? Ummm, no. It seems that the insurance companies in the stories revealed are not in the business of paying. Some actually, and this I wasn't probably alone in not knowing, pay medical doctors to sit and review forms and bills with the purpose of attempting to deny as many claims as possible offering the ones that deny the most the highest bonuses. How twisted is that? It seems Mr. Moore and I pretty much agree that most well-to-do USAers don't realize this is going on. They probably don't realize that the health insurance industry is making billions of dollars a year in profits, paying their CEOs millions of dollars, and doing everything they seemingly can legally do to prevent the people that pay for the insurance from ever seeing a dime of that money let alone paying for their catastrophic needs. Shouldn't you at least be able to always get your premiums back if nothing else? The saddest case was an older, retired couple that had to sell their home and move to their daughter's basement because after retiring, they could not pay the co-pays and deductibles when both came down with catastrophic ailments including cancer. How's that? You work your entire life, you pay your premiums, your company pays your premiums, and then when it comes down to it, the insurance is worthless because you cannot pay the co-pays and deductibles? It's really quite scandalous. As Mr. Moore later shows, it doesn't have to be this way in a civilized democracy. No, it really doesn't. And, "No, I don't want to hear any more of the evils of socialized medicine." Moore shatters all the myths pretty handily.
He does this by paying some of the mythical nations a visit. Canada, the most recent convert, Great Britain, and France all were explored for an insider's perspective on their nationalized health care systems. Guess, what? No, the doctors aren't complaining about making too little money. He found, for example, physicians in Great Britain, working for the national health care system, may make around $200K a year. Hmm. Gee, that's terrible. My gosh, those poor doctors. How can they survive on that! Myth number two busted up by Mr. Moore is that people in national health care systems cannot choose their own doctors and must wait incredibly long times for care. Moore did not find this to be true in Canada, Great Britain, France, or even in Cuba. In fact, the wait times for care in the USA by people with health insurance may exceed or, at least, equal those in the nations with nationalized health care systems. Of course in the other four nations there are zero people who have to wait forever because they have zero insurance. As for choosing your own doctor, is this luxury worth it? First of all, if you're in an HMO, you can only choose from within the program, or sometimes you can get a referral, but they don't really like that most of the time. And, most people in the USA may as well just throw darts at a list to pick their doctor. Gone are pretty much the days of living in a small town where everyone knows old Doc Parker. Ironically, there's no reason to suggest under a nationalized system that you couldn't still see old Doc Parker. The difference would be that you could see him any time, without insurance, and he wouldn't have to worry about extending you credit for seeing your feverish child until after your corn crop comes in. He'd get his check from the government like clockwork just like the many, many, many other millions of government workers. Myth number three seems to surround the notion that national health care programs are under funded and lack specialists and equipment that we have in the USA. Moore did not find this to be the case in any of the four nations he visited. What he did find, however, was that there are 53,000,000 USAers that don't have access to anything, special, equipment, or otherwise because they cannot afford to pay for health care. So, those people are already far worse off even if the myths had turned out to be true. Wouldn't you rather wait 7 weeks for a specialist and get to see a specialist than wait 3 months and then die because you had no health insurance or couldn't pay your co-pays? Then what he found was that there are literally 1000s and 1000s of USAers WITH FULL COVERAGE who cannot get the health care they need because of denials of claims, pre-existing conditions, people being paid to find hints of pre-existing conditions and favorable laws in some states that say if there was any reasonable sign of a pre-existing condition, and you didn't note it on your form, the insurance company doesn't have to pay. In contrast, he found people in Canada, GB, and France all live longer and healthier lives where there governments spend sometimes less than half per citizen than what our government currently pays. He also found the people worry less because they don't have to think about health care. Anyone who has any medical needs can get treatment any time for free. In the film, Moore takes on the health insurance companies as being the evil doers in American health care, and they may or may not be on a case by case basis. The pharmaceutical companies are mentioned briefly as well. He does not mention malpractice insurance costs or lawyers and their place in the costs. He does however place a great deal of blame on the Congress and the health care industry lobbyists who do everything in their power to keep the notions of a nationalized health care plan off the table of discussion. But why? Why would a civilized nation, the beacon of democracy in the world, why would the wealthiest nation in the world, why would this nation prefer to have 53,000,000 uninsured people and millions more being denied claims to fuel company profits? Why would we want mentally ill homeless people wandering the streets in a crazed stupor? Why would we want our silver citizens to have to take jobs as Greeters at Wal-Mart in order to afford to pay for their prescription drugs? Why would we want young, single mothers, to be denied care for their children or themselves? The protected industries spend millions of dollars to keep the system the way it is. They lobby the Congress, they pay for ads that make a nationalized health care system seem down right un-American. As Moore correctly points out, though, we have plenty of other government funded, call them socialized, call them nationalized, call them what you want, but programs from police to fire fighting, to the public school systems, where the government pays and the services are free. We would never think, I hope, of sending a family that just had their house burn down a bill for the cost of fighting the fire plus $120,000 per family member rescued. In the USA, we believe so fundamentally in the right for free K-12 education, the same Congress that voted down voucher programs to allow all kids to go to private schools, wouldn't even entertain the notion that free, universal health care should be just as inalienable a right. Ironic because I'm betting most parents probably would prefer to pay for school and know their child's health care is being covered than the other way around. When you really get down to it, whether Michael Moore was grandstanding by taking 9/11 Rescue Workers who've been denied funds for treatment for their ailments to Cuba where they all got free health care or not isn't the point. The point is that we have a real, real problem in this country when it comes to the way we've allowed ourselves to fear a nationalized health care system. We see it as the junked down plan, inferior, etc. Who is the 'we' that sees it that way anymore, and why are WE letting them make the decision for the rest of us? If 53,000,000 uninsured people all sat down and wrote 1 letter, not 2, not 1 for each of their senators, and representative, just 1 letter, maybe it would make a difference.
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He does this by paying some of the mythical nations a visit. Canada, the most recent convert, Great Britain, and France all were explored for an insider's perspective on their nationalized health care systems. Guess, what? No, the doctors aren't complaining about making too little money. He found, for example, physicians in Great Britain, working for the national health care system, may make around $200K a year. Hmm. Gee, that's terrible. My gosh, those poor doctors. How can they survive on that! Myth number two busted up by Mr. Moore is that people in national health care systems cannot choose their own doctors and must wait incredibly long times for care. Moore did not find this to be true in Canada, Great Britain, France, or even in Cuba. In fact, the wait times for care in the USA by people with health insurance may exceed or, at least, equal those in the nations with nationalized health care systems. Of course in the other four nations there are zero people who have to wait forever because they have zero insurance. As for choosing your own doctor, is this luxury worth it? First of all, if you're in an HMO, you can only choose from within the program, or sometimes you can get a referral, but they don't really like that most of the time. And, most people in the USA may as well just throw darts at a list to pick their doctor. Gone are pretty much the days of living in a small town where everyone knows old Doc Parker. Ironically, there's no reason to suggest under a nationalized system that you couldn't still see old Doc Parker. The difference would be that you could see him any time, without insurance, and he wouldn't have to worry about extending you credit for seeing your feverish child until after your corn crop comes in. He'd get his check from the government like clockwork just like the many, many, many other millions of government workers. Myth number three seems to surround the notion that national health care programs are under funded and lack specialists and equipment that we have in the USA. Moore did not find this to be the case in any of the four nations he visited. What he did find, however, was that there are 53,000,000 USAers that don't have access to anything, special, equipment, or otherwise because they cannot afford to pay for health care. So, those people are already far worse off even if the myths had turned out to be true. Wouldn't you rather wait 7 weeks for a specialist and get to see a specialist than wait 3 months and then die because you had no health insurance or couldn't pay your co-pays? Then what he found was that there are literally 1000s and 1000s of USAers WITH FULL COVERAGE who cannot get the health care they need because of denials of claims, pre-existing conditions, people being paid to find hints of pre-existing conditions and favorable laws in some states that say if there was any reasonable sign of a pre-existing condition, and you didn't note it on your form, the insurance company doesn't have to pay. In contrast, he found people in Canada, GB, and France all live longer and healthier lives where there governments spend sometimes less than half per citizen than what our government currently pays. He also found the people worry less because they don't have to think about health care. Anyone who has any medical needs can get treatment any time for free. In the film, Moore takes on the health insurance companies as being the evil doers in American health care, and they may or may not be on a case by case basis. The pharmaceutical companies are mentioned briefly as well. He does not mention malpractice insurance costs or lawyers and their place in the costs. He does however place a great deal of blame on the Congress and the health care industry lobbyists who do everything in their power to keep the notions of a nationalized health care plan off the table of discussion. But why? Why would a civilized nation, the beacon of democracy in the world, why would the wealthiest nation in the world, why would this nation prefer to have 53,000,000 uninsured people and millions more being denied claims to fuel company profits? Why would we want mentally ill homeless people wandering the streets in a crazed stupor? Why would we want our silver citizens to have to take jobs as Greeters at Wal-Mart in order to afford to pay for their prescription drugs? Why would we want young, single mothers, to be denied care for their children or themselves? The protected industries spend millions of dollars to keep the system the way it is. They lobby the Congress, they pay for ads that make a nationalized health care system seem down right un-American. As Moore correctly points out, though, we have plenty of other government funded, call them socialized, call them nationalized, call them what you want, but programs from police to fire fighting, to the public school systems, where the government pays and the services are free. We would never think, I hope, of sending a family that just had their house burn down a bill for the cost of fighting the fire plus $120,000 per family member rescued. In the USA, we believe so fundamentally in the right for free K-12 education, the same Congress that voted down voucher programs to allow all kids to go to private schools, wouldn't even entertain the notion that free, universal health care should be just as inalienable a right. Ironic because I'm betting most parents probably would prefer to pay for school and know their child's health care is being covered than the other way around. When you really get down to it, whether Michael Moore was grandstanding by taking 9/11 Rescue Workers who've been denied funds for treatment for their ailments to Cuba where they all got free health care or not isn't the point. The point is that we have a real, real problem in this country when it comes to the way we've allowed ourselves to fear a nationalized health care system. We see it as the junked down plan, inferior, etc. Who is the 'we' that sees it that way anymore, and why are WE letting them make the decision for the rest of us? If 53,000,000 uninsured people all sat down and wrote 1 letter, not 2, not 1 for each of their senators, and representative, just 1 letter, maybe it would make a difference.
"Moore shatters all the [health care] myths pretty handily. SiCKO is a potent documentary on an urgently important topic. "
If 53,000,000 voices were heard on the matter, maybe someone would start listening. On top of this, I would set out a personal challenge that every member of Congress see SiCKO and then explain to us in his or her own words, forgetting the political overtones, just the notions of why we cannot have a nationalized health care system in the United State? For what logical reasons would we fear this change? For what logical reason would we surrender our right to free, universal health care for all our citizens when we would never do so for k-12 education, police protection, military protection, fire protection, etc.? There has to be a darn good reason why, and I'd like to have one of them explain it to me. I'd like to know the real reasons, not the fear-based non-sense reasons like that it's not working abroad or in Canada. Clearly, after seeing SiCKO one can see that this simply isn't true. No doubt, there are issues on the negative side that Mr. Moore may have not found. Who knows? It doesn’t change the fact, though, that there are 53,000,000 people in the USA that are living without any health care. These aren't criminals, these aren't illegal aliens, these are real hard-working, working class people who work in companies or jobs or for themselves who cannot afford health care insurance. Many of them are the small business owners and employees who are the supposed backbone of our society--the people who keep the country running. In the nations mentioned, there are zero.So, as is always difficult in the case of reviewing a potent documentary to address the quality of the film and the production vs. the topic, SiCKO is both a potent documentary and on an urgently important topic. Michael Moore has delivered again when it comes to substance. He has done so with a style that's a bit different as he avoids head-on confrontations with individuals in the industries he assails. He doesn't camp outside the office of the CEO of any health care companies with a kid in a wheel chair and 2 days to live whom they've denied coverage. It seems, he's learned, he doesn't have to do that. That's it's a form of shock and awe journalism his enemies love to use against him to divert attention from the real issue. "The issue doesn't matter because Michael Moore had no business doing XYZ to PDQ." So, instead, he lets those who should be held accountable, our Congress mostly, loom largely in the backdrop and come out looking, to put it politely, like they should not be feeling too well. It's hard to imagine how a member of Congress, among the USA's most well-educated persons, could see SiCKO and not immediately leap into action in working on following the lead of our other G8 nations. Is it our pride that's getting the better of us? Because we didn't think of it, or didn't figure out how to make it work and other nations beat us to it, that we won't even consider it? No time like the present to survey all the available systems for the best and worst and find a way to make our system the best. Time to eat some humble pie and ensure that every American has equal, free, universal health care. Michael Moore has created a compelling case for change with his very good new film. While he has demonstrated a more tactful approach, at times, he hasn't lost his edge one bit.
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Other Projects Featuring Sicko (2007)
Cast Members
Michael Moore
Director
Michael Moore
Writer
Michael Moore
Honestly, you'll leave the theatre feeling sick to your stomach. Hopefully, you are not one of the 53,000,000 people without health coverage in the United States, or you're out of luck. Well, turns out, you might be out of luck even if you have insurance as one of the many points of controversial filmmaker, Michael Moore discovered doing the research for his latest scathe-fest SiCKO. Be prepared to leave the film angry. Be prepared to ask yourself one simple question: Why do we fight to preserve free K-12 education in the form of public schools, but have no regard for free health care for all children? This is not an easy question to reconcile especially when our similarly civilized and democratic nations of Canada, France, Japan, and Great Britain, have all successfully implemented free, universal, nationalized health care long before us. Time for Congress to eat some humble pie.
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