Movie Review: Sicko
By Anne Brodie Jun 27, 2007, 13:23 GMT
No wonder Team Bush wants to throw roadblocks in the way of Michael Moore’s documentary on the American healthcare system. Sicko is powerfully persuasive in its damnation of American health care.
It’s certain to throw an even darker cloud over the current administration as its days come to a close.
The health care monster didn’t start with Bush. That honor goes to Richard Nixon and John Erlichman, who gleefully tossed health care into the private sector, making a deal with Kaiser Permanente that wound up serving fewer people and creating fortunes for insiders.
The current US health care system as Moore depicts it not only fails to treat its citizens, it actually kills them through negligence, repeated denials of care and systemic abuse.
Former health insurance medical adjusters speak out about their responsibility in making the system impossible to navigate and access. They say claims are parsed the way investigators examine a murder case, looking for loopholes to get out of paying claims.
Any flaw in the form, any common prior condition – in one case, a yeast infection, turns out to be cause for claim denial. People are deemed ‘too fat’, ‘too thin’, ‘too old’, ‘too young’ for treatment.
They say it’s common practice for insurance companies to give bonuses to medical adjusters who deny the most claims.
In one heart breaking sequence, an elderly and obviously sick woman is abandoned by hospital staff in front of a skid row medical centre. She couldn’t pay her bill, they dumped her, shoeless, to wander the streets.
Then there’s the girl with cancer who marries a Canadian friend for the health care because her health insurer said she was ‘too young to have cervical cancer’.
There’s an ill middle-aged couple forced to move into their hostile children’s computer room because they’ve spent their life savings on medical bills.
There are many and sad preventable deaths.
So Moore sets out to learn about health coverage in other western countries and finds Canada, England and France are particularly blessed.
Sewing a severed finger back on a hand costs $60 grand in the US and is free in Canada. People tell Moore they’re happy to pay higher taxes for reliable and just health care.
France’ system is even more comprehensive, as doctors make house calls, new mothers are trained and helped at home by government employees and patients are paid to rest to recuperate after illnesses. England’s great – not only is care universal but doctors can get rich at the same time.
Then there’s Moore’s trip to Guantanamo Bay.
The pill and health care companies, who are free to charge whatever they wish for their products, may pay for their greed after consumers see this film. Not to mention the politicians.
Moore’s devotion to his subjects – 9/11, youth violence, joblessness, is admirable and his films are accessible, entertaining and often jaw dropping.
Sicko is one of his best. It unmasks the killers.
Sicko
35mm documentary
Written, directed and produced by Michael Moore
Runtime: 119 minutes
In theatres June 29. MPAA: Rated PG for brief, strong language
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