Sicko

Half an hour into Michael Moore's 'Sicko' I was feeling a bit sick myself. It was not pleasant watching those unfortunate Americans who have to contend with the US so called health care system. A guy who cut off some fingers working on a machine having to decide which finger he can afford to get reattached. A woman with cancer who thought her insurance would take care of her only to find her treatment would not be covered. Some of this was hard to watch.

Things got better when Moore looked at the Canadian system. And even better still when he visited England and France. (By the way the very elite US talk show host Charlie Rose had his recent heart surgery done in France -- which is a conspicuous example to those who claim that American health care is the best in the world). To emphasis Moore's point he indulges in one of his expected 'stunts'. He takes three boatloads of 9/11 survivors to Cuba. People who's health care had been held-up in the states, some of them firemen with respiratory problems. The idea was to go to Guantanamo Bay, where these 9-11 heros could get the same health care as the detainees held on the island. You know, the terrorists and enemy combatants, as Rumsfeld liked to call them.

Naturally, the military was not all that cooperative, so Moore and the 9/11 heros decide to stay in Cuba to see if Castro's doctors would be willing take care of them.  Sure enough before long a much happier and healthier group were ready to return home. I think it is quite believable and no great surprise that the group received much better attention from the medical system in Cuba than in the US.

Now that everyone who is running for president agrees that healthcare is broken in the US this movie should not be a hard sell. It aught to be force-fed to 'middle America'.

Directed by Michael Moore  USA 2007   8/10