Sicko: Movie Review (2007) by Christopher Smith

Michael Moore's new documentary, "Sicko," wants you to know that the No. 1 health crisis facing Americans today aren't the usual suspects--heart disease and cancer--but the state of our health care system, which is in a state of disaster.

Considering that nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured and millions more hold policies designed to screw them out of their benefits, it is, at the very least, a productive system. After all, it tirelessly defeats plenty.

When it works, it also successfully saves millions. But since Moore believes that everyone in the United States deserves access to health care, the focus here is on all those who have been undone by the system, which is no small number to consider.

As some might have seen in Moore's recent showdown with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the filmmaker is willing to go to impassioned lengths to defend his position that the United States has it wrong when it comes to health care. Only this time out, unlike in his previous films, there is less humor fueling his agenda.

There are laughs in "Sicko," but most are derived from irony, not parody. Otherwise, the movie is dead serious in its attack on our government's failure to implement universal health care, as every other developed nation has done, and instead to remain with a system designed for profit--which, after all, is the American way.

Upfront, the news is no news. Unlike the citizens of Canada, for instance, or France, Britain and Cuba--all countries Moore visits in this movie--Americans don't pay taxes toward safeguarding their health. Instead, we have a private system that Moore considers immoral and corrupt.

Is he so far off the mark? To bolster his claim, he takes to the field and seeks out those who have been affected by no coverage, those who have been affected in spite of having coverage, and those who have worked on the inside of the system and who now break their silence about the incentives they received to deny coverage. You know, so their respective companies could lift their profits high into the billions.

The horror stories that follow are difficult to watch. We meet a man without insurance who accidentally sawed off the tips of two fingers on his left hand. Since he can't afford to reattach each, he is forced to choose the least expensive option--his ring finger--knowing that his middle finger is destined for a landfill. (One wonders if he would have preferred to give that particular finger to the hospital.)

Later, we meet a woman who rushes her ill daughter to a hospital emergency room only to learn that the hospital isn't in her HMO's network. Denied access as well as the assistance of an ambulance, she herself must take her child to the approved hospital, only to watch her die on the drive there.

In another scene, we see how one hospital dumps its homeless patients streetside because they can't afford to pay. Meanwhile, Moore meets several people who helped in the rescue attempts of 9/11. Suffering from a number of respiratory ailments and now unable to work, these people aren't eligible for the benefits police and firefighters earned when they risked their lives because, well, these people chose to volunteer their help.

"Sicko" isn't a movie about bashing our doctors or nurses--Moore knows we have among the best in the world, and he underscores that point throughout the movie. Instead, it's a movie about raising awareness about a broken system, with the director questioning whether other countries with socialized medicine have it better.

Why, he wonders, does socialism remain so feared here? Education is socialized. So is Medicare and Social Security. For the most part, those efforts seem to work, so why not socialize health care?

Though he errs in not showing the downside of those systems in other countries--we get only the pros here, not the cons--and he doesn't allow the insurance companies to respond directly to his concerns, which is a mistake since, at the very least, it could have been their undoing, what he does generate is a persuasive argument that can't go ignored.

We need a better system. We have a moral responsibility to protect all of our citizens. Perhaps we should shake the idea that the United States is the best at everything it does and look around for another model upon which we might adopt and improve. After all, ours ranks 37th in the world, hardly something to be proud about.

The people of France and Canada, Britain and Cuba live with higher taxes because doing so means not worrying about health care, which is critical to them. Shouldn't it also be critical to us? Their system isn't perfect, but the fact that they are covered without question is a comfort that millions in our country likely wish they could claim today or, for that matter, yesterday, when for many, it already was too late.

Grade: A-