Americans are no strangers to the financial debilitations of sickness – or more specifically, of being trapped in a system that exploits patients and widely denies health coverage to nearly anyone with any sort of preexisting ailment.
So it should come as no surprise that controversial filmmaker Michael Moore had little trouble finding victims of said system for his latest work, Sicko, and presenting stories and testimony that cast little doubt on the intentions of health care executives.
But an area of concern that gets woefully little attention in mainstream media – many politicians’ utter complicity with the scheming system and their existence in the industry’s pocket – gets some much-needed airtime.
Moore, who now tackles a much less polarizing issue and doesn’t appear on camera until halfway through the film, traces the decline of modern health care coverage to a recorded conversation between former president Richard Nixon and ex-White House counsel John Ehrlichman. Nixon is turned onto the profit-based enterprise of Edgar Kaiser (Kaiser Permanente) and announces the establishment of HMOs the very next day.
Moore follows with the espousal that the populace’s irrational fear of having socialized medicine explains its relative lack of outrage. The blinding contrast of free health care in Canada, Britain, France, and Cuba then serves as a brutal reminder of the current Administration’s indifference to suffering, and Moore makes sure not to leave Congressmen, lobbyists, or even Hillary Clinton out of the crosshairs.
Ultimately, the case is made – and a large majority of U.S. citizens agree – that it’s time for universal health care in the world’s richest country. But in a nation where cash rules all, will Moore succeed in extricating elected officials from such a lucrative relationship?
– Scott Morrow
Sicko
Director: Michael Moore
113 minutes, The Weinstein Company
http://www.sicko-themovie.com/
Opened 6/29/07 nationwide
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