According to Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko, the reason that America doesn’t have free health care is not because America can’t afford it, but because Americans –to borrow a phrase from the movie, Wall Street – believe that “greed is good.” Sicko looks at countries that are much poorer than America, yet have nationalized health care. It’s no secret that Americans are greedy. We use more natural resources than all the other countries combined. Americans are tremendous wasters who confuse wants with needs. No one needs million-dollar houses and five expensive cars – no one except Americans that is. I know it seems like I’m going on an angry tirade against Americans, but I’m not. I’m simply stating facts. Americans are greedy and quite a lot of them believe that money and happiness are interchangeable words. Feeling this way, it’s only natural that I enjoyed Sicko.

Moore shows us Americans who have health care and those who don’t. The audience hears horror stories from people who own health care. Michael Moore shows us people who weren’t covered by their health care company because their disease was too serious. We hear a woman who was denied health care because “the ambulance wasn’t pre-approved.” The woman talks about the absurdity behind such a clause. How was she supposed to pre-approve the ambulance when she was unconscious? Such stories populate Sicko.
Michael Moore has been accused of making documentaries that are one-sided. Therefore, his films should be called movies, not documentaries. But in Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore is the only one talking in the whole film. He never brings experts to confirm the idea of global warming and even when he uses sources, Gore never cites them. At least in Michael Moore’s documentary, experts speak to confirm Moore’s point of view. Michael Moore is branded a propagandist for his documentaries, while Gore is awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his documentary. What a world.

The flaw of Sicko is that Moore blames the rich companies for America’s lack of a free health care system. Instead, Moore should be allowing the viewer to look inward and accept part of the blame. Sicko is mostly filled with lambasting health care corporations and of people talking about their experiences with how their health care providers tricked them into denying health care.

One of the smartest parts of Sicko is when Moore goes to England. In the film, the rumors of people in countries that have nationalized health care having to wait months and even years to be treated for diseases seem to be untrue (according to Sicko, the average wait time is an hour and a half for people to be treated). Since England’s health coverage is being supplied by the country, doctors’ salaries are paid by the government. Moore talks to a doctor from Britain who seems to still have a comfortable salary and a nice home, despite having a government-controlled budget. The doctor lives in a nice house, has a nice car and makes close to $1 million a year. Moore asks him if it’s possible for America to adopt a system of nationalized health care similar to the U.K.’s. He says that “it’s possible to have nationalized health care if people are satisfied with having million-dollar homes and one or two nice cars, but [nationalized health care] isn’t possible when people want $10-million homes and four or five nice cars.” This statement seems to be the point of Sicko— government-funded health care is possible if people want to live comfortably, but not if people want to live hedonistically and greedily. Unfortunately, this cynical reviewer believes that Americans are too selfish and greedy to have nationalized health care.

Michael Moore (as usual) goes too far in blaming the American government instead of the American people for being greedy. There’s a recording of former President Nixon talking with an official about putting into place a system of health care. The recording has Nixon talking about how he doesn’t want to give the American public free health care. The official tells Nixon not to worry and that the health care system he is talking about is one that gives money to the rich companies and does not provide health care to the average American citizen.

Moore goes to Cuba and mentions how Cuba has better (and free) health care than America. Whether this is true or not, how many people would be willing to have a communist government in return for free health care? These two flaws greatly dilute the documentary from seeming believable. Despite Moore’s penchant for going over the top to prove his point, Sicko is still worth seeing. Sicko might be one-sided, but amidst all Moore’s attacks on the rich, the documentary is funny and moving. Though Moore occasionally hits below the belt, he seems to care about what he is doing. Sicko is passionate and is worth seeing just for that. Though some might deride Moore for using people’s sob stories to reflect his own point of view, he never ridicules his subjects’ horror stories. It’s obvious that Moore cares about his subjects and sympathizes with them.

The DVD has plenty of special features, although most of them have the same point – look at how evil the rich businesses are. The two features that are worth seeing are the music video, which has a nice sound to it, and a video of Moore talking with Tony Benn, a British socialist politician. Benn talks about socialized medicine and gives logical arguments as to why such a system would be beneficial. Tony Benn is a very smart and logical man, and even if you don’t agree with what he has to say, you’d be hard pressed to misunderstand his point of view. Anything that helps one understand another person’s point of view is well worth checking out.

Related posts:

1. Sicko Movie – Best and Worst Movie Moments from Sicko