Sicko (Special Edition)
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Movie Reviews of Sicko (Special Edition)
Movie Review: Many of us have lived through this, we know the truth
Summary: 5 Stars
So I had a bit of a medical insurance fiasco a few years back, in that I was self-employed and in a state that had few patient protections. So when I tried to get independent insurance, and I had the money to pay, I was shut out of the system. One large company decided I was a "medical risk" and I couldn't get insurance from any company no matter what I tried. An insurance broker actually used the term blacklisted to describe my situation! I eventually was able to get emergency hospital only coverage that I nicknamed "hit by a truck" insurance. My situation changed when I broke down and got a corporate job that had a group plan, suddenly the same company that had shut me out, granted me insurance!
I only explain my situation because I know from FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE how horribly our medical system can be. I didn't read propaganda on a website or a book, I lived being shafted by a corporate giant.
All that being said, this film is extremely well made. Michael Moore somehow makes our medical system and all of its faults to be funny! As hard as they seems to be. The stories and examples he uses are real and extremely dramatic and heart wrenching. A baby dying too soon because they wouldn't take her coverage, a woman losing her husband pre-maturely due to refused care, a family going bankrupt due to high medical costs, another woman getting bumped off of her insurance with no seemingly reasonable explanation, a homeless woman dumped on the streets. These stories might be hard to believe if I hadn't gone through it myself, but trust me, the insurance companies play by their own rules changing them at will to make sure they keep their profits UP!
My only real criticism is when Mr. Moore goes to the UK, France, and Cuba to show the stark contrast in care than that with the US. The problems of both of their health care benefits are glossed over or not mentioned. I think Mr. Moore did this for comic and dramatic effect but I can see how some have attacked him for doing so. I would have liked examples from around the world highlighting the positive and negative. I would have also liked to see more US doctors interviewed as I know many that are extremely frustrated by our pro-insurance, anti-hospital, anti-doctor policies. Many doctors feel forced by the insurance companies on what treatments to give, what drugs, and they spend too much time, energy and money trying to get paid. But I guess if Mr. Moore had included all of that the movie may have been 5 hours long!!!!!
No system is ever going to be perfect, but ours is surely broken. If you want to see another great documentary about how the rest of the world treats its sick and healthy Frontline on PBS came out with an excellent piece called "Sick around the World" all of the countries they profile are capitalistic and they all use slightly different strategies. It would be a great companion to "Sicko".
Movie Review: Michael Moore's Best Film Yet!
Summary: 5 Stars
Sicko is a masterpiece! It left me feeling like I was living in the wrong country. The United States, the "Greatest Country In The World?" Hogwash! More like, "the best brainwashed" people in the world!"
Other countries have their priorities straight, that is Canada, France, and even demonized "Third-World" Cuba! In the United States, where we pride ourselves for our "freedom" and "fair play," we tolerate a Heath Care system which gives hard-working, medically-insured, middle class people the freedom to die, in order to maximize corporate profits! And, God help you if you don't have Health Insurance in the United States - it's "fair play" to literally dump you in the front of a homeless shelter in a hospital gown while you're disoriented. I mean, you can't afford treatment so let the Catholic Church, or some other third party, play doctor at an emergency shelter!
While we have been brainwashed about the evils of Fidel Castro's Cuba, the vast majority of the residents of present day "Communist" China would be slobbering all over themselves to have such advanced and universal medical care as Cuba does. For Pete's sake, it took China many years just to get HIV out of their domestic blood supply! But yet, no one in authority, dares demonize "Red" China. Why? Because our two governments are in bed with each other to such a degree neither really cares what the other does to its own people! But Cuba, which is exporting medical breakthroughs, like vaccines, to the entire world, is Public Enemy # 1! Why? Because they won't obey our "American" rules with regards to screwing their own people out of benefits such as Universal Health care!
I don't for a second think any country is perfect, whether it be Canada, France, Cuba or any other nation, for that matter. But, when a country that is so incredibly wealthy, powerful and technologically advanced, as the United States, lets numerous people suffer and/or die solely to maximize corporate profits, then it's time for marching in the streets! Maybe we all should be taking lessons from the French! They know how to bring their government to its knees in order to benefit the many over the few!
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control Handbook For Nonviolent Action Healing the Masses: Cuban Health Politics at Home and Abroad On revolutionary medicine.(speech by revolutionary Che Guevara to Cuban Militia)(socialized medicine in Cuba)(Speech) : An article from: Monthly Review
Movie Review: Sick Indeed
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a married couple who both have good jobs, the husband has multiple heart attacks and the wife gets cancer. They can't afford to live in their house anymore and need to switch between living with each of their kids. A woman gets in a car accident and is unconscious but is taken in an ambulance. Her insurance does not approve the ambulance bill because it was not pre-approved. How could she have called when she was unconscious? This and other heart wrenching tales of people being denied health care, being forced into bankruptcy or losing their limbs or their lives because of our medical system.
A little bit of history of our medical system is shown. Creation of Health Maintenance Organizations in the 1970s led to less care and more people being denied medical treatment to make healthcare in America a for-profit system. HMO's were introduced by Edgar Kaiser to Richard Nixon. HMOs were pushed by various brain washing techniques like sending out disks telling people if we get socialized medicine, everyone has access to medical care then doctors will have no freedom. Doctors won't be able to practice in the city they choose to. The brain washing was done by none other then B-level Hollywood actor- Ronald Reagan
Various people in the Medical industry do speak out. One former executive physician is shown in CSPAN saying a person who needed medical treatment was denied because it would save the company half a million dollars. After he was denied, he died. And the executive physician moved up in the company.
Moore travels to the England, France and Canada and compares their medical system to ours. In England people laugh in the hospital when Moore asks what their medical bill will be. In France he sits down with some expatriate Americans living in France and asks them about the healthcare and lifestyle. One woman says she has four boys and France is a very family friendly country in regards to healthcare, paid time off and childcare.
One of the most touching scenes in the movie is when Moore and some 9/11 rescue workers travel to Cuba. In Cuba medical is available to everyone. Even though Cuba is a very poor country, they make sure to spend their money on making sure everyone is taken care of. In the movie, it is briefly mentioned that Cuba is very generous with their doctors. This is true, for example, Cuban doctors were sent to Indonesia after the Tsunami and to Pakistan after the earthquake and they were appreciated in both countries (not mentioned in the movie.)
I saw this movie in the theater and bought the DVD. The DVD has some good special features like "this country beats France".
This movie shows that despite the greedy, corrupt and for-profit face that we show the rest of the world, some generous and heroic people in America do exist.
Movie Review: Moore applies his disarming style to America's failing health care system
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Moore's left-wing credentials have been clearly established by his previous films, but his latest documentary, SICKO, just might create some common, non-partisan ground. After all, who among us, conservative or liberal, would deny that the health care system in America is sick and in need of help?
Although Moore does briefly address issues facing the uninsured (be prepared for a man stitching up his own wound in one of the opening scenes), he focuses his film on the problems facing average insured Americans like you and me. Personally, I believe that I generally have received very good health care services, but I've also never faced any type of major illness. If you weren't already afraid about the potentially catastrophic impact of a serious health problem, Moore will definitely scare you. One of the case examples I found to be the most compelling was that of a middle-class couple with good jobs (she was a respected newspaper editor) and a nice home where they had raised their children. But after he suffered several heart attacks and she battled breast cancer, the high costs of their health insurance deductibles left them impoverished, forcing them to sell their home and move into their daughter's basement. And this horror story is just one of countless cases that occur in the US daily, tragedies that could happen to any one of us at any time.
Moore's solution is one that every other Western nation has already discovered: universal health care (AKA socialized medicine). Virtually the entire second half of the movie consists of Moore's visits to Canada, Great Britain, France, and Cuba; in each new locale, he provides plenty of persuasive evidence to convince his viewers of the numerous advantages that accompany government-provided health care. Although Moore's methods are sometimes a bit over-the-top (e.g., he sails to Cuba with a group of Americans needing health care, including the woman mentioned above and several 9/11 rescue workers), it is difficult to argue with his main point--namely, that every man, woman, and child living in these countries receives high quality health care completely free of charge. As Moore notes, it's certainly worth giving up your "Freedom Fries" for that!
Moore himself seemed to have less screen time here than in his past films. As always, however, it is his disarming, in-your-face style that makes his movies so riveting; he has a real knack for presenting information in a way that makes you believe in his message. And believe in it I do--it is simply a travesty that the richest, most powerful, and arguably the best nation in the world does not meet the health care needs of ALL of its citizens. Hopefully, Moore's latest film is a step towards increased awareness, and even better, a step towards change.
Movie Review: What is the controversy?
Summary: 5 Stars
The most surprising thing about Michael Moore's "Sicko" is that it holds so few surprises. HMO chiefs raking in billions in profits? Insurance companies finding any loophole or lame reason to deny coverage? US politicians deep in the pocket of Big Pharma? It is so depressingly familiar and so well-known to anyone paying the least bit of attention to what is going on in this country.
Moore does something that the endless stream of talking heads on TV never manages to do, and that is to show the anguish of real human beings who are daily fed into the meat grinder of the American health care system. From sick parents forced to foreclose and move back with their kids, to 79-year-olds working in menial jobs to keep their health care, to young, sick moms having to lie to get their meds across the border in Canada, Moore show us the faces and tells us the stories of Americans who have been thrown under the bus by a system bent on profit, profit and more profit.
What might have been a ridiculous "Moore-ish" stunt - bringing 9/11 heroes to Guantanamo Bay to gain the same rights as terror suspects -- actually broke in Moore's favor. Moore managed to get his charges into the Cuban health care system, where (get this!) they were cared BASED ON THEIR NEED, NOT ON THEIR ABILITY TO PAY! One woman who pays hundreds of dollars for inhalers in the US was sold one for 5 cents. This poor woman, much of whose income goes to treating the airway injury she received digging victims out of the Pile, burst into tears at the indignity of having been screwed so thoroughly by the health care system of the nation for which she had sacrificed so much.
"Sicko" also takes us to Paris and to London, where Moore explodes the myths that socialized health care is so terrible. When citizens of these nations get sick, if a government-funded doctor does not come to their door, they go to the hospital where they are promptly cared for, and at no charge. That's right, not grilled to make sure they can pay and not plied with high-priced designer drugs. It's no wonder that our politicians (and many of their witless, gulled constituents who happily vote against their own self-interest) mock the French so mercilessly. Clearly, if the average American knew the fleecing they were getting, and the way they are doing nothing but enriching the super-rich, they would revolt.
"Sicko" should be a jolt for everyone who reflexively assumes that America is best at everything. Clearly, the nation that consistently places profits before people, then convinces them that this larcenous state of affairs is a better deal, a sign of patriotism and proof of advanced morals has a lot to answer for.
Bravo, Michael Moore, for sticking your finger in the eye of the Man once again.