Last year, my uncle, who s been a US citizen since 1968, called us up to inform us that he s about to undergo heart surgery. My uncle, who naturally has full medical insurance, was fortunate enough to have a successful operation without worrying much about the expenses. In about a couple of months though, he would end up paying $100,000 for the nurse responsible for his physiotherapy. Apparently, he found out that his full insurance doesn t cover the crucial post-surgery treatment.
My uncle s little crisis is nothing compared to the stories presented in Sicko; Michael Moore s new documentary about the degraded American medical-care system.
Moore s follow-up to 2004 s Fahrenheit 9/11, the highest-grossing documentary film in history, is less controversial than its predecessor and, surprisingly, less biased. It s not objective either, far from it as a matter of fact. Sicko is much more focused though, leaner and plausible. Unlike Fahrenheit, Moore doesn t single out or demonize one particular enemy or party; his foe is the entire corrupt system that annihilates millions of lives in the name of one sole objective: maximizing profit.
The film opens with a troubling shot of a man, without medical insurance, sewing closed his own wound as he can t afford the costs of having a professional stitch him up.
This scene is followed by one of the quirkiest, most talked about anecdotes of the film. A senior citizen, also without heath coverage, who sawed off the top of two of his fingers, is forced to choose between reattaching the middle finger for $60,000 or doing the ring finger for $12,000.
But this film, as Moore explains via a voice-over, isn t about the 50 million Americans without health insurance; it about the other 250 million.
Moore wastes no time in rolling out one horror story after another; and it s in these personal, tragic, emotionally draining and compelling tales where the strength of the film lies.
Some of the most devastating stories include a young woman who lost her husband to kidney cancer after the board of trustees of their medical plan refused to pay for his kidney transplant surgery; an African-American woman with who watched her 18-month-old daughter die as a consequence of a dispute between her insurance company and a hospital; and a few other ladies who eventually passed away when their insurance companies denied them the required medication because they deemed these patient s critical condition as non-life threatening.
Moore explains that bad roots of the current system were primarily planted during the Nixon era. It was then that a law was initiated that allows insurance companies to reject the claims of patients for treatment or medication based on a very long, convoluted list of rules. The profits of pharmaceutical and insurance companies would skyrocket soon after.
In the early 90s, Hillary Clinton, the US’s First Lady at that time, attempted to introduce the universal health care bill – a proposed law that exempts any insured patient from paying extra expenses by transforming heath care into a service provided by the federal government – which was strongly rejected by the right-wing members of the senate who branded the project socialist propaganda.
Years later, when Clinton nominated herself for Congress, the former enemy of the medicine tycoons became an ally after she received millions of dollars for her fund-raising campaign by the same corporations she tried to challenge years ago.
Recently, several congressmen were also allegedly granted hefty bonuses for passing a law that gave the green light to drug companies to charge patients whatever they wanted. Billy Tozan, the congressman chiefly responsible for the passing of the bill, would quickly quit Congress to take over a pharmaceutical company with an annual paycheck of $2 million.
The second part of the film sees Moore traveling to Canada, Britain, France and Cuba to compare their socially-responsible universal medi-care system to the American one. He finds out that none of the tax-paying citizens of these nations pay much cash for any health-related expenses. Their life, as Moore depicts it, is luxurious compared to that of Americans. France, in particular, sends a government employee to every new mother to do the laundry and give both parents tips concerning their babies.
Life is not as rosy as Moore paints it out to be in these countries though. In 2003, in France for instance, 15,000 hospital patients died – mostly elderly – in an August heat wave simply because some hospitals lacked air conditioning and doctors were on vacation. Patients in Britain and Canada can wait for weeks before having an appointment set for them with their physicians. Besides, at least half of the statistical and scientific data about comparable life expectancy presented as facts are, in reality, either untrue or misrepresented.
Indeed, no system is perfect, but this not Moore s issue. It s all about the idea of having a system that treats everyone equally; a system uncontrolled by profit-seeking corporations; a fair structure adequate for the average hardworking citizens of the richest country in the world.
Despite the grimness that forms the heart of this film, Sicko is, nevertheless, very entertaining. Moore downplays his larger-than-life persona this time, appearing only in the second part of the film. His comic timing is still brilliant and he definitely knows how to elicit his audience sympathy and support. He s manipulative, no doubt about it, like any good filmmaker, and Sicko is his least manipulative work to date.
Although Sicko won t convert any of Moore s adversaries, it s bound to be remembered his most sophisticated, heartfelt and mature work to date. The one scene that will linger in your mind is not the heavily covered Cuban trip theatrical stunt; it s the image of Tony Benn, former member of parliament in Britain, stating that Britons are enjoying the benefits of their own system because of the triumph of democracy; the notion that the public control their own destiny, that they re the actual rulers of their own country. That s why it feels ironic that the one nation forcing democracy on the world is actually the only country in the western industrialized world where the citizens are still incapable of stepping out of line.
