‘Sicko’

For all Michael Moore’s humor, this film is heart rending, touching and thought-provoking in a way none of his others have been.

By: Bob Brown

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Michael Moore consults with a British doctor in Sicko.


   Michael Moore has graduated. Big Mike, the class clown, has finally made a film that might actually be a documentary.
   After Roger & Me took on General Motors, Bowling for Columbine took on the gun lobby, and Fahrenheit 9/11 took on the military industrial complex, Moore tackles the one nemesis everyone loves to hate (well, everyone but HMOs) — the health care/big pharmaceutical complex.
   Moore has always been a first-class entertainer. But even while you were laughing till you spewed soda through your nose, you suspected that he was loading the dice, stacking the deck, fudging his facts to make his zingers. Moore himself, as reported in Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk’s recent film, Manufacturing Dissent, didn’t particularly like documentaries.
   One of his classic methods has been to confront corporate big wigs or celebrities, microphone in hand, pressing them with an embarrassing question. Moore arranges these confrontations when he knows the interviewee is about to leave for an appointment or is otherwise lulled into thinking Moore is there about something else. His interview of the befuddled Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine was perhaps the nadir of such confrontations.
   But surprise, surprise. Despite ample fodder for such showdowns, Sicko leaves the face-to-face finger-wagging behind and concentrates instead on those who are affected by America’s broken health care system — average Americans. As he points out early in the film, the problem isn’t only with those who can’t get coverage, it’s with those who are covered and think they’re secure. When Moore requested health-coverage horror stories to use in his film, more than 200,000 responded. Many were simply frustrated at getting the runaround. Others, the most poignant ones in this film, were much sadder. A husband’s cancer treatment wasn’t covered because it was deemed experimental. A mother’s toddler wasn’t treated for a high fever at the emergency room because the hospital wasn’t affiliated with her health care provider. And on and on.
   Former employees of large HMOs and health care providers speak out to say that the system is set up primarily to make money and secondarily to provide health care. It would be understandable that HMOs want to save money by denying coverage to those who may be trying to scam the system. But it’s shocking to learn the lengths they go to justify denying claims — everything from checking a long list of pre-existing conditions that automatically disqualify applicants, to hiring private investigators who find ways to recoup benefits even after claims are paid. Moore doesn’t need to confront the CEO of Kaiser-Permanente, the largest HMO, to make hard-hitting points.
   But it isn’t only criticism of what’s broken. Moore wants to know if things are better elsewhere. And, voila, they are: Canada (Moore’s most favored nation) has state-provided free medical care, as does France. Britain has had its National Health Service since 1948, when they were still digging out from the rubble of World War II. No one pays more than $12 for prescriptions, if anything.
   Patients he speaks with in these countries are bemused at Americans’ worry about the cost of health care. No insurance claims are questioned, no payments are required in these places. Not trusting the French to lord it over his fellow countrymen, Moore interviews a table-full of expatriate Americans in Paris about how they perceive life here. "I almost feel guilty," one woman tells him. She feels bad for her parents having the burden of health expenses when she was growing up. In France, her coverage is all free.
   The pièce de résistance, however, is the by-now notorious trip to Cuba. Here, Moore is at his funniest best, as he confronts the guard towers at Guantanamo Bay, vainly trying to get his sick 9/11 heroes the same health care that the "evil-doers" get. Funny, yet quickly poignant as he mingles with average Cubans and enters a Cuban hospital. No matter what your politics, or how you feel about the Cuban regime, these scenes will not leave a dry eye.
   Michael Moore poignant? That may be the biggest change. For all his humor, and there’s still plenty of it, this film is heart-rending, touching and thought-provoking in a way none of his others have been. Sure, the picture is unbalanced. While extolling French health care, for instance, he ignores the large social problems created by the gap between the native French and the growing immigrant population, the high unemployment, the paralyzing strikes. In making his points, he is not painting with a gray brush.
   This film is also technically more polished than his earlier work. It doesn’t look as if it’s been shot on the cheap, and his music choices are much more sophisticated, as is the editing.
   In Sicko, Moore poses a question that is an indictment not of the health-care industry alone, but of all Americans’ attitude. How did the most generous nation on Earth get here? Why is a country whose citizens are noted for their volunteerism, their altruistic good deeds on a local level, not willing to embrace this sense of "we-ness" that is necessary for us all to pull together and get out of our health care mess? In a sense, he is wagging his finger at the audience this time. What are we going to do about it?
Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.