Sicko

Sicko is a depiction of how the American health care system is a shambles. Michael Moore’s film shows, especially the American middle and lower class who are the ones that suffer the most from this situation, what the health care system is like in the rest of the world. The results are shocking and against our favor. In places like France and England, and even a place like Cuba (!), going to get an operation costs nothing. There is a wide margin here between the freedoms that foreign citizens in countries other than the U.S. receive in terms of free health care, compared to the health care prices here. The form of incense that Moore as a filmmaker transposes onto the audience come from the fact that doctors can and do live very comfortably financial lives in those countries; what’s the excuse for H.M.O.’s to be jacking up the health care prices here? The answer can only be greed and heartlessness. One has to be heartless if they do not perform a life saving operation on someone, just because they receive benefits from H.M.O. companies. That gonzo journalist Michael Moore, as always, stays true to his form of filmmaking (by falsifying facts and making certain individuals, like in the case of this film doctors, appear to be fools) and yet this time the gonzo journalism theatrics seem to be justified because of the imperative importance of this particular topic. How can one not joke in amazement over the fact that many of the firefighters who helped in the relief effort of 9/11 can be better treated medically (many have breathing issues) over in Cube (where Moore takes them) than in their own homeland? It’s a sick joke, and yet its reality. That joke has an underside of deep human caring and concern over the whole American health care situation and the people being affected by it.
I already knew that our health care system was a mess. Who doesn’t; everyone is affected by the enormous amount that one has to pay in order to have an operation and everyone implicitly knows the greed of the insurance companies. What I didn’t know was what initiated this mess. I learned from this film that John Ehrlichman convinced Richard Nixon to create a care system based on the belief that hospitals should give less care to their patients in order to obtain a greater profit. However, its one thing to already know something; it’s quite something else to actually see some of the worst examples of how innocent people are being affected by the high costs in health care. This is almost like fully exploring your feelings and concerns, which are in themselves highly upsetting emotionally. I feel that the reason Moore shows you cases like the one involving a retired couple who loses their home because of the expenses that they paid for dealing with multiple heart attacks and cancer (not to mention the many deaths that result from the insurance companies heartlessness), is to make you, the audience member, strife with anger against the system, so much so that we as a society cannot not deal with the high cost of health care anymore and, thus, ultimately try to fight the system in order to abolish this problem. This is what kept my interest not only during the movie, but long afterward as well. It’s a film that stays with you, and how can it not? The problem that’s in this film is always present in our daily lives. Moore ultimately wants that problem to go away. Moore’s desperate need to ultimately vanquish this problem is what makes him a successful director; his actually deeply caring about the people being affected by this, i.e. the audience. We are not left out of the implications of this film like we were in Moore’s other movies.
The filmmaker’s relationship to those being filmed is very interesting. He, like the audience, is incredulous upon finding out how affordable it is to just plain live, not let alone survive, in Europe and other foreign countries in the U.S. His relationship to the victims is entirely different. It’s almost one of care and consideration and great calm; examples of reassurance that this system will not last forever and something will be done about the situation.
One particular scene in the film that reflects the spirit of the movie is when Moore learns that in France, everyone is allowed six months paternity leave along with paid leave if they are facing a grave illness. Even though this is a minor scene, and really has nothing to do with the health care system, it shows the caring that is generally allocated to European citizens which is something that is not felt in America. It really is a shock to the system when an American audience hears this. Why doesn’t the government care about us over here?
The socio political context of this film is one of the system being rigged. Here’s an example: ex-congressman Billy Tauzin’s saying to Congress that they must pass a senior-citizens drug bill. Once Congress does, Billy Tauzin makes millions lobbying for drug companies. What kind of example does this illicit behavior set for this country? There is a plangent quality to this film, because it simply appears that in this country the poor and middle class lose and lose only. This is felt in the people being interviwed’s behavior, in the way the film is edited, the way it is shot, the narration, ect. Yet, there is also uplift as well, which is the ultimate American spirit. Moore does not want anyone in this country, this includes the insurance bigwigs, to forget what this country was based in: care for everyone along with voicing of one’s independence. Moore wants us to change the system and to not let us forget that we can.