DVD of the Week: SiCKO

Before I launch into my review of Michael Moore’s latest documentary, SiCKO, I must first give you a little background on my watching Moore films.
I first saw Roger and Me as a teenager, before I even knew who Michael Moore was or what left and right really meant. This forced me to take the documentary on its on merits. So I watched it with no preconceived notions of what it would be about or where it came from, and what I saw made a huge impact on me. It was a great, inspiring movie, and actually caused me to take a deeper look at the world around me.
I watched Bowling for Columbine in college, and left the theater with an expanded mind as well. Although it did not have the same fire of Roger and Me, it was nonetheless well worth my $8.
Fahrenheit 9/11, though it had some good points, was more or less a “don’t vote for Bush” diatribe, which was very disappointing. I could have done without it, and so could Moore’s career.
In SiCKO, Moore’s study of the flaws of the American healthcare system (or lack thereof), he returned to his roots as a brash filmmaker. Of course there are several not-so-subtle jabs at the Bush Administration, but they are well overshadowed by an in-depth comparison between the socialized health systems in Canada, Europe and Cuba and the free-market Darwinism that is United States health care.
Moore does get a little liberal with his facts, though. Several Web sites have been created to debunk many of his assertions — most notably that the socialized systems are just as efficient as the American system. That simply cannot be the case. It’s simple economics 101 – of course a free-market system is more efficient. The market makes it that way. There are no outside forces on a socialized system (such as competition) to make it work efficiently.
Also, it is a fact that people in countries with socialized systems have a longer average life expectancy than us. But just how much of that can be attributed to their health care systems is debatable. You must also figure that more younger Americans die each year than their peers in other countries, mostly due to traffic and other accidents that are not preventable by health care.
Moore’s broader argument, though, that the market often leaves out large sections of society – like the poor or uninsured – is much more salient. And this is the major reason why I agree that we need some sort of reform in this country.
The sad fact is, that big insurance companies do run this country’s health care system, and they often dictate who gets care and who doesn’t. I’ll give you an example. My father, who has worked hard all his life as a self-employed businessman, has no insurance, and couldn’t afford it if he wanted it. He had a heart attack last year, and, at nearly 60 years of age, will likely be paying for his stint insertion for the rest of his life.
Is that fair? Luckily, my dad can afford to pay the monthly payments. But there are millions of people in this country who can’t. And most of those people, including my dad, often decide not to go to the doctor for check-ups because they can’t afford it.
I’ll give you another example. My friend had a kidney stone last year, so he goes to the doctor for treatment, and the doctor tells him he needs a CAT scan to determine if the stone is his only problem. His insurance was supposed to cover it, but this year when he went to buy a house, his application was turned down because of a medical lean on his credit report. It seems the insurance company turned him down, but he never got a letter about it. The hospital, not receiving any payment for a year, turned it over to a collection agency.
My friend will be renting a home for at least another seven years, until the $2000 lean is gone, although he has already paid it.
This is the richest country in the world. But we didn’t get that way by being nice to our own people. There is a reason that 80 percent of this countries wealth is owned by one percent of its population.
It’s because we don’t really care. The insurance companies don’t care about your illness. Businesses don’t care about their employees, but rather the bottom line, and the people don’t care enough to vote in ways that influence your leaders to change things.
Imagine if we invested all the money that is currently going to pay for an unnecessary war into our own infrastructure. Our own hospitals and health care systems. Our own schools and education systems. Our own police and fire departments, here at home. We could have the healthiest, smartest, safest population in the world — not just the richest one percent in the world.
I think that is what Moore was saying, at least.