Capone's Review Of SICKO!

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. If you've already made up your mind not to see Michael Moore's latest work exposing the dangerous, sometimes deadly, shortcomings of the American health care system, that's a real shame. Sure, SICKO is as biased and angry as all of Moore's other work (ROGER & ME, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, FAHRENHEIT 9/11), but the film also shows a remarkably more savvy Moore, who not only points out the problem but offers up several possible solutions. Reports of Moore being less of a presence in this movie are false. He may show up on camera a little later than usual, but he's on screen plenty; and his humorous and often moving narration is with us throughout. What's perhaps different in his approach to assembling SICKO is the de-politicizing of the subject. Granted, he still finds time to stick it to various Congressmen and the president for taking huge campaign contributions from the health care industry, but that’s a small part of this movie. Instead, Moore spends time with people, dozens of insured people whose profit-minded health insurance companies refused to cover or reimburse often life-saving procedures. As you're probably heard, this is not a film about Americans without health insurance; this is about those folks lulled into a false sense of security because they think they're fully covered. It's also about how insurance providers are publicly traded companies with boards of directors and shareholders looking for these companies to turn a profit, and the easiest way to do so in that industry is to find clever ways of denying coverage. These are the elements of a Michael Moore movie that you expect. What came as a pleasant surprise to me was the time the filmmaker spent outside of the U.S., investigating how other industrialized, first-world nations take care of their sick. Moore visits Canada, the UK, France and, as you may have heard, Cuba. All of these visits offer one shocking revelation after another not only about how universal health care works and is paid for, but how the government views its citizens. Moore makes a statement I had never considered about why America is in the mess that it is: the governments of these other countries (with the exception of Cuba, probably) are afraid of its citizens, of work-stopping protests, and of public opinion, while Americans are scared of our government. It may seem obvious to some, but it hit me in the face like a brick. This simple logic explains so much. And that is seriously fucked up. Moore never forgets to make his packaged anger amusing and entertaining, but aside from his now-legendary attempt to get three 9/11 rescue workers the same top-notch medical treatment being given to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, he has largely abandoned the in-your-face stunts that made him famous and feared. There are no home visits to corporate CEOs or Charlton Heston. In SICKO, he pretty much only goes where he's invited. And how about that little unscheduled trip to Cuba? There are a lot of sad stories in SICKO, but the only time I also lost control of my emotions was during a sequence in a Cuban firehouse. We'll see if you have the same reaction. It's tough not getting emotionally wrapped up with repeated stories of sick children, dead spouses, and cancer-ridden mothers and father, but most of you will likely go in prepared for that part of the film. What will get you off guard is the rest of what Moore delivers: a well-constructed, intelligent--sometimes heavy handed and manipulative--profile of a nation that has been sold on a lie. And for those who doubt the rosy picture Moore paints of life in foreign countries with a national medical plan, that's fine. I'm a bit skeptical on that point myself. But what he says about the situation in the United States is 100 percent accurate, and that's the real shame. At one point during the film, Moore simply asks, "Who are we?" It's a question that passed through my head on more than one occasion while watching this devastating piece of filmmaking. Capone