Review of Sicko (2007) by James B — 23 Oct 2009

What a documentary. Last night I had the opportunity to attend an advanced screening of "Sicko", the documentary by Michael Moore on the subject of the health care system in the United States and the lack of free universal health care for all American citizens. Walking in to the screening I was a bit skeptical. I am a registered republican, conservative minded and had previously avoided Moore's films. This film changed my entire perspective. It flat out blew my mind, it was sad, beautiful, funny, enlightening - a complete learning experience. Honestly, "Sicko" was astonishing (a word I don't use too often). There is one scene in particular in which an elderly woman cannot pay her bill at the Hospital of USC, so she is put in a cab and dropped off on the side of the road (all of this is captured on surveillance cameras) and left to wander around in the street, completely unaware of her surroundings. Just about everyone in the room watching this was choked up and fighting back tears as this horrendous scene unfolded. Sometimes it takes something like that to shock you out of the world of money, the latest gadgets, workplace stress and losing that last 10 lbs to realize that most of the things we stress about each day are very insignificant problems which we have blown out of proportion, meanwhile innocent people die by the thousands every day because we are simply too self absorbed to notice or care about anyone else.

The documentary makes a great point regarding the fact that the United States is the only country in the western world without universal health care. Michael Moore takes each argument used against socialized medicine and effortlessly debunks it. You get a good glimpse at how the HMOs work, how they do all they can to avoid paying, and how hard they will make it for you to receive benefits. Several people used in this documentary passed away before it was finished due to their treatments going unfulfilled because the insurance companies deem so many operations and medications as "experimental", thus not covered.

In the end this documentary was ultimately depressing. We are shown to be nothing more than tools in a plutocracy that rewards the richest and keeps the poorest in fear. The movie points out that the richest 1% of the world owns 80% of the world's wealth, and that the other 99% do not protest this because they are demoralized and kept in fear, worker bees kept in that state of limbo, living paycheck to paycheck.

To fellow conservatives reading about "Sicko" out of curiosity, do yourself the favor of watching this, because who in their right mind wants to deny anyone health care?