I've never felt more ashamed to be a citizen of the United States of America than I did after this film. Well, maybe as a child, when I learned about the Trail of Tears, slavery, discrimination and abortion clinic bombings. But I've had time to learn to live with those parts of our history. And Operation Rescue certainly doesn't represent mainstream America, so most of my guilt comes from our propensity to suck up an astonishing amount of the world's resources at an equally astonishing pace. And I am an everyday participant in that system. Which might be why I was so insistent we walk to the movie theatre last night, instead of driving. It was two miles of undisturbed time for us to spend together, and it gave us a great chance to talk about what we'd learned on the way home. And to ponder our immigration options.
The health care system in the United States is in shambles. This isn't news to anyone. If you've ever taken a name brand prescription, you know how prohibitively expensive it is to actually take the medicine your doctor prescribes. If you have any family or friends who've gotten sick, you've surely heard stories of fights with insurance plans to get approval for the treatments MDs recommend.
More importantly, if you've ever gone without health insurance, you know what it's like to have that nagging fear of accidents and ailments in the back of your mind as you go about your life. I've been uninsured for half of my adult life due to workplaces that didn't provide insurance (despite being "good" jobs). I broke my toe in February, and did what is apparently becoming the norm for the uninsured these days: I researched treatments online and figured I'd take my chances on it healing properly. But I probably shouldn't make any public acknowledgment of past traumas, as it will surely be grounds for a future insurer to deny coverage of an appendectomy, or some other completely unrelated surgery.
I'm not sure who insurance is actually helping these days. People migrate from one job to the next so frequently that you establish pre-existing conditions for anything that has ever ailed you, thereby locking yourself out of coverage for the rest of your life.
That yeast infection you had years ago? You might think it's an innocent thing to be diagnosed with, since 75% of women have had a yeast infection in their lives, and plenty of men, too. But in one of many eye-opening anecdotal health insurance horror stories in Sicko, a woman is forced to reimburse her insurance company for a $7,000 surgery they had approved, because the company sent investigators to look through her medical history and they found she had NOT MENTIONED having had a yeast infection on enrollment forms. And that, my friends, is all they needed to deny payment. Sadly, this story is far from the worst of what you'll see in the film.
Sicko succeeds in raising a series of questions which should haunt everyone who leaves the movie theater.
Sicko succeeds in raising a series of questions which should haunt everyone who leaves the movie theater.
How many people have been killed by denial of coverage by health insurance companies? And why have we allowed our nation to create a system of health care for profit? When the companies are trying to generate more revenue so that they can pump their stock price, how will we ever receive the care we need?
Why do we spend more than any other nation on a system that provides such poor results? Most other industrialized countries have lower infant mortality rates and longer lifespans than the USA. Why don't We the People, who demand the best in all other things, call for the reform of our health care apparatus? And we might as well do something about about education, while we're at it.
Why do we set ourselves up for years of debt with this system? When Moore turns his camera on nations with national health care systems which cover all medical bills (Canada, France, the UK), what we see is refreshing to the point of agony — people living with the basic right of health care, people who have not been forced into bankruptcy in their "golden years." People who are living well, all without massive debt. These countries also provide access to higher education as a public right. And that is the thesis of this film: health care is a basic human right, and any civilized, democratically governed nation is obligated to care for its citizens by giving them access to health care.
The movie itself is as polished as any other Michael Moore production, complete with stock footage from the fifties cut together for some nice voiceover montages. The pacing was great, and the anecdotes were well-chosen. Moore's trip to Cuba (with 911 volunteers in tow) was the most gimmicky aspect of the entire movie, but I appreciated his restraint in keeping it short. It was a powerful segment which would have worked as well had he taken the Americans to any of the other countries he visited with national health care. Clearly, Moore set out to show the flaws in our own system, and didn't bother to articulate the complexities of the political situations in any country he visited outside of the US, but did you really expect him to? We all know what we're getting when we see a Michael Moore film these days, and this one delivered a more powerful punch than any other. It should be required viewing for all US citizens. If you're interested in reforming our system, follow any of these links for more information.
By the way, I'm Brooke, Casey's wife, and I'll be posting to The Contrarian every once in a while. In the future, expect much shorter posts about literature, writing, and possibly film and TV.
By the way, I'm Brooke, Casey's wife, and I'll be posting to The Contrarian every once in a while. In the future, expect much shorter posts about literature, writing, and possibly film and TV.
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