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Sicko is not a movie about the 50 million Americans walking around without health insurance. Sicko is a movie about the other 250 million of us who have insurance, but are just as well and truly screwed. It’s also about freedom, real freedom, not the empty kind that gets thrown around as a buzzword; the freedom to live your life with the certainty that forces beyond your control won’t take away everything you have and everything you are. We don’t have that kind of freedom here in America, and Moore’s film makes that point by simply talking to real people. They’re your neighbors, your friends, your parents, some of them are even 9/11 heroes. Moore uses his camera to let them tell their stories of insurance company mistreatment and in the process paints a complete picture of a corrupt and fatally flawed system which isn’t just killing people but taking away their dignity and their liberty.
At first, he isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. Anyone who’s spent any time dealing with insurance companies knows what a mess it is. You pay your premiums and then when you actually need them they go out of their way not to help you. They’re in the business of finding reasons not to spend money, and everyone knows it. What you may not know is just how far they’ll go. Having insurance doesn’t mean you’re protected, and the film covers both ends of the spectrum from people left to die because insurance companies refuse treatment, to people dropped from policies for bogus reasons, to an elderly couple driven to bankruptcy and made homeless by high deductibles. The film leaves no room for anyone to think it won’t happen to them. It will. It happens to everyone, just in varying degrees. When you walk out of Sicko, you’ll do it with the absolute certainty that if you ever encounter serious health trouble, you’re screwed.
At first, he isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. Anyone who’s spent any time dealing with insurance companies knows what a mess it is. You pay your premiums and then when you actually need them they go out of their way not to help you. They’re in the business of finding reasons not to spend money, and everyone knows it. What you may not know is just how far they’ll go. Having insurance doesn’t mean you’re protected, and the film covers both ends of the spectrum from people left to die because insurance companies refuse treatment, to people dropped from policies for bogus reasons, to an elderly couple driven to bankruptcy and made homeless by high deductibles. The film leaves no room for anyone to think it won’t happen to them. It will. It happens to everyone, just in varying degrees. When you walk out of Sicko, you’ll do it with the absolute certainty that if you ever encounter serious health trouble, you’re screwed.
It's OK, Michael Moore already said he's fine with people viewing his movie on the internet (pirated or otherwise).
His producers might disagree though, heh.
The last bit with the Anti-Michael Moore website guy was gold.
Edit: This post was not meant to trivialize any of the serious issues addressed. Just feeling incredibly depressed after watching that...It really does make me want to pack up and move and gtfo...but if everyone did that...this country is due for some change already.
The last bit with the Anti-Michael Moore website guy was gold."
haha that's hilarious because I'm from London, Ontario, Canada... and I live literally 50 feet from where some of the shots were taken in the movie
I was gonna post this when it was first on Google, but then they took it down.
I don't get it, I really don't, I can't understand how things have been allowed to get so bad. Are people really this dumbed down they just accept this?
As the wonderful Tony Benn says in this film, keep the people frightened and demoralised and they are easily controlled.
I'm truly stunned after watching this, completely floored. And the American news just blatantly lie about how BAD and SCARY universal healthcare is.
America is long overdue its revolution. France is the PERFECT example, and Michael Moore quite rightly highlights this.
This is the finest film Michael Moore has ever made, it will and should SHOCK Americans into shaking off the fear of their government and demanding their country back.
If you add up the terrible costs that your Corporations/Government (for they seem to be one in the same) have taken from you in the last 50 years - you folks who seem to have so much, actually have very little.
Sorry, I hope things get better for you guys. You just have to get of your complacent butts and force some change.
Viva La Revolution!
1. As the movie itself shows, privatized healthcare came into existence under Nixon's administration. Thus, this system has existed for decades.
2. Compared to other industrialized nations, our health care system is essentially ass-backwards. This has been true for decades, according to (1).
3. People who were largely oblivious to the problems of the health care system (either because it's "not their problem" or simply have never been a victim of its corruption) now will only begin to rise up and oppose the crappy health care system because it has appeared to them in visual movie form.
4. This makes me wonder how the many other problems of America are going to be fixed, if it takes a mainstream movie speaking out against it to "wake people up," as it were.
We truly are a nation of fools.
Need your kids to have better health care? screw lawyers, threaten to use michael moore!
As far as expatriation goes,.... no real fan of the morons in the US, born and raised here, and so few folks with a shit-lick of sense, and some of the most boring, motivationally deprived, and uni-dimensional num-nuts one would ever care to suffer....getting worse with each new generation....but....what is to be appreciated, enjoyed, and embraced, is the culture, drive, and intelligent souls, that ARE still available in these United States.....that goes for any country....the many, follow the few-Think we'll stay here for a while.....where else can one get the space one needs, to walk out on their porch in their birthday suit, and fire a high-powered rifle off in any direction, without having to worry about, Coppers called, or neighbors hit???....Australia maybe, but who the fuck wants to live on a continent full of frogs and bunnies????? and skin cancer....well, there are the nude beaches and backward toilet drainage.....
Mike Moore, how bout you drop about 90 pounds, by not stuffing your face for a while, then you won't be so thinkin'so hard about the inevitability of you neeeedin' health care????
(He sure knows how to instigate a bitch session...does this guy know who to bitch at yet????.....FUUUCK!)
Everyone in the US needs to see this, by any means.
A shame - everyone should see this.
The cashier scene is PRICELESS.
"You can find money to help people." Nice.
@grev - I think I've seen that Tim Horton's when I visited - which street is it on?
@bhyphenlow:
1. Yeah, our gas prices are a few cents higher, but honestly, it's within 10% of American prices, WAY cheaper than the crazy-ass high prices in Europe.
2. Rural Alaska - how much medical service do you get up there, after all? Yeah, our rural areas aren't as strong as urban centres, but we're working on that. In Ontario, for example, they're working on giving incentives, etc., to encourage more rural service/care.
3. Government-run HMO - NOOOOO it's not. We do NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT HMOs are in Canada. Note in the video the "what's a deductible" reaction. We have a series of independent health providing organizations which get government funding. It's not a "Big Brother decides your care" system. The hospitals and governments deal with their funding, but you pick the doctor/clinic you want to get help from.
This is *key* - you have to understand this because I think it's a key point in your opposition to the idea of universal health care.
FEMA is a bad analogy. Being able to choose between all the schools (high schools, colleges, whatever) in your city is a better comparison - that's an excellent way to compare how our health care works. If you get expelled from one school (say, one doctor happens to be a jerk), you go to another one (pick another one).
I'm horribly spoiled since I live in a city, but if I was getting elderly or sick, I'd definitely move closer to major urban centres to avoid the rural problems.
Ideally you/the Americans will take the best of foreign systems and make it better if possible.
Although it's always possible for things to become worse, it's pretty darn bad as it is, eh?
What's really needed is SOME action. Haven't seen much action as a result of other Moore movies, eh? Then again, this movie kind of pre-emptively answers the "what can we do" argument with the example of the gentleman who invoked Moore to get his daughter some proper treatment. Awesome.
*live
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Here's the fix:
<embed id="VideoPlayback" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=5186750007944385887&hl=en&fs=true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed>