Movie Review – Sicko

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2007 A Michael Moore investigative documentary in the style of his earlier productions, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling For Columbine. This time, Moore looks at the state of the US health services from the Nixon era to the George W Bush period (an update to cover the impact of Obamacare and its destruction under Trump is much called for). The film shows the devastating impact and tyranny of pitilessly greedy US health insurance companies who see it as their duty to avoid paying out to the needy. Patients without insurance, or who fill out complex self-assessment forms incorrectly (i.e., forgetting even some minor treatment received in the past) can find themselves unable to pay for treatment or virtually bankrupted by their need to get well. Moore meets one man who severed two fingers in a sawmill accident and had to choose which of the two fingers to have sewn back on as he couldn’t afford both. A lady needing cancer treatment had to sell her house to pay for it. Many Americans find clever ways to get free treatment in Canada, while the less fortunate have been dumped in the streets from hospitals and depend on charity to survive at all. Moore looks at the Health services of other countries including and France and the UK’s National Health Service, though he is totally uncritical of our government cutbacks and long patient waiting lists. There is a great interview with former MP Tony Benn on the origins of the NHS in the 1940’s following WW2. Moore moves then to showing the plight of many fire-fighters in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on New York. While there was still a chance of finding survivors under the rubble of the Twin Towers many firemen from outside New York City rushed in to help in the search, unpaid and at great risk to themselves. The fine dust from the disintegrated towers affected the lungs of many who did not use breathing apparatus, and while the official NY fire brigade workers had insurance from their stations, the out of towners were denied assistance, ruining their health, careers and wealth. Moore discovered that terrorists kept as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, a US prison on Cuba, are entitled to free medicare so he ends his film by taking many of the patients he has interviewed to Guantanamo to ask for help there for them. The guards at the detention camp ignored them while the Cuban people and especially a division of Cuban fire-fighters and medics gave them all full comprehensive treatment denied them on their own soil. A savagely clever brave documentary that shows that American Health care itself is dangerously sick. Arthur Chappell