More entertaining, angering, depressing agitprop from Michael Moore. This time he takes aim at the US health insurance industry. No surprises there: Almost every American has had some sort of nightmare story in terms of dealing with their insurance company, so it's an easy target.
Yet while this is an important film to see - especially for those who mindlessly parrot the industry-sponsored political rhetoric that a national health care system would mire patients in a tax-heavy "bureaucracy" (I remind them that the health insurance industry is already an excessively expensive bureaucracy) - I get the feeling that none of the people who really need their minds changed about the need for universal health care in the United States will bother seeing this film.
It doesn't help that Sicko, at over two hours, goes on a bit too long - especially as all it really has to say is, "Look at all these other countries with a national health plan. See how much happier their citizens are as a result. And now look at the mess we've made." Don't get me wrong: This has to be said. Only Moore says it about twenty or thirty times. We get the point, Mike: We'd all do better with universal health care.
But when even onetime health care proponent Hillary Clinton is revealed to have since accepted major campaign funds from insurance companies (once she backed down), what politicians can we trust to would make the huge changes that the country needs? The message in the film is as discouraging as it is obvious. There's just not a whole lot we can do except wait for the politicians to eventually come around. And I do hope they will. But they have a massive, contribution-rich, lobbyist-heavy industry standing in the way. In the meantime, how nice the Canadians, British, French, Cubans, etc. seem to have it. At least somebody on this earth can enjoy health care security.