| CANNES
:Trust Michael Moore to do it in his own unique style while
taking on the American health system in his new documentary
Sicko. The film presents a case that America's 250 million who
have medical insurance and are paying top dollar for the same
are actually being taken for a ride, they will be left to die
if they are not properly covered.
Treatment and surgeries cost the earth, which any American
will vouch for. As an illustration he features a patient who
has had the tops of his fingers sliced off and when he visits
the hospital he is told that it will cost him $12,000 to save
his ring finger and $60,000 to save his middle finger, and
because he does not have the money, he has to choose. He chooses
the ring finger.
In
Moore's ailing American medical system, Nixon and Bush are
shown to be the villains of the piece, being paid off by insurance
companies and also by the pharma companies to ensure that
their interests are given pride of place, the lay American
be damned. He even takes a dig at Hilary Clinton for trying
to revitalise the system but giving into pressures and financial
benefit.
 |
| Michael
Moore walks the Red Carpet at the Palais de Festivals
at Cannes. |
Over
the 123 minute long documentary, he travels to Canada, London,
Paris, Cuba and visits hospitals, and clinics, asking almost
seemingly assinine questions of locals, doctors, politicians
and Americans in these places, presenting his case very simply
and in an almost funny ribbing the status quo manner. (He
is probably forced to keep it simple stupid , because as he
says most Americans don't know where England is). He reels
out statistics, saying how Americans are more prone to certain
diseases and have lower life expectancies than many countries
such as even Cuba, the UK and even France (even though they
quaff wine, have long paid for holidays for ill health and
recovery, child maintenance, etc). He obviously has one purpose
in mind: to startle Americans out of their somnolence, and
try and bring about some changes in the system.
Moore's
documentary mixes a lot of archival footage, some music, some
comic inserts to keep the mood from becoming too sombre. He
does not leave the big insurance companies: they are directly
in his cross hairs, whether it is Kaiser Permanente or Horizon
Blue Cross.
And
then he takes a group of patients including rescue workers
afflicted by taking part in the 9/11 rescue and denied benefits
from the American health care systems to Cuba and shows them
getting treated at almost no cost, and being treated as heroes
by the local fire men. (this action of his got the US Treasury
Department to investigate him for breaking the US Cuba trade
embargo).
The
documentary is informative, yet entertaining. Moore will be
accused of being biased, which he might well be. But to shake
the system, you have to take a stand.
All
in all a movie worth a watch.
|
