Untitled Document
Say you had the misfortune to sever your middle and
ring fingers and, because you were uninsured, you were told that it would
cost $60,000 to reattach the center digit and a mere $12,000 to sew back
the other. What would you do? This is the unenviable decision facing one
man in Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko — and what makes it all the more tragic is that
it’s one of the more positive tales that the filmmaker has unearthed
for his broadside of the American health system. As usual, Moore is in
take-no-prisoners mode, exposing the industry’s excesses and
callousness.
The power of Moore’s work comes from his ability
to put a human face on a corrupt, inhumane system. If you don’t get
upset over the story of the young woman who was denied coverage for her
cervical cancer because she was deemed too young to have such a disease or
the tale of a frantic young mother whose 18-month-old baby died because she
was refused treatment, then you have a heart of stone. And Moore provides us with alternatives, although
admittedly he glosses over some of the details. When he shows the sort of
care that’s routinely available in Canada, France and, heaven forbid,
Cuba, he’s giving us a one-sided take on these seemingly perfect
systems. The long lines and high taxes that are part and parcel of these
programs get short shrift. However, those who would jump on these points
and discount Sicko in its entirety are missing the forest for the trees. More than 47 million
Americans, nearly a quarter of them children, are uninsured, and it’s
a problem that needs to be addressed. With Sicko, Moore diagnoses the problem; now it’s time for a
cure.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2007.
