SiCKO

15Apr08

Though SiCKO was released almost a year ago, I’ve just gotten around to seeing it. I hesitated so long because I thought the film would make me angry about the state of health care in America. It did.

In his film, SiCKO, Michael Moore spells it out for us: The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal health care system. Forty-five million Americans do not have health insurance. More than nine million of those are children. A baby born in El Salvador has a better chance of surviving that one born in Detroit. Ninety percent of Americans believe the American health care system needs fundamental changes or needs to be completely rebuilt. Two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government should guarantee universal health care for all citizens.

In yet the richest country in the world refuses to care for its citizens. Michael Moore bluntly exposes the personal horrors our failed health care system has wrought. Mr. Moore, in all of his documentaries, has done an exceptional job in bringing pointy-headed liberal policy debates from the cerebral to the guttural—a task usually reserved for the more conservative political operatives among us. Mr. Moore’s film makes us sad, angry, jealous (of a European belief in universal health care), and alternately depressed and inspired.

The health care problem in the United States has become an increasingly partisan debate. A January, 2008 Pew Research Center Poll indicates that 65% of Democrats believe that insuring the uninsured should be a top priority of the administration. Only 27% of Republicans polled feel the same. What do conservatives stand to gain from an uninsured, debt-ridden class in our society?
In the film, Tony Benn, former member of British Parliament says that, “Democracy is the most revolutionary thing in the world”. He suggests that if you have political power you will use it to meet the needs of your community. In a functional Democracy, the vote moves the power from the wallet to the ballot.

The former MP goes on to explain how ours is not a functional Democracy. He says there are two ways people are controlled: fear (sound familiar?), and demoralization. Benn suggests that privatized health care ratchets up the intensity of fear and demoralization. A country where the uninsured sometimes choose to suffer, rather than go into debt over a medical bill suggests a country whose citizens are afraid. If they do choose health care they are racked with debt. Benn says that people in debt become hopeless, and hopeless people don’t vote. This is why our brand of Democracy is not revolutionary.

Some fault Mr. Moore for his manipulative style of filmmaking. Manipulative? Maybe. I would suggest though, that his manipulations are only more transparent than the manipulations of lobbyists, politicians and CEO’s whose best interests it is to see that there remains an uninsured, debt-ridden class in our society.