Michael Moore is one of the world’s most famous (and infamous) documentary filmmakers, and back in 2007 he embarked on a quest to challenge the US healthcare industry. Sicko was a documentary composed of interviews with both victims and employees of various healthcare agencies across the States, with a focus on the damage that the industry causes on a daily basis.
It should, therefore, be of little surprise that, according to journalist Ken Klippenstein, Sicko was included in the alleged handwritten manifesto of Luigi Mangione, the primary suspect in the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Michael Moore has himself written a response to this, and as a result of the events, has uploaded the entire documentary to YouTube — for free, with no commercials or ads.
It’s almost difficult to believe that Moore’s film was released nearly two decades ago, given that almost the exact same issues with the healthcare system which he highlighted then are still causing countless problems for so many Americans today. His documentary was unashamedly pointed, and it’s clear that Moore — like Mangione, and like so many other American citizens — has a problem with the way things are done. Now that it’s available to watch for free in its entirety, perhaps it’s time for the American public to understand just how badly they’re being treated.
Honesty About the US Healthcare System
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Release Date
May 18, 2007
Runtime
123 Minutes
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Michael Moore’s documentary is brutally honest about the way that healthcare in America operates. There are interviews with a huge range of people who have been poorly treated by various healthcare companies. These companies, Moore posits, aim not to help people but only to profit from illness. As well as interviews with victims of the system, Moore speaks to those who have worked in healthcare, including people whose job it was to reject people’s insurance applications. As one former employee says in Sicko:
The very definition of a good medical director was someone who can save the company a lot of money.
One of the most eye-opening interviewees is a former healthcare employee who speaks about how some medical directors were given bonuses if they managed to reject a certain number of claims and thereby save the insurance company money. The corruption inherent within the system is brought right to the fore, and some of the stories told by interviewees are beyond tragic. It’s painful to watch people having to describe how difficult it was when someone close to them died because they couldn’t afford healthcare. Moore’s frank approach to documentary filmmaking makes Sicko an emotionally straining study of the health industry.
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Mangione & Moore Point to Other Countries
A fair chunk of Sicko revolves around Moore’s comparison of the US insurance-based system to the universal healthcare systems of Canada, the UK, and Cuba (among others). By speaking to residents and healthcare workers from those countries, Moore highlights the disparity between the American experience and that of people who don’t have to pay anything at the point of use for their healthcare. For example, in the UK, prescription medication is set at a fixed, universal price which a lot of patients don’t even have to pay.
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The revelations about just how much more affordable healthcare is in publicly-funded arrangements are astonishing. Finding out how much some Americans pay just to live their lives like everyone else compared to other countries’ systems where travel to and from the hospital is reimbursed is infuriating. It’s no surprise that Mangione, who supposedly had his own painful issues with the health care industrial complex, allegedly wrote that this documentary has “illuminated the corruption and greed” at the heart of America’s health insurance problem. After all, Sicko was even nominated for an Oscar.
Michael Moore Talks Directly to Americans
Sicko doesn’t try to hide the fact that it is a vessel for Moore to make his point clear. His documentaries have always been unapologetically laser-focused, with a clear point at the forefront, but in this film that’s clearer than ever. Moore gives his opinions straight to the viewers at several points during the two-hour feature, and nothing is sugarcoated. The interviewees he’s chosen have been carefully selected to support his points, and at face value, Sicko is a highly-researched and intellectual examination of the healthcare system in the US — even if it’s very one-sided.
The fact that only one perspective is presented doesn’t diminish the quality of the documentary, however — rather, it gives the film a sense of honesty. This is Moore’s real view, and it’s a view which is important to millions of people throughout the United States. His opening monologue makes it clear that this isn’t just about the individual, it’s not even about the 50 million people who don’t have health insurance — but nor is it just about the 250 million who do. Sicko is a cautionary tale, an essay communicated through the screen, an odyssey through corruption and callousness for an audience that Moore desperately wants to be aware of the truth.
Michael Moore’s SiCKO is available to view now, for free, on YouTube. Watch it below:
You can view the original article HERE.
