Sicko. A documentary that investigates health care in the United States by focusing on the pharmaceutical industry and it’s health insurance.
Michael Moore is famous for his works concerning globalism and capitalism. It compares the for profit/private care system to the public health care system. This 2007 documentary focused on several different countries during it’s run-time of 2 hours and 3 minutes such as Canada, Cuba, France and the United Kingdom.
After watching this documentary, it really made an impression on how different health care is around the world. According to the World Health Organization which was referenced in the film, the United States is ranked 37 out of 191. The countries that he visited compared the US were ranked higher as France was ranked at 1, United Kingdom at 18 and Canada at 30.
The idea of paying for health care at such a high price was shocking as the documentary showed a couple who had to sell their house and belongings and live with their daughter and her kids so that they could pay the fees. The cost for an ambulance, the cost for being treated, the cost for the staying overnight in the hospital and then the cost for buying the medication led them to bankruptcy. About 50 million adults in the US experience bankruptcy due to the medical costs. When Michael went to Cuba, all they asked for was the patients’ name and birthday and then started to treat them for free. The costs for the medication at the pharmacy was only a couple of cents and it was the same medication the patients’ used in the US. In Britain, all they had to pay for were the dispensing costs which roughly converted to a few US dollars. They even had a cashier that payed the patients’ money for any transport costs.
Another thing I noticed when watching this film is that many Americans went to different places to get free health care. One of the people he interviewed was a woman who frequently crossed the border and acted as if she lived in Canada. When they filmed her go to a clinic, the police were notified and she then proceeded to go to another clinic nearby.
There are positives and negatives for everything but this documentary focused more on the negatives. As I thought about this, my only question was that “Is it really free?” Yes, in the U.S there are high costs but in Canada there are long wait times, in France there are high taxes and in Britain the hospitals are cash-short. The U.S pays more to specialized doctors and it is more personal. In the end, no it is not free. There are pro and cons to everything but the documentary looked past these issues and solely focused on the good parts. I believe that the documentary could have shown viewers both sides to each countries systems as that would have really been educational and it would have worked well into the theme of how different countries operate their health care.
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