Sicko

Michael Moore's documentary Sicko deals with the health care industry in America, and particularly how it compares to the systems of other first-world countries. I feel like Moore did a great job with this documentary in showing both the way health care systems work in other countries and the way America's health care system doesn't work. His confrontational style works better in this film than it did in Fahrenheit 9/11 when he made hefty accusations about President Bush. While his stance there alienated plenty of viewers, his stance here, that people should be cared for and should not go broke just because they get sick, is much easier to rally behind. In fact, Roger Friedman of Fox News, typically an antagonist of Moore's work, lauded the film as "brilliant and uplifting" in his review. When Michael Moore and Fox News agree on something, it's safe to assume that it fits into the category of a valence issue.
Moore uses juxtaposition to make most of his argument, by showing the failures of the American health care system to cover its citizens and then contrasting that with the relatively easy and inexpensive access to health care in nations like the U.K. and Canada. Moore's ultimate argument is that the United States should move to a system like the ones employed in these countries if it hopes to provide the best care to the most people.
I would be remiss in writing my assessment of this film if I didn't at least take a moment to clarify my beliefs on the issue at hand. Sicko is opposed mainly by those who prefer to keep the American health care system at status quo. Conversely, I agree with pretty much everything Moore said in this documentary. I don't believe that people's right to live healthily should depend on the kind of insurance or medical care they can afford. This merely reinforces the class discrepancies that America has worked so hard to move away from. Very few people will argue with the statement that everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed in life, but a surprising number of people will go against that very ideal when they oppose a health care system that will help give that opportunity to everyone. If someone needs a surgery and can't afford it, he or she essentially has two options under the current American health care system: don't get the surgery and risk whatever that entails, or get the surgery and go into debt, ruining any financial plans he or she may have made. I don't believe that this is acceptable in any advanced country, particularly not in the "leader of the free world."
Okay, I'm climbing down from the soapbox. All that said, I really enjoyed this film. I think it speaks volumes about what we as a country can do better to help everyone. It also speaks volumes that the health care industry has been so opposed to the film. If the health care industry really cared about helping people, it would embrace some of the changes that Moore has suggested to insure that more people are, well, insured. Instead, because it is an industry, it cares chiefly about profits, which it fears this film could deflate. Overall, the reactions to this film are just as enlightening as the film itself.