SICKO
Sicko, dir Michael Moore
How does an obese man with no regular job pay his healthcare insurance in a country that has no universal healthcare scheme? The answer is that he makes a film advocating universal healthcare in America. This is Sicko by Michael Moore, riddled with complex contradictions too numerous to mention. Sicko puts American free market capitalism under the microscope once again in order to tell us what we already know: it has many inadequacies. But what he doesn’t tell us is this: so does Michael Moore.
In the first half of the film Moore details all the problems inherent in giving over healthcare to the market. There are people performing their own rough and ready self-operations; people threatening large corporations with a new expose of their corrupt practises by Moore himself before Moore has even made his film; people crossing over the border into Canada to (illegally) take the free healthcare on offer there. What happens when a young girl has a very high BMI (body mass index – one indice of obesity)? Healthcare is denied. When another American travels to London to walk down Abbey Road on his hands, he gets the healthcare he needs immediately. The American ‘free market system’ at least means that people should, in theory anyway, look after themselves better and not do silly, irresponsible things. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
In the second half of the film Moore travels to Europe to have a look at the European healthcare way of life. In Britain he speaks to Tony Benn who tells him that Britain learnt fromWW2 to dispense with free market capitalist practices in favour of Keynesianism, the new post-war orthodoxy. (Benn doesn’t mention that the Germans were practising Keynesianism before WW2, nor does Moore visit Germany.) Moore’s and Benn’s big opponents are the conservative proponents of rugged individualism and self-dependency, Thatcher and Reagen. (Reagen is heard voicing his opposition to, what he calls, ‘socialised medicine’ more or less saying that socialism is inherently wrong in both practical and moral terms, ie under socialism doctors don’t get to choose where and with whom they work.)
Moore’s too rosy view of Britain and France is one of the criticisms made of this film. At the end he takes some 9:11 casualties to Guantanamo Bay for healthcare, since the inmates there have a universal healthcare system. Obviously and seemingly paradoxically, the terrorists and detainees are provided with better care than ordinary Americans who happened to muck in as volunteers and passers by after the attack, becoming casualties as a consequence and thereby neglected. Moore is given short shrift there and moves onto Cuba, where his invalids are given all the care they need. Moore offers the Cuban government an unbelievable opportunity to make a fair political comment, exploiting the contradictions that his film is also wrapped up in, since Moore can’t access a universal healthcare system either.
The overall impression is that the American way offers solace to the majority, leaving a large minority (about 1 in 6) facing terrible dilemmas, crises and possibly death. Why Americans need this very sudden crunch is another matter, but it is bound up in American history. America is like a third world country with immense wealth. Evangelical Christianity is powerful there, the death penalty lingers on in many states, welfare is still a dirty word as is socialism. The idea of America as an exception seems to be no longer tenable in a world where American supremacy is being constantly eroded by the many errors and abuses it has committed. It is up to people like Moore to expose these abuses and this film is another example of his art. The documentary is funny but a little sickly, sentimental for European tastes. The overall impression of niceness and of Moore’s own personal sainthood has to be tempered with some of the paradoxes that Moore really should examine, but fails to. Why is he obese? Why doesn’t he mention this in the film? Doesn’t he realise that we know that he’ll use the revenue from the film to fuel his own personal healthcare programme, instead of finding a diet and a gym?
How does an obese man with no regular job pay his healthcare insurance in a country that has no universal healthcare scheme? The answer is that he makes a film advocating universal healthcare in America. This is Sicko by Michael Moore, riddled with complex contradictions too numerous to mention. Sicko puts American free market capitalism under the microscope once again in order to tell us what we already know: it has many inadequacies. But what he doesn’t tell us is this: so does Michael Moore.
In the first half of the film Moore details all the problems inherent in giving over healthcare to the market. There are people performing their own rough and ready self-operations; people threatening large corporations with a new expose of their corrupt practises by Moore himself before Moore has even made his film; people crossing over the border into Canada to (illegally) take the free healthcare on offer there. What happens when a young girl has a very high BMI (body mass index – one indice of obesity)? Healthcare is denied. When another American travels to London to walk down Abbey Road on his hands, he gets the healthcare he needs immediately. The American ‘free market system’ at least means that people should, in theory anyway, look after themselves better and not do silly, irresponsible things. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
In the second half of the film Moore travels to Europe to have a look at the European healthcare way of life. In Britain he speaks to Tony Benn who tells him that Britain learnt fromWW2 to dispense with free market capitalist practices in favour of Keynesianism, the new post-war orthodoxy. (Benn doesn’t mention that the Germans were practising Keynesianism before WW2, nor does Moore visit Germany.) Moore’s and Benn’s big opponents are the conservative proponents of rugged individualism and self-dependency, Thatcher and Reagen. (Reagen is heard voicing his opposition to, what he calls, ‘socialised medicine’ more or less saying that socialism is inherently wrong in both practical and moral terms, ie under socialism doctors don’t get to choose where and with whom they work.)
Moore’s too rosy view of Britain and France is one of the criticisms made of this film. At the end he takes some 9:11 casualties to Guantanamo Bay for healthcare, since the inmates there have a universal healthcare system. Obviously and seemingly paradoxically, the terrorists and detainees are provided with better care than ordinary Americans who happened to muck in as volunteers and passers by after the attack, becoming casualties as a consequence and thereby neglected. Moore is given short shrift there and moves onto Cuba, where his invalids are given all the care they need. Moore offers the Cuban government an unbelievable opportunity to make a fair political comment, exploiting the contradictions that his film is also wrapped up in, since Moore can’t access a universal healthcare system either.
The overall impression is that the American way offers solace to the majority, leaving a large minority (about 1 in 6) facing terrible dilemmas, crises and possibly death. Why Americans need this very sudden crunch is another matter, but it is bound up in American history. America is like a third world country with immense wealth. Evangelical Christianity is powerful there, the death penalty lingers on in many states, welfare is still a dirty word as is socialism. The idea of America as an exception seems to be no longer tenable in a world where American supremacy is being constantly eroded by the many errors and abuses it has committed. It is up to people like Moore to expose these abuses and this film is another example of his art. The documentary is funny but a little sickly, sentimental for European tastes. The overall impression of niceness and of Moore’s own personal sainthood has to be tempered with some of the paradoxes that Moore really should examine, but fails to. Why is he obese? Why doesn’t he mention this in the film? Doesn’t he realise that we know that he’ll use the revenue from the film to fuel his own personal healthcare programme, instead of finding a diet and a gym?
Paul Murphy, The Barbican, London
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