Thursday, June 21, 2007

Review: Sicko

Some people hate Michael Moore, some people love Michael Moore. I'm with the love Moore side. The people that hate him think he is anti-american, that he hates the country. Which is wrong, he doesn't hate the country, and he isn't anti-american for making these documentaries about how messed up shit is here. He is simply trying to show everyone what is wrong with the country so we can hopefully make it all better.

Bowling For Columbine made me want to move to Canada. Where it was peaceful, no crazy gun wielding madmen running around shooting up everyone and everything. And if you felt the same as me after seeing that movie, just wait to see how you feel after Sicko.

Sicko is about the American health care system, vs other countries health care systems. We are screwed. Personally, I don't have health care. Life for me is kind of one of those, well hope nothing happens today, things. And of course of my 25 years of life on earth, I have only been in the hospital three times. twice when I was a kid for broken bones, and once for my appendix. So far so good.

Canada, France, and even Cuba look like a much better place to live than American when it comes to health care. If you have to go to the doctor, you pay zero, for your hospital stay? Zero. Shit in France, if you have a baby, the goverment supplies you with a nanny to come do your laundry for you. Thats right, the goverment comes and does your laundry. Not only do you not half to pay for going to the hospital, you get paid back! Meaning if you had to take a taxi, to get to the hospital, the hospital will pay you back for the money you had to pay the taxi driver, and then pay you more money so you can get a ride home! Compared to here, where if a homeless person goes to a hospital, and obviously cant pay the bills, the hospital puts them in a taxi, and drops them off on a side walk outside of a shelter, wow thanks hospital. Speaking of homeless, in Sicko we learn that a poor person in France, will live longer, and healthier, than the richest person in America. Pretty fucked up to me.

My favorite part of this movie is when Moore is over in Canada and France and is asking people what they paid, and everyone just looks at him funny and laughs at him. He also interviews Americans that moved to France and over there, people achieve in one week, life managment wise, what people spend their entire lives here trying to achieve. Also, and lastly on the France topic, the doctors in France are still paid greatly, live in million dollar homes, drive nice cars, but how do they make more than the other? Well in France, the more people a doctor saves, gets to stop smoking, helps them out, then the more they are paid.

The sadest part of the movie are people that watched their love ones die from not getting care, someone needed a bone marrow transplant, found out his brother was a perfect match, but the insurance company they had wouldn't approve of it, because they said it was an "experimental opperation" well that guy that needed the transplant, a husband and a father wound up dying. So even if you do have health care, you're still gonna be screwed. I could go on forever about parts of this movie, but then of course I would end up giving it all away, so I will share one more part of this movie that really made me think. You might have seen it in the trailer, when Moore takes the 9-11 rescue workers over to Gauntanamo Bay, because over there, in the prison, Al Quaida and all others, are getting free health care! The people behind the attacks on 9-11 are getting better treatment from our goverment than we are. So Moore takes the workers into Cuba for medical care, and they get it, because even in Cuba, it is free. And the workers got more care in one week for free, than they did here in 5 years after paying thousands.

Is this a good movie? Yes. Is it anti-american? No. It is simply pointing out our flaws in our health care system, and hoping it changes some time. And if I had the money to do so, I would be France bound, maybe then I could finally find out how to say my damn last name properly, and would never have to listen to another person get it wrong again.

1 comment:

  1. Keep in mind things that are "free" are always very expensive.

    In some of those countries there is a 3-4 year waitlist for simple surgeries and they will decide whether it's a good price to allow you to live.

    ReplyDelete