Sicko Premieres At Cannes

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Sicko Premieres At Cannes

This time, the U.S. government apparently has Michael Moore in its sights. To make "Sicko," he traveled to Cuba with some rescue workers who became ill after cleaning up debris from the terror attacks in New York. In the film, he shows them getting health care in Cuba that he says was unavailable to them in the United States.

The film got a warm welcome at Cannes on Saturday where it played to a packed house. It's main message is that the U.S. health care system is driven by private industry greed. The film asks why 50 million Americans have no health care coverage, and why many who have health insurance still have trouble getting treatment.

"I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me -- I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help..."
-- Michael Moore

"Sicko" presents an emotional portrait of an array of people, including volunteer rescue heroes of the September 11 attack, who are denied needed care -- despite the fact that most are insured. And it points a finger at the source of the crisis, a profit-driven insurance industry whose "biggest accomplishment is buying our U.S. Congress" to prevent real reform.

It also focuses on the suffering caused to the nine million children living in the United States whom Moore says are left without any health cover because of the country's reliance on private insurance. 'We are the last country in the industrialized world to have this system,' the film-maker said after the screening. 'The poorest child in Britain has a longer life expectancy than the average American child.'

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I don't know what drives this lovely man to want to fix our unconscionable health care system, but I'm grateful for all the passion and love that he displays.

5 comments:

Julie Sun May 20, 07:44:00 PM EDT  

Michael Moore is so good. Love his work, even tho' a lot of it is really only relevant to the US. However, our current government has been trying for years to slowly change our health-care system to make it more like yours. Fortunately, they haven't been able to.

Sudeaux Lux Mon May 21, 11:47:00 AM EDT  

Hey, Julie. Thanks for the info. I didn't realize Australia was trying to modify their health care system to be like ours. How dreadful.

Because of the fucked up health care in the US, (independent of our federal government) most local cities now offer sliding scale health care facilities and/or free care from volunteer doctors. Also many buy meds online from other countries, and many people charter buses and travel to Canada and Mexico for affordable meds.

This is the end result of Big Pharma residing in the pockets of Washington, DC, politicians.

Julie Mon May 21, 08:10:00 PM EDT  

Our pharmaceuticals are subsidised by the government so that they are, in the main, affordable. When the Tree Trade (Ha!) Agreement was being negotiated, the USA wanted to end this - fortunately, the gov't responded to public pressure and resisted. For once, they did the right thing.
Everybody here pays a Medicare levy as part of their tax which is used to fund public health. Private health insurance is available, as are private hospitals, etc., but those who can't afford it, or choose not to pay for it, have access to public hospitals. It's far from perfect but it seems to be better than your system.

Sudeaux Lux Mon May 21, 08:53:00 PM EDT  

Oh it is. MUCH better. All the fat cats scratch each others backs; to hell with everybody else. Almost every presidential candidate has a nice sounding plan for health care reform. If we could just get somebody decent to fill that slot, we'd be in bidness.

Anonymous Sun May 27, 01:04:00 PM EDT  

Hi Susan,wonderfully narrated..I find this story extremely good and well suitable for today's circumstances in the U.S...Hope the administrators take this movie in a positive note and take the necessory reform steps in the insurance sector...
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