A.O Scott’s review of the new Michael Moore movie begins with a very astute observation; namely, that whenever Moore’s name is brought up it is inevitably attached to adjectives such as “polarizing,” “controversial,” “provocative,” and “muck-raking.” And that it is the media itself which perpetuates the use of these adjectives. Would one describe Steven Spielberg as “polarizing?” Spielberg has two films in the top ten highest-grossing films of all time and no one describes him that way. Yet (among documentaries) Moore has two films in the top five. How “controversial” can a filmmaker be and yet sell so many tickets? We just think he’s a filmmaker possessing a keen instinct for issues that get people riled up, which is a good thing.
And on that count SiCKO hits the nail right on the head. Sneak previews over the weekend at 43 locations sold out completely at every location (including Chicago’s Landmark Century), and on a single screen in NYC it netted $70,000. Few people these days are even willing to posit that the American health care system is just fine and dandy (except for the health insurance industry itself), so where’s the controversy? Even the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academies agrees with Moore’s conclusions.
We’re lucky enough to have a day job that includes decent health care coverage, and we’re fortunate enough to be in good health most of the time. But if either of those should ever change …
It scares the pants off us.
Moore was in town over the weekend, leading a rally before a special screening (and introduced by Studs Terkel no less). He was also happy to talk about his new diet, recommended to him by Roger Ebert. Later he sat in as a guest on the NPR quiz show “Wait wait … don’t tell me!” He won, guessing two out of three etiquette questions correctly.
We’ll be going to see the film this weekend when it goes into wider release; we’re not expecting it to provide all the answers but we do hope it’ll finally trigger come concrete action. How about you? Are you planning on going? Do you have any health coverage horror stories of your own to share?
poster by Bemis Balkind
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In before someone starts conflating better health care with socialism.
Since moving to Chicago late last fall, I've been a freelance graphic designer with no health insurance. I had no idea how good I had it with my previous benefits package; looking up private plans, I was shocked to learn it'd cost me a minimum of $80-100+ a month for a shitty plan with a ~$2500 deductible and often only partial coverage after the deductible. For a healthy, later-20's, single male?!
Having no need for a doctor in the last, oh, two or three years, and without children to care for, is it any surprise that I'm still waiting it out until I land the right fulltime job with benefits? It simply doesn't seem worth it. And so I cross my fingers every day while biking to my freelance job in river north... (especially when crossing that damn bridge on Chicago).
I still laugh everytime some right-wing shill describes Bowling for Columbine as an anti-gun movie, and I'm very interested to see Sicko.
Think what you will about healthcare, politics or anything else, but don't lose sight of why he does what he does: to make a buck.
we should all be lucky enough to be paid to do something we are passionate about, no? we all have bills to pay. :)
Nice work, guest.
"Appeal to motive is a pattern of argument which consists in challenging a thesis by calling into question the motives of its proposer. It can be considered as a special case of the ad hominem circumstantial argument. As such, this type of argument may be a logical fallacy.
A common occurrence in appeals to motive is that only the possibility of a motive (however small) is shown, without showing the motive actually existed or, if the motive did exist, that the motive played a role in forming the argument and its conclusion. Indeed, it is often assumed that the mere possibility of motive is evidence enough."
Polls consistently show that Universal Health Coverage is the #1 domestic priority of Americans ...
Well, just be glad you aren't female when it comes to paying for your own health insurance. It's more than my car payment.
I recently had the pleasure of a slew of emergency room visits, doctor's appointments, and an upcoming procedure that I know is gonna be pricey. I actually have fairly good health insurance through my job, and I'm still paying a crazy amount of money with deductibles, co-pays, and above the allowable billing amount costs. I don't know how people without insurance could possibly do it. Personal healthcare premiums are outrageous (especially for women!).
However, I've also been to a doctor in a country with socialized medicine, and that wasn't great, either.
Reforming our system definitely should be a high priority in this country as healthcare affects every single person in the country.
I've spend some time uninsured and was threatened with being taken to a collection agency over a $500 medical bill when I was in a situation where I had to go to the hospital for treatment.
As a child is when it was really rough, my family did not always have health insurance then, and when we did, it was usually subpar, so there were many times I know that I should have gone to the doctor that I probably did not, and I remember my parents fighting more than once about what would happen to us financially if we were to go to the doctor for something that ailed us.
The medical system in the US is a joke, anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.
I certainly do not have the answers in how to reform the healthcare system in this country. I have good insurance now, but have been uninsured in the past as well. It's scary. We absolutely need health care reform in this nation, but looking to Canada as a model may not be the best answer. Canada's health care system has it's flaws as well. I have spent time working indirectly in the Canadian healthcare system, and you wait for procedures (MRIs, X-rays, bone scans to detect cancer metastases, for example), for weeks or months. I am sure that a "universal" healthcare system will be good for the uninsured, but will certainly not be perfect.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I would imagine that Moore's image of Cuba may be a bit skewed. Can anyone comment on that? I'd be curious.
It's pretty optimistic to think that this film will do anything to foster concrete action in the healthcare system. Perhaps it is pessimistic, but the pharmaceutical companies and healthcare companies give a ton of money to political campaigns. They have a lot of pull.
Unless you're a Nazi or pro-slavery, Steven Spielberg is not polarizing.
I'm not going to say that the US healthcare system is in good shape, but Moore is the liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Moore likes to pose a journalist, but when caught in a lie will turn and say "It was done for entertainment value."
Forgive me if I pass on this one, I already know our healthcare system isn't near Canada's, I don't need the film-making equivalent of an ambulance-chaser to tell me that.
47 million are uninsured in the U.S.
The U.S. spends twice as much per capita than most universal systems, see the U.K.'s NHS.
Now why are we still giving all our money to insurance executives?
I really like the poster you include with your article. The image shows Moore with skeletons in the waiting room, implying that people are expiring waiting for treatment.
This is hilarious. While the American healthcare system has many problems, no one is refused treatment. In fact, one of the largest complaints you hear about the government systems that Moore holds in such high regard in his agitprop is that people do literally die waiting for treatment.
Take for example the case of Jack Szmyt. Szmyt was told he had a brain tumor. It took two months just to get that diagnosis. He was then told it would be another month before the could get around to starting treatment. The Swedish government said it didn't consider the assigned waiting period "unreasonable." Instead he borrowed $30k and sought private treatment in Germany. The doctor who treated him said that if he had waited he surely would have died.
You could fill many books with these stories, and in fact people have.
Yes, the American system has problems, but do you really want the people who run the TSA or the DMV running your healthcare? Maybe FEMA or the IRS?
There is only one way to keep healthcare costs down: rationing.
Thanks, Scott! That's two down. At this pace, we'll have the entire list completed before the end of the week.
"An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. It is most commonly used to refer specifically to the ad hominem abusive, or argumentum ad personam, which consists of criticizing or personally attacking an argument's proponent in an attempt to discredit that argument."
Thanks, Sam!
"Anecdotal evidence is an informal account of evidence in the form of an anecdote, or hearsay. The term is often used in contrast to scientific evidence, as evidence that cannot be investigated using the scientific method. The problem with arguing based on anecdotal evidence is that anecdotal evidence is not necessarily typical; only statistical evidence can determine how typical something is. Misuse of anecdotal evidence is a logical fallacy."
Polls consistently show that Universal Health Coverage is the #1 domestic priority of Americans ...
and yet, surprisingly enough, not as an issue with most Illinoisans. At least not at a level they want the state to deal with it.
Hey Sam,
That's all well and good if you can come up with $30,000 just like that. The whole point of universal health care is that people who can't still get to be treated as humans. By all means continue to spend ridiculous amounts of money if you'd like. The rest of us will be glad that we can get care without ruining our lives with debt and we'll also enjoy the tons of money saved that will result from people actually getting PREVENTIVE care for once.
You're welcome, Pantagrapher, but perhaps you should actually read the posts rather than compiling your little list there.
If Micheal Moore has played fast and loose with the facts he lacks credibility. I'm sorry, but that's how it works. Does that mean we have a good healthcare system? No. Or is it not possible in your black and white world for someone to actually be in favor of our healthcare system to be overhauled AND to think Moore is a crackpot?
Pantagrapher, if you are going to discount anecdotal evidence then you had best stop defending Moor's films. They are 100% anecdotal.
That's all well and good if you can come up with $30,000 just like that. The whole point of universal health care is that people who can't still get to be treated as humans.
The whole point is that under so-called "universal healthcare" Mr. Szmyt would be dead. I guess you would rather be dead than in debt.
What is scary is that farenheit 9/11, despite being so one sided, was taken as truth by so many people. Proof people believe what they want to hear I guess.
The Rush Limbaugh phenomenon in the 90's is another great example of this. He must be right! He has 30,000,000 listeners! Come on.
People don't like Moore because he's a manipulative hack. His movies are provocative and entertaining, but his simplification of complicated issues--usually assgning the blame for huge, sprawling national problems to a few old rich men--make his films little more than attacking, childish fantasies. (Who thinks Roger Smith closed GM factories just for kicks? Moore said later in an interview: "The auto industry is in trouble for one reason, because of incompetent, greedy executives." (Paraphrasing.)
What a surprise--another huge mess, and Moore knows just who to blame! It's all so simple! Guns? It's the senile Charlton Heston's turn! Go get him, Mike!
Moore is as mean as a snake but he conducts his interviews with the "Who, me?" demeanor of mushed-mouth 12 year old, which is another reason many people find him repulsive.
Obviously the US health care system has severe problems, but if you believe the problems are caused exclusively by malicious corporations, or that everything will be solved by universal, government-sponsored health care, you're dreaming.
That being said, I will still go see his movies, including this one, because he raises interesting points. (For the record, I don't believe in the second amendment, and I think the auto execs' greeed is at least partly responsible for the demise of the auto industry.) But that doesn't change the fact that Moore is a hack.
"The whole point is that under so-called "universal healthcare" Mr. Szmyt would be dead. I guess you would rather be dead than in debt."
So those are the only two choices we have? Either die waiting for adequate health care, or be forced into bankruptcy and receive adequate health care. How in hell did those become our only two choices? I smell a rat somewhere.
i &hearts michael moore.
okay, okay.... it is true that he plays on hyperbole and sentimentalism in his films. (every time he's on larry king, i cringe a little, because i know its about to be bad.) he shouts a little too much and can get a too defensive. especially in his later years, he is indeed an activist-filmmaker, more than a documentarian. but here's the thing - i think he's a really decent human being. i don't believe for one moment that he does this out of any self-promotion or grandstanding. how do i know this? i've met him. and more importantly, i was raised very near his hometown - hell on earth - flint, michigan.
if you question moore, his motivations of filmmaking, and the sincerity of his championing the cause of the working class, get in the car and visit flint. if you have an ounce of compassion, and you're able to see the awful state of affairs there, you'll realize that he's a person of conscious and is coming from a place of sincerity and concern.....even if he does get caught up in the trappings of making his point from time to time. flint will do one of two things - kill your spirit, or make you mad enough to motivate you to want to change it.
when i met him, at a book signing, i had him sign a book for my father, a veteran and an autoworker who contracted asbestosis on the job. in spite of a long line (the man has fans) he asked me questions about my dad for nearly 5 minutes, and ended up writing the loveliest and most sincere inscription inside the cover of "stupid white men." the essence of it was "you're important. the work you did and do is important. the family you've raised is important. thank you for all of your hard work." it meant the world to my dad.
i understand that people should cast scrutiny on what moore presents - i'd bet he would argue the same. but the personal attacks are just disappointing. oh, and something that many may see as ironic - he may be out raising hell on the world stage, but back in michigan, he's got a great history of quietly supporting wonderful causes and projects that employ and help people.
this was a movie that really needed to get made, and i appreciate that he's not afraid to make it.