SiCKO
SiCKO is probably the best documentary film I’ve ever seen. Michael Moore has managed to do a much better job than Fahrenheit 9/11 (which was mostly Bush bashing). Go download the movie from your favorite torrent site.
SiCKO is probably the best documentary film I’ve ever seen. Michael Moore has managed to do a much better job than Fahrenheit 9/11 (which was mostly Bush bashing). Go download the movie from your favorite torrent site.
Why?
What makes it a good movie? (I, for one, despise Michael Moore. I abhor his practices and I don’t think opinion pieces should be called documentaries). So tell me why I should see it.
Re: Why?
It is your prerogative, of course, not to see it. If you sit down before it full of spite, what’s the point? Don’t call it a documentary, if you prefer. It isn’t a scripted drama, however. It is assembled from conversational footage. All editing is editorializing.
It’s a good movie because human beings tell their stories in it, and they are important stories about vulnerabilities we can help each other with. It wouldn’t matter if it was Moore or Lou Dobbs or Doris Day narrating/editing these stories. They give us an empathetic understanding of a problem that facts, figures and arguments will never give us.
But if you uphold a grudge while these stories are offered to you, you will be dishonoring them and rejecting a gift of understanding, and an opportunity to grow in your sense of shared humanity with others.
Rejectionism feels like wisdom, but the shedding of selves that comes from letting go of convictions and opening one’s mind is the direction in which greater freedom and greater humanity lies. Pettiness is no path to greatness, and refusing to engage timely and touching messages because you dislike the messenger is not an especially self-challenging act. It’s safe, but shallow, to stay with what you like and know even though you miss partaking in an important collective experience as a result.
Re: Why?
See? All valid reasons why I will see it. As I have seen all of his movies. I do have an open enough mid to view the opinions of those I disagree with, what other way is there to know what you truly believe in and support?
But I doubt I would go into this being jaded as I live in the US and I KNOW how horrid our healthcare system is. The problem is it isn’t the Doctors or the hospitals, it’s the drug companies and the insurance companies.
I thought he went a little way over the top in the end with ‘only requesting the treatment that was being given to the evil ones’ but ya definitely his most objective work so far. Definitely worth the watch.
Keep it in perspective
No one will doubt that the US’s healthcare system is broken on many levels, which is Moore’s arguing point. But as always, it’s easy to focus on the negatives and miss the positives. There’s a lot of people that are treated safely and ethically and do well and go on to lead healthy lives. You can’t forget them. Being a medical student in the US, I’ve seen plenty of patients from my past experiences that say to a physician I’ve worked with that they saved their life. It’s when we forget why we are in this business do the patients ultimately suffer.
The US medical environment is full of biomedical research from the government level (National Institutes of Health, down to the corporate level) and yes, you can hate the drug companies night and day, but they are the ones who spend billions to research, develop, and synthesize the drugs many of us take for granted – there’s a lot of hard working bench scientists slaving over diseases that plague humanity. Now, the other side of the picture – the selling side, I take a lot of issue with no doubt, they’re profit-driven publicly traded companies who ultimately owe everything and work for the shareholder – so again, keep it in perspective.
But the way we go about distributing these goods needs to change and that will undoubtedly take time. Right now there’s far too many issues plaguing the system which can solved in one quick Federal bill. Hopefully something will change with the new administration.
kiran venkatesh
Re: Keep it in perspective
Hi Kiran,
I agree with you. The point of the movie is “a for-profit national level medical system is broken” and health care being one of the basic human right, should be free. Ofcourse then there is the issue about generic drugs etc.
The movie is not fair in that sense that it does not show any happy people who did get decent medical attention. But his point is not to be objective, but to showcase a broken system.
Anyway lets hope what the new elections will bring to the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKoN40K7mA
Re: Keep it in perspective
Hopefully these elections will bring about some changes. But unfortunately, whenever a new healthcare bill goes before our Congress, it is inevitably shot down or watered down to the point of uselessness, or hung up in committee or by some bureaucratic process, or lobbying by the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies effectively kills the bill. Add to it having a divided government as we have now where we have a sitting Republican president who vetoes just about anything the Democratic Congress sends him. If all sides see the same thing, maybe we can see a change in 2009 with the new President. There hasn’t been sweeping new legislation since the inception of Medicare and Medicaid and it’s getting tough on patients.
You’re dead on about Moore’s premise in the movie. I think once the bank is really broken in the US, and the medical needs of the growing population of people with chronic disease makes the situation untenable, then our government will finally move. It always has to get to a awful state of affairs before people realize what is really going wrong. Like most everything in politics, most suffer from leadership of myopia. Only a few people can really think ahead, and we have too few of them.
Kiran
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