Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2725 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-01-07
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 118 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Michael Moore’s latest documentary may see him moving his sights away from the purely political arena, yet he loses none of his bite in the process. And with Sicko, a slanted, at-times devastating attack on the American health care system, he’s made one of his best films.

The problem, of course, for a UK audience is that it’s a very American system that Moore is attacking in Sicko. He’s out to highlight the number of people with health insurance who are getting perfectly legitimate claims turned away, as the companies concerned get fat off the profits. But there is a British angle, as Moore presents a surprisingly idyllic take on Britain’s own health service, that does sit in the midst of the film’s flabby middle section.

Yet when Moore points Sicko at the very people the system is letting down, his skills very much come to the fore. He puts forward passionate, partisan arguments with an incendiary style that few working American documentary makes can come close to matching, and it makes Sicko compulsive viewing. Whether you agree with the man’s politics or not, his films are provocative, very well made and hard not to admire. Sicko is no exception. --Jon Foster

Synopsis
America's most incendiary filmmaker, Michael Moore, returned in 2007 with this health-care-industry expose. SICKO tackles material as controversial as the topics explored in Moore's other films, yet does so in a way that places the focus on ordinary Americans affected by the nation's health-care crisis. After providing some historical background on how our nation's medical care system became so ravaged and unfair, Moore interviews a series of individuals and families who have had their lives all but destroyed by the denial of care in the service of profit. While there are two sides to the gun-control debate and even a legitimate discourse for how to best wage the war on terror, it's simply impossible to justify how a baby girl can wind up dead because her mother's health insurance wasn't accepted at a nearby hospital. Moore smartly allows this and other stories to be told with little or no interference, conjuring strong feelings of empathy, rage, and deep sadness.


Of course, SICKO isn't a PBS documentary, it's a Michael Moore movie, and his fingerprints are all over it. Moore visits countries that have universal health care--spectacularly so when he takes several World Trade Centre workers to Guantanamo Bay (and then to Cuba) to receive health care that they were denied in the United States--and presents a compelling argument for adopting a similar system in the States. Moore's ultimate purpose here is to compel Americans to care for one another, and it's a simple request that shockingly must be made via a major motion picture, making SICKO essential viewing.

Customer Reviews

OMG !
Shocking, yet fascinating viewing.

Quite moving at times.

Well worth a watch.

Interesting Doc
Well, you certainly learn new things in this documentary about the state of American Health Care. I had a vague notion that they paid for their treatments, but I had no idea it was so mercenary. And at times, utterly merciless.

Of course the facts do get kinda paraded before us with the usual Michael Moore selective-in-yer-face spin. The stunt with the 9/11 rescue workers smacked of blatant sensationalism, but I am glad they at least got treatment for their efforts. Michael's portrayal of a wonderful free NHS doling out money for travel expenses made me giggle. Yes, we have a good health care system but the way Moore was banging on about it, you'd think the bed pans were plated with gold. I would have preferred a more balanced view. Instead of Doctor I-Have-An-Audi, he should have talked to a nurse and anyone on the waiting list for an operation. The same goes for his portrayal of the French system. All pros and no cons. Oh, and a governmental laundry service too! Wheee!

Still, majorly biased viewpoints aside, this is quite an eye opening documentary featuring the plight of US citizens at the mercy of powerful Health Insurance companies and corrupt politicians. It is truly deeply shocking how these people can so easily weigh the cost of a human life against a loss of some profit.

One to watch and wonder about long after it's finished.

The vision of Europe seems limited
This political documentary is a manifesto against private medical care in the US and for universal free health care, what some have called socialized medicine. Michael Moore thus compares the US system based on the full exclusion of 50 millions Americans from health care and the partial exclusion of million more under the title of denial, the denial of one particular treatment to specific Americans by their own private insurance companies, a denial that can go as far as a full rejection of the client by the insurance company and the cancellation of their contracts and all benefits. To make his point he follows the cases of quite a few people in the US who suffered these "ailments" or "ills" of the US health system. Some people dying because of these denials, even infants, some people living in total discomfort, poverty, dependence even, because of the bills that ate up their homes, savings, and all other amenities they may have had before getting sick. Then he compares with the systems in four countries: Canada, Great Britain, France and Cuba. All of them have a globally free universal system where only some marginal costs are charged, at most. The verdict is obvious. To emphasize the Cuban episode he compares with the care the prisoners in Guantanamo get (free top notch medical care) and the care some rescue workers at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks get in the US, and the care they managed to get, for free in Havana from Cuban doctors. The verdict once again does not stand the slightest possibility to appeal. This film though has a shortcoming. He notes the flat rate of a prescription in England (about ten dollars) but does not wonder why it exists. He speaks of a 100% free medical care in France and neglects some side charges. He is probably right with Canada and Great Britain, and definitely with Cuba, when speaking of a state system. But he is under a wrong impression as for France where the health system is not paid by the state but by contributions paid by working people on their salaries and this money is used to reimburse the medical expenses of people up to a certain point and managed by elected councilors representing the workers and employers equally and chosen by their electors on union lists from the trade unions or the employers' unions. The state only intervenes for the people who do not work through subsidies or contributions to the "social security authority" to compensate for the contributions these people do not pay. And what's more about 30% of medical expenses are covered by cooperative, or private, insurances that everyone is supposed, if so is their choice, to get and to whom they pay premiums that are at times higher than the basic contributions. It is a complex system. But Michael Moore does not explore the easy abuse these systems are the victims of from some people who are inconsiderate in overusing medical assistance or care. In England they introduced a flat payment per prescription to encourage economy on drugs. In France a small part of doctors' fees and prescriptions is not covered at all, even by the cooperative or private complementary insurance companies, by decision of the state in an attempt to curb down expenses and particularly abusive expenses. For instance in France brand name drugs that have an equivalent generic, and cheaper, version on the market are only reimbursed on the basis of this generic drug's price. But altogether Michael Moore's discourse is true and right, when we keep in mind that we have to think of the people who always try to get undue or abusive advantage of a generous system, and that we have to consider being economical with drugs and treatment because it is also a syndrome of our advanced stressful societies that many people, and at times those who are least stressed, look for some medical care when none is needed and they use a lot of time of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel for no reason at all except getting some attention. Finally let's keep in mind too that any system, private or public produces a bureaucracy and then a wasteful exploitation of an economic niche in society. This is an important shortcoming of the film: how much money is wasted by private insurance companies in the US to employ people, at times highly paid people, just to deny services to clients, and patients, and how much money is wasted on law suits by clients who are dissatisfied or on damages paid by the insurance companies when they lose these lawsuits? That would vastly account for the denial procedure that has to bring in a profit after paying for the expenses it incurs, money that could be used paying for hospital bills or doctors' fees.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines