Micheal Moore's Sicko [WOW]

I've heard this movie was damn good but I haven't gotten the chance to see it yet.

 

First, I have not watched Sicko, but I have watched some of Moore's other stuff.

I'll give you a little glimpse as to what the average denizen of the United States deals with. As some on these boards know, I was hit by an SUV about a month and a half ago while I was riding my bicycle. I was taken by ambulance to the local hospital, where they determined they didn't have the skill to fix my severely broken leg. I was taken by ambulance to a different hospital, where a skilled surgeon fixed my leg, which was broken in six places and had bones sticking out of my skin. They kept me for a total of four days to ensure that no infection developed, as well as to make sure that I hadn't suffered any brain or other types of damage.

Luckily, I am one of the fortunate ones, in that I am able to get health insurance through my mother. When the statements of benefit come from the insurance, I get to see what they covered and what the total charges were. All total, for the doctor's services of fixing my leg, two hospital emergency rooms, two ambulance rides, and four days in the hospital, my total services were over $57,000.

For the sake of conversation, let's take a moment to remember that I am a 26-year-old with a college degree. Those hospital bills total considerably more than my ANNUAL salary. If I had to pay those myself, I'd be ruined. I would have to declare bankruptcy. As it is, I don't have a ton of spare money sitting around, let alone enough to cover that kind of a bill.

Now, to add to this conversation, I work for a corporation. Well, to be more accurate, I am an agency employee that does internal video with a major car company. I'm an agency employee because that allows the company to avoid actually hiring me and paying benefits and things like that. I don't even get the discount on the cars that my company produces. From my position at the world headquarters of said car company, I get to see the corporate mentality at full power.

Trust me when I say that corporations are inherently evil. The company for which I work claims to be environmentally friendly, yet fights congressional efforts to increase fuel economy regulations. They claim to be environmentally friendly, yet they have the worst corporate fuel economy average of ANY car company and produce some of the largest, gas-guzzling vehicles in existence today. They claim to be gay-friendly, yet they capitulated to the demands of the AFA and Focus on the Family when those organizations threatened a boycott. They have consciously made decisions to, instead of recalling defective products, ignore those defects, defects that have literally KILLED people because they decided it was cheaper to pay off the fucking lawsuits! Seventeen million cars that could catch fire even while shut off and parked and they IGNORED it while innocent people died in house fires that eventually were linked back to the company's flagship products!

You have every right, and in my personal opinion a moral imperative, to question corporations. They are NOT out for the public good, and the only thing they're beholden to is turning around a quick buck for their shareholders. So, even though I have not watched "Sicko," I already know what my opinions on the topic are, and all it can honestly do is reinforce those views, even in spite of Michael Moore's slanted storytelling.

Speaking of things, I heartily recommend a documentary called "The Corporation" to everyone. It takes a very deep look at the TRUE motivating factors behind corporations, and also shows how corporations have managed to abuse the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution to gain even more power.

 

Speaking of the corporate disregard for human life... In the early 1970s, Ford Motor Company, while doing a cost-benefit analysis, asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to calculate the value of a human life. NHTSA obliged the request, and based on the theoretical earnings potential of an average male in the 1970s versus his potential contribution to the United States economy, they calculated the value of a human life to be $200,725.

$200,725.

So Ford used that number and calculated that the cost of an $11 per car part to be installed in the upcoming Ford Pinto was too expensive, and that it would literally be cheaper to let people BURN TO DEATH than and then pay off the lawsuits than it would be to install the $11 per car part and save lives.

Always remember, corporations are only out for themselves.

 

Yea I really enjoyed Sicko, I just thought the bit that detracted from his message was how he got really sarcastic and took all those people to Guantanamo bay. It is important though for America to have a better health system actually at least more honest and humane insurance companies.

 

Hey Xequar, I had the same experience but in a different place. I am an exchange student from the UK in a boarding school in Australia. During the last Christmas hols I got hit by an SUV when I was riding my bike. I don't remember how it happened coz I got bad concussion with a cranial fracture and some other broken bones - like my collar bone (that hurt like ****) and my arm and several ribs. Neway I was in hospital for like over three weeks and had two operations, coz one of my kidneys got damaged.

The cost of all this to my mum? Zilch - nothing, coz Australia has a universal health care system (like the National Health, but a bit better, I think) which is funded out of income tax. So if you need it, you get free ambulance, free hospital, free x-rays, free CT scans, free surgery, and free medications. I was taken to hospital and treated immediately, all for free.

I have also been to hospital since coz a nasty flu turned into a lung infection, and five days in hospital and the treatment cost my mum nothing again.

Like I read heaps on another board about how bad the health system is in 'socialist' countries like the UK and Canada and Australia, and how Americans don't want 'socialised medicine' coz your system is much better. But like your experience doesn't seem to be saying that.

 

Now, in all fairness, I will say that the quality of my care was first rate, and I would recommend my surgeon to anyone. But, if you don't have insurance to cover his services, you're gonna be in a world of financial hurt.

Sorry to hear about your bad time, too... I know how exceedingly lucky I really was.

 

Haven't seen it yet, but knowing it's a Moore film, I would take it with a grain of salt. I tend to agree with Moore's views, but his methods are often...questionable.

 

I think that's an excellent point. Corporations in the US are actually legally REQUIRED to turn a profit. Not to say that governments are perfect (one only has to look at the US or Canada for a good example of that) but the point of government is, theoretically and ideally, to govern, wheras the point of a corporation is to make money.

You know, several people in this thread have mentioned that Moore is biased but I'm interested in why this is such a big deal? All storytelling is biased, network news is INCREDIBLY biased, what is this notion that Moore as a documentarian has to pretend to be objective? Of course he's not objective--he obviously has a point of view. Why is it "questionable" for some with a pretty liberal point of view to display bias when corporations literally have DEPARTMENTS and hundreds of people DEDICATED to spin and portraying their bias as the objective truth?

I just hate it because it's such a double standard. My personal opinion is that people only go on and on about Moore's "enormous" bias because the so-called liberal media decided to make it an issue. It would be a heck of a lot better if we actually accepted and taught people that EVERY account, from whatever worldview, is subject to bias and that you have to learn to think critically and think about not only WHAT the message is but WHO is promoting it and WHY it's being promoted.

Except it's really not that simple. It's not like people can choose to live (very easily) outside the capitalist system if they live in any of the industrialised nations. And if you look at patterns of places where they have Wal-Marts, the presence of a Wal-Mart often drives a lot of shopping alternatives out of business. I mean, given that we're stuck in our pre-existing system, how many people have the time and energy to avoid supporting corporations? Very few, I'm guessing. You can't avoid corporations in an industrialised nation. So to say consumers are complicit in their continued existence so really corporations shouldn't be held 100% accountable is not really a proper representation of how things are structured. The true problem isn't individual corporations or even groups of "bad" corporations. The problem is the system itself, that lets corporations operate with so much latitude and such immense power. Basically, what people (not "consumers") are guilty of is not seeing the forest for the trees. And given that the whole system is set up to placate and distract them, it's not surprising that this happens with such alarming regularity.

Like a good example that always freaks me out is how many people find that going shopping/buying things makes them feel better. Just stop and think about how utterly fucked up that is for a second. I just find that really freaky, that somehow spending money on GOODS, on acquiring things, is increasingly considered some form of solace in our society.

And I'm not saying oh I'm so perfect and I never do that. I think we all do, to some degree. But we need to stop and think about the fact that we're doing it, and try to deconstruct why, and question if our reasons are really well-thought out and ultimately healthy. If there's anything we as "consumers" are guilty of, it's of blindly and determinedly not thinking. We're just increasingly becoming good money-spending little robots.

Like what was it Bush said after 9/11? People should go shopping?! Because that means everything is right with the world, naturally.

 

"The Corporation" is an AWESOME, AWESOME film! I too highly recommend it!

 

Hey William, sorry you got so beat up! Sounds miserable.

I think maybe the best point of Moore's Sicko is that he totally makes it clear how certain parties in America turned government-run healthcare into this extension of the "Red Menace." Now THAT'S slanted storytelling, the demonification of "socialised medicine."

To be fair, I don't think our healthcare in Canada is quite as idealised as Moore portrays it in Sicko but from what I've heard from my American friends, it's leaps and bounds better than what people in the US have.

 

Joey, once again you demonstrate why I love you!

Given my video background, the only reasons I can come up with for the commentary about Moore's bias are that 1) He presents from further left than most people are used to seeing and 2) He doesn't present, let alone refute, alternative viewpoints.

With regards to number 1, 99 percent of the viewing public is used to having news agencies that, although they will have a slightly left or right bias (Fox News being the exception with its BLATANTLY conservative bias), they will mostly pander to the middle, at least by U.S. standards. Remembering that the middle in the United States is way off to the right by the standards of the rest of the world and that the average American viewer (not trying to discount you wonderful Canadians, but I wouldn't speak to something to which I am unqualified, not to mention that I think you're smarter than us) is only one short step from inbred burnt toast intelligence-wise, and you have a recipe for people to cry foul because their poor little brains are actually being presented viewpoints from outside their normal range.

As to my second point, many good documentarian presents a point of view and a bunch of stuff to support it. That's a given, and Michael Moore certainly presents a viewpoint and supports it. However, something Moore is not well-known for is presenting alternative points of view and then refuting them. If you watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore not only presents a bunch of evidence supporting the validity of global warming, but he also presents some of the arguments that suggest global warming is false, and then refutes them in turn. At least, that's my theory.

 

I haven't seen it all yet but I heard some stuff about it and also seen some parts of it.

I had appendicitis about 2 years ago, which was pretty bad but we didn't call an ambulance because we knew that ambulance ride in the states are not free(while it is free in Japan) if it was free I would have used it...cuz I needed it!!!!
And there are some stupid process to get a surgery which there are none in Japan.

Finally, I got rid of appendix before it explodes and kills me.(Yeah, it was quite serious one) and I was kept in hospital for one day(usually 10 days in Japan) and there was lots of thing I wanna bitch about but anyways.

The cost of the surgery was about $25,000. But thanks to my Japanese health insurance, it covered everything so my parents didn't need to pay all that. I don't know I could be still here typing this if I was in American health insurance:rolleyes:

About the film "Pre-approved for an ambulance" was just unbelievable, seriously.
I'm sorry hear about your horrible accident(*hug*) (*hug*)

 

Awww... :icon_bigg

Both are true, yeah.

Now see that's unfair... if I said that, I'd be lambasted as an American-hater but you get to say it with no repercussions. *pout*

It is kinda disturbing how right of centre the "center" actually is in America. Okay, not just in America, in Canada too. But it's especially noticeable in the States, where basically the Democrats are the centrists but they're considered "left-wing."

Well you could argue that presenting alternative viewpoints and then shooting them down is simply an exercise in straw man argument, in which case it would be better to just present your view and not pretend that you're objective. Because really, Gore is not being objective in that documentary at all. It just seems that he's being more objective than Moore because of both points you make: he's not coming from as "extreme" a position and he's acknowledging the major competing viewpoints. But if you think about it, at least in Sicko, Moore does present the competing viewpoint (privatised medical care) and then proceeds to dismantle it during the entire film. I guess he could have presented cases from Canada, the UK, and France where socialised healthcare had created problems or wasn't as rosy as he was making it out to be but really, that wasn't his point. His point wasn't to say that government-run and -funded healthcare was problem-free, it was to say that it was vastly, vastly better than privatised healthcare. Kinda like how most Americans go on and on about how wonderful their "democracy" is when really, there are huge, huge massive problems with it, and times when it's very undemocratic, but when you point that out, you get told "Well, it may not be perfect but it's better than anything else out there."

(Of course in the case of American "democracy," I think it's debatable that there aren't viable alternatives but I digress...)

So anyway, I feel that Moore's voice is very much needed, because heaven knows someone needs to present as strongly-formulated a view of things from left of centre as network news presents every single day from right of centre. He's not being subtle about it, and I think that's probably the point that he's most attacked on and from some perspectives, most vulnerable on, but really, when dealing with the current American electorate, subtle just doesn't cut it. You've got a generation or two of people taught that government and business can do no wrong, despite wildly outrageous evidence to the contrary, and taught to avoid thinking critically, so really, on a mass scale, America needs the giant slap in the face that Moore's films provide.

That's my feeling about Sicko, at least. With Fahrenheit 9/11, it seemed like he was carrying out a vendetta, and I don't think railing against an individual is as effective as railing against a system. I mean, every point he made in F9/11 was so good... but I felt he kinda killed the power of the film with his constant voice-over editorialising, at least in terms of reaching the middle-of-the-road people who probably most needed their eyes opened about what went on in 2000 and how the electoral system in America is so abused and so open to abuse. But I knew that people like my mum would watch it and only respond to his "bias." I guess I feel Sicko wasn't ineffective for the same reasons because I don't think the "average American" has a need to believe in the benevolence and perfection of the US healthcare system and HMOs because chances are they've been shafted by that system and the HMOs a few times themselves, whereas Americans seem desperate to cling to the notion that their democracy is innocent and unsullied, so opening their eyes to its corruption would have been better served, in my opinion, by a more neutral-seeming film. Plus we're far enough away from the height of the "Red Menace" days that you can more easily poke fun at how manufactured the fear of communism was in "the West" back then. If you tried to make a point in America while poking fun at the "Arab Menace" today you'd probably get a lot more resistance, which is sad but understandable given the current climate.

 

speaking about good documentaries

Since we're talking about a good documentary here, I thought I'd mention that it's totally worth seeing "Who Killed The Electric Car?" Makes you really sit back and look at the whole "hybrid" mania in a different light.

 

This movie proved what I have been saying forever, we NEED universal healthcare

 

Re: speaking about good documentaries

That's on my wish list. I haven't had much money or crutch-based ambition with which to buy it for myself yet... Given that I kinda sorta work for one of the companies featured in that film (again, another thing I could add to my rant from earlier), I'm sure I won't even be surprised by its content.

You're welcome btw :icon_wink

 

Yeah I heard the US has amongst the best doctors in the world, but what I'm saying is health care should be free, or like education, available free for those who don't want to send their children to Public School (private schools in the USA).

Like to be charged $57,000 for treatment that I got for free is not fair, is it? So I think there's something wrong with your system, don't you? Like what if you didn't have that money?

 

Personally, I like our healthcare system. My mom's insurance covers everything and we can see any doctor we want. Some people can't afford healthcare, however, which is why I support some kind of healthcare plan to insure people who cannot afford their own coverage. If we put EVERYONE on universal healthcare in this country, there would be less incentive for our doctors to keep America the most innovative country for healthcare in this world, because then everyone could go to doctors' offices and they would all make less money. Whether we like it or not, doctors do what they do because it pays well, let's not pretend that isn't a big reason why they do their jobs.

People who have and can afford their own health coverage should be allowed to continue to do so, and everyone else who can't should be put on a basic plan that they have to pay a percentage of based on their income.

And btw, Michael Moore is an idiot, that movie is a bunch of garbage.