Some thoughts on "Sicko"
I attended the Knoxville opening of "Sicko" last night, courtesy of R. Neal. Randy and Michelle bought scads of tickets and gave them away to readers/contributors of KnoxViews, and this turned out to be a mighty successful strategy. The turnout was great. After the movie, quite a few folks migrated across the street to Margarita's to discuss the film and generally solve the problems of the world. I had some interesting and engaging conversations during the afterparty; it was just as enlightening as the movie itself.
We have a fundamental problem in this country regarding health care delivery and affordability, and many forces have worked in parallel to bring the system to its current decrepit state. "Sicko" focuses almost exclusively on the role played by for-profit health insurance companies.
"Sicko" keeps the polemics and propagandizing to a relative minimum; instead, Moore uses human stories to illustrate the radical differences between our broken health care system and those of France, Canada, the UK, and Cuba. By all comparisons, the US system comes up short. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and always pointed, the film lays deserved blame at the feet of the for-profit health insurance industry. However, it pays little or no attention to other actors in this tragedy; the pharmaceutical companies are barely mentioned, and the film completely ignores the roles played by for-profit hospital corporations and doctor-owned diagnostic labs to which they refer their patients.
Those who have checked the facts of the film have so far found little to criticize regarding its accuracy.
And, yeah, I too want Tony Benn to move to Tennessee and be my Senator.
Can we please start the revolution now?