Free Custom «Sicko» Essay Paper

Michael Moore filmed several recommendable documentary movies. Bowling for Columbine, Roger & Me, Fahrenheit 9/11 are the most popular among them. In his most controversial film, Sicko, this famous documentarist shows his exceptional talent of a journalist and director. Michael Moore is a particularly controversial director. He has both admirers of his work as well as those who hate his films. However, no matter what Americans may think of this documentarist, they obviously are be impressed by the severe truth that the author of Fahrenheit 9/11 shows in his works.

For many fans of non-fiction films, Michael Moore has become the leader of the world documentary cinema. Sicko is another anti-political movie of a documentarist, devoted to the problems of the U.S. health care. Almost all people watch this film with a mixture of amusement and apprehension. Moore listens to stories of different people, one way or another affected and suffering from the consequences of the implementation of the insatiable and all-consuming "American Dream." Thirst enrichment penetrated even into the medical domain of public life, where the mere mention of money can be considered a crime.

Ironically, the health and even the lives of people are more and more dependent, not on the professionalism of physicians, but on the wealth and ambitions of insurers. They benefit from people’s refusals of costly treatment. Blinded by the prospect of rapid and easy money made on the misfortunes and illnesses of people living next to them, insurers create whole departments to work with the "objections". "The Hunt for Life" is taking shape of banal business, the normal process of purchasing and selling.

Health care is a basic part of any system of social welfare, and it is a tasty morsel for fraudulent companies. Moore asked people through internet whether they had to struggle against the unjust system. He received the letters with the increasing speed. The number of letters was 25000 within a month. People complained on different medical services, usually exceedingly expensive ones. They wondered why medication is so expensive. However, two examples are the most standing out. The first is a retired couple that must sell their house, and live in their daughter’s office because their treatment required a lot of money. The second case is a bit anecdotal: a man had sliced two fingers after using a power saw. He had to decide which finger must be reattached because he did not have enough money ($60,000) to reattach both of them. After seeing the movie, many questions arise in human minds. Why do people have to choose which finger to keep? Why the treatment in Cuba is much cheaper than it is at home in America? These and other questions Michael Moore asks the American government.

Michael travelled to Canada, where ordinary people in hospitals got necessary treatment for free. The medicines were also remarkably cheap. Michael Moore also travelled to France and England, and factually every health care system was better than in America. During the movie, Moore constantly asks the question how come such a powerful nation has sunk into such madness, that ordinary people can not afford treatment and are ejected (in the literal sense of the word) on the street. The apotheosis of the film comes at the moment when Michael is swimming with sick people (who can not be provided with help in America for silly reasons) in Guantanamo. That is where people are treated better than in the ordinary American hospital.

Moor shows an extremely long list of diseases, and relates that if the person has one of them, she/he cannot get insurance. A person may be denied even if he/she is overweight or underweight. People who work in this business will do everything to save their money. They even hire special people whose work will be to find some inaccuracy in the request or to prove that the person was ill before the cooperation with the insurance company. Interviewing one man Moore learns that he cannot be confident that he is not guilty in somebody’s death.

Michael Moore does not believe that he can perform a miracle, but he makes an attempt to suggest some new course for all unprotected Americans. He does not offer to cross border of the country, but to struggle against every manifestation of corruption.

It is painful to watch, how a medical professional recognizes that there was a situation where she did not help properly and after that the man has died. She told how her medical knowledge was designed to get more profit for the company. Michael Moore makes everyone think: "Can that happen to me?" How did the time come when all in life have to be attached a monetary value: health, the feeling of belonging and contributing to a community? Health care system mercilessly denies health care services to American people who are in need of help. It does it in order to rake in greater profits at the cost of their suffering even lives, waiting for their death by negligence.

Employees of insurance companies describe various tricks to deny and delay the start of treatment, waiting for the death of the client. The film also focuses on health care in Canada, the UK, France and Cuba. One doctor says that in France one pays as much as he can and gets as much assistance as he/she needs. In Britain Moore asks a couple who left the hospital with a newborn baby, what was the price for the child delivery. They related that have paid nothing. Moore was really shocked. Michael Moore efficiently compares the life in USA and France, Cuba, UK and Canada. This comparison is a highly effective in delivering author’s message that the system of health care should be changed urgently. Otherwise, many Americans will search for the solution of this immense social problem elsewhere.

The observer understands that it is not easy to be a patriot, when one learned that his medicine, which costs in America more than $100, in Cuba costs 5 cents - in other words, when one learns that he is always cheated, and the government encourages it.

The ambivalent feelings remain after viewing the movie: simmering resentment that some people shamelessly change people's lives for money, and vibrant enthusiasm that other people are willing to give everything they have for a person who is in need of assistance. What is more, one of the most effective director’s techniques employed Moore’s in his documentaries and especially in Sicko is to build up the opposing arguments to the proclaimed thesis, and afterwards debunk, ridicule, as well as contradict them with undeniable facts and dissenting evidences from interviewees. The alternate point of view always seems so sensible after such a maneuver.

Surely, there must be some people who are satisfied with the US’s current private system of healthcare delivery, but Moore did not interview them. The movie shows some of the Americans whose family members died due to lack of treatment.

It seems to be the most influential spotlight is the development the pharmaceutical companies, which are so expensive that American people must continue working well beyond their retirement years.

Moore relates that many republicans, as well as President, contributed into development of the corruption. They have gotten enormous bribes in order to close their eyes on the injustice of the health care system.

Moore can hardly believe that such a rich and powerful nation, unfortunately, is unable to organize basic assistance and security for its citizens. Every American must have dignity of being a citizen of the United States no matter what his financial status and credit are.

Moore empathizes that Americans have the worst health care system in the civilized world. How shameful it must be for American government to watch that health care in Cuba is more effective and cheaper than in USA. The woman has to buy the inhaler for 120 $ that costs in Cuba 5 $.

In conclusion, it should be said that to date Michael Moore is the best director in the modern American documentary. This is not just a single opinion. In 2007, at the Cannes Film Festival, the movie Sicko was awarded the 15-minute standing ovation. In this extremely truthful film, as always, Michael Moore speaks openly about what the U.S. decided to keep quiet because the hugely significant social problem is still unsolved. Moore confesses all the disadvantages of modern health care system. It is open to debate whether this film is good or not.

Moore made his film in the usual manner, when watching it is both funny and sad, but always intriguing. Every person should see Sicko because this film reintroduces the extremely urgent issue of the society.

Undoubtedly, the film Sicko is worthwhile watching. It is the best Moore’s film by far as well as one of the most powerful documentaries at all. Michael Moore makes an attempt to show that universal health care may never become a reality in American society. It becomes even harder when Moore argues that the United States has all the necessary tools in order to provide insurance for anyone who needs it. It is a crime, that being incredibly wealthy, powerful and technologically advanced country USA cannot provide its citizens with necessary help.