Sicko (DVD, 2007)

When I first heard about this movie, I thought it would be just another Michael Moore film that at least with the ones I have seen, I was not that impressed with. Sicko was a total surprise. I actually saw the movie on cable first, but after I watch it I had to show friends and family. It was totally eye-opening.

Many in my family said it was just more liberal propganda to pass an expensive health, big government insurance plan. I heard it all, we need to keep it the way it is, and just get cost controlled. Sicko shows why it's broken, and it's not just cost, it's the whole system gone amuck.

I think some of the foreign examples were a little over the top, meaning I don't think they found average people all the time, but that did not matter, I know first hand how horrible the American system is after some personal issues that I have, three super nasty ER visits, so after all this anger about the care that I have received, I finally really know why and really upsets me to no end.

And the anger, not bad anger, but time to start really helping Americans came across me, especially when shown how many 9/11 volunteers are getting treated, and these are our heros, and they are getting the treatment the rest of us are getting which we assume is the best in the world, which for many things it is, but what happens is we all get the best treatment while insured, little do we know that it's just building many reasons why an insurance company can deny care later on, or worse...

Before I saw this movie, I thought like everyone else. Government Healthcare is horrible, it will raise our taxes, and all the common crap that is being spread by the powers that be. After I watched this film, I am not only for a government plan, I am ready to see an end of most private insurance, not because I am against free markets, I now believe its time to end this insanity that kills people to save a buck, that turns doctors into businessmen who are incentivized to cut cost at the expense of Americans, not healthcare workers who want to save and help all they can. Sicko makes that connection.

In conclusion, I wished someone would have taken this issue on because many will just assume another controversial Michael Moore film with liberal message. This one is not, Moore got this one right, and again, this opinion is based on my personal dealings paired with what I saw in Sicko. Expect to get upset, not so much from you expect, but how we are blatantly lied to by the industry and politicians that has the majority of America still believing we merely need to tweak it.

I would recommend watching, maybe even twice, and let friends and family watch it. Expect some negative things said, but this message is just too important, if you believe healthcare in general is important, or will be at some point in your life.

Love him or hate him, Michael Moore has scored with "Sicko".

While one may argue that he only includes segments that would support his point - DUH! - Everyone has either a personal experience or knows someone with a complaint about health care insurance. If they are even lucky enough to have it. And this movie sums up the horror stories quite well with a few of its own.

Bear in mind that "Sicko" isn't an indictment of health care itself but of the industry of health insurance, and how treatment is deplorable if you either don't have it or don't fit perfectly into that "for profit" industry's definition of who can be treated and what they can be treated for or with.

The movie is sad and a bit depressing, but people suffering needlessly is decidedly not an entertaining subject. Fortunately, the movie is free of Moore's usual awkward confrontations. Which can come off as a bit smug. Instead, the focus is on working people - some of which served as rescue workers on 9/11 - just can't get a fair shake from the health care / insurance industry. Moore goes so far as to take a few of his beleaguered subjects to Cuba for treatment, where they are given the medical care they need.

Another spotlight is in speaking with people, including health care professionals, in a few other countries where socialized medicine is practiced. Of course, no negative stories there are shown. Which runs counter to my own experience, having heard some woeful stories from expatriates from two of those countries. But I believe the point of the film in this regard is that no sick citizen is turned away in these places. And that holds up, reinforced with the adage that a society can only be as good as it treats the best off and the worst off of its members.

I recommend the film for anyone who can appreciate an eye opening, if one-sided, documentary. I'd also recommend it for anyone who has heard horror stories from friends, family & co-workers. I guess the only group who I wouldn't recommend this to is anyone with a predisposition to kill the messenger AND his message. And to those people - I hope you have some damn good health insurance or are independently wealthy when you get sick!

THIS IS A DOCUMENTARY/MOVIE DONE BY CONTROVERSIAL MICHAEL MOORE. HIS WORK IS VERY PROVOCATIVE - INVOKING THOUGHT AND QUESTION. HE IS KNOWN FOR THAT. HE HAS DONE A NUMBER OF MOVIES TIMELY AND FOCUSING ON CURRENT DEFECTIVE CONCERNS IN THE SOCIETY OF THE USA. IN SICKO, INFORMATION PROVIDED WOULD OTHERWISE NOT BE ACCESSIBLE TO THE AVERAGE PERSON. IF YOU LIKE MICHAEL MOORE OR NOT - ONE MUST ADMIT HIS WORK IS ORIGINAL AND PROVOKING.
SICKO- SPECIFICALLY QUESTIONS THE HEALTHCARE - OR LACK OF THAT- THAT'S EXISTING IN THE USA. WE ARE ONE OF THE FEW COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT HAVE A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM. OUR SYSTME IS CLEARLY NOT WORKING FOR THE CITIZENS OF THE USA. HE ILLUSTRATES THIS OVER AND OVER BY FOCUSING ON SOME INDIVIDUAL CASES OF AMERICANS. ADDITIONALLY, HE VISITS OTHER COUNTRIES IN EUROPE AND EVEN CUBA TO ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFERENCE AND HOW THEIR SYSTEM DOES WORK FOR THE PEOPLE. EXCELLENT MOVIE!!!

Just finished watching the movie and also some of the DVD extras. The main purpose of the film, which is showing how the US health system is unfair and deceptive, is well achieved. We recognize ourselves or someone we know in the situation of having treatment denied due to limitations over finance resources or a pre-existing health condition. Well, living is a pre-existing condition to be sick and die, and the movie managed to show how the government, the drug and the health insurance industry could not care less about people when money is all that matters.

However, I thought the attempt to show how public and free health care systems work so fine in the UK, France and Cuba was a mistake. While I agree that just the fact of having free access to medicine and assistance in those countries is just good enough, that does not mean it is effective. Let's not forget that this is just a movie and things and people tend to behave differently when the camera and the lights are on. I don't mean to be pessimistic and/or skeptical, but that's just what happens in reality. So the apparent "red carpet" treatment patients in the movie get might not have been that genuine. Comparing different systems is valid for the point Michael tried - and managed - to make, but if he had chosen to focus only on the US problem, it would have produced better results.

Good movie, despite its apparent flaws.

I am basically NOT a fan of all of Michael Moore's ideas but will have to say that SICKO is an excellent film biography disclosing the truth about how Big Pharma is totally ripping-off the American public i.e. "We The Sheeple" when scrip drugs can be purchased for a fraction of retail prices from almost any other country and yet our gov't. crooks
refuse to do zilch about it and even discourage Americans from attempting to buy these drugs from other countries.

I have been prescribed 3 Nexium PER DAY but since health insurance policies have the damnable 'donut hole' clause in them, I far surpass the cost of Nexium that Medicare will allow for this drug each year.

I started searching the internet and found a reputable pharmacy in Canada where I can buy Nexium in any quantity I want with the only stipulation that I must initially submit an MD's script order ONCE and that's all. These pills come from France a cost a mere 85-cents each as compared to the over five dollars that the same Astra Zeneca Nexium drug is sold here in the U.S.

As with ALL European-dispensed prescription drugs, they all come in a weekly, carded, punch-out format and the ones I get from France are clearly marked and come in purple outer packaging that is very clearly marked MADE BY ASTRA ZENECA IN FRANCE!

As the old saying goes...there is something rotten in Denmark, but I'd say MORE WRONGDOING is being done to the American public and not one thing is being done to help correct the hiway robbery for scrip drugs that takes place here while bankrupting many elderly who simply do have the funds to buy them!