Sicko

I went to see Sicko last night, the latest documentary from Michael Moore. It's your typical Moore movie - biased facts used to push a liberal point of view. Fortunately, I'm liberal so I bought into it :) I think that the main point of the movie is to show why the USA relies on HMO's instead of a universal healthcare system. (answer? Money, money, money - The American Dream)

Moore often compares America to Canada in his documentaries and Sicko is no exception. He talks to a few people in Canada about their experiences with the healthcare system. Of course, none of them have a single bad thing to say. Granted, after seeing how it goes down in the States, I still believe that our system is superior, but it's not without it's own flaws. Obviously he didn't talk to anybody in Canada who had been waiting for months for required and urgent surgeries. Then again, he also didn't talk to anybody who had to declare bankruptcy to have their finger sewn back on.

Moore spent some time talking about healthcare in Canada, Britain, France and Cuba. I was astounded to see the quality of care that they receive in Cuba. Apparently they have one of the top healthcare systems in the world. All four of these countries used some form of a universal healthcare plan, the main difference being how they handled prescription drugs (of the four, it seemed as though Canada was the only one that charged a lot of money for precriptions, granted still well below what is charged in America).

I'd recommend this movie if you've enjoyed Moore's past work.