We’ll soon be treated to another fine example of Michael Moore’s filmmaking when Sicko is released to theaters across America at the end of next month. The movie is about how horrible American healthcare is, and how great universal healthcare (taxpayer funded, free at point-of-use) would be in comparison. When celluloid is your canvas, you can paint a wonderful picture of universal healthcare as seen in Canada and the United Kingdom:
“[Moore] travels to London to show off the beauty and brilliance of the British National Health Service. He talks to an unstressed doctor who has a four bedroom house in Greenwich and a £100,000 salary from the NHS. He films empty waiting rooms and happy, care-free health workers. He even talks to Tony Benn about how this wonderful marvel came into existence in 1948.
“What he hasn’t done is lie in a corridor all night at the Royal Free watching his severed toe disintegrate in a plastic cup of melted ice. I have.”
– James Christopher, reviewing Sicko in the Times.
I’ll review Sicko when I see it, and we’ll open up comments on the review as a forum to talk about the film. Put it in your datebook!
John Wright