Sicko Family Review

A documentary comparing the highly profitable American health care industry to other nations, and HMO horror stories including shotgun deaths.Documentary look at health care in the United States as provided by profit-oriented health maintenance organizations (HMOs) compared to free, universal care in Canada, the U.K., and France. Moore contrasts U.S. media reports on Canadian care with the experiences of Canadians in hospitals and clinics there. He interviews patients and doctors in the U.K. about cost, quality, and salaries. He examines why Nixon promoted HMOs in 1971, and why the Clintons' reform effort failed in the 1990s. He talks to U.S. ex-pats in Paris about French services, and he takes three 9/11 clean-up volunteers, who developed respiratory problems, to Cuba for care. He asks of Americans, "Who are we?"—<[email protected]>In this documentary, the director/writer Michael Moore exposes the dysfunctional North American health care system, oriented to huge profits and not for their mission of saving lives. Further, he shows the corruption in the political system, with members of government and congress "bought" by the corporations and the situation of the average American citizens, including those that volunteered to work in the rescue mission of the September 11th. Then he travels to Canada, Great Britain and France to compare their systems showing their hospital, doctors, staffs and patients. Last but not the least, he shows that the prisoners in Guantanamo have better medical treatment than the common people in USA, and he ends getting free treatment to the Americans that participate along the documentary in Cuba.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, BrazilA former insurance employee confides to film-maker Michael Moore that he had been instructed to process claims not for the benefit of ailing claimants - but instead find ways of dismissing them. Moore then compares health-care with other countries like Canada, Britain, France, and even Cuba. Further he goes on to expose corrupt U.S. senators who have been bought by powerful vested interests, while prisoners, including alleged terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, have total access to free medical aid, while in sharp contrast premium-paying clients and those on social security have little or no access at all.—rAjOo ([email protected])