Sicko and how to argue Part 1
Monday, September 14, 2009
Because of the recent debate in the United States is over health care and health insurance, I decided to watch an argument for the single payer system found in Michael Moore's Film Sicko. I will review it in a four parts since so it is more manageable of a read. I watched it from a prospective of an independent with strong libertarian beliefs and a Biblical Christianity worldview (so you know my biases up front).
Granted the movie is two years old but many of the arguments from that movie are still being made today. The only thing I will talk about today is the movie itself, what it is saying and how well the movie said it. I'm then going to look at the pros and cons of the argument in future posts.
Overall, enjoyable movie to watch. Though Moore isn't the most pleasing to look at, he does a good job of movie flow and watchablity. It doesn't matter if you have a clue about how the system works, Moore uses language that anyone can understand. He explains things and make no real assumptions as to the watchers' IQ. Very accessible movie for any one in the USA .
His overall argument is that the U.S. has the means (though not the desire) to move to a single payer health care system. He claims from the start that this movie is for those with Health care not those without it. He wants to awaken them to the current state of health care. Sicko is a vehicle for him to give people the desire to make this happen. He tries to show the abuses of the current American system and how it came to be. Through the corruption of the Republican run government, scare tactics and misinformation, the single payer system has never gain support (when it should have).
He also set out to dispel some of that misinformation coming out of the Canadian, U.K. and French single payer system. By interviewing doctors, patients, natives and Americans living in those countries, he tries to show how much better a good single payer system can be and for the most part batter than the United State system. This was by far the most entertaining section of the movie because it showed the film maker get funny looks from foreigners when asking questions.
The film ends with the Moore trying to get Americans heroes health care at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (where terrorist get better health care than Americans). This is where the film has problems but I guess it would be hard any film on Health care. Every argument flows into one another very well but when Moore goes from Europe to Skid row to Cuba, the movie seems to derail a little in flow. Of course, how else do you end it? The Moore check/donation was a little over the top and I'm not sure how I feel about including it.
I would recommend the movie to watch for anyone who is unclear about how we got into this mess. As for arguments he made? I'm saving that for part two.
Posted byDan at 9:03 AM
Labels: Healthcare, politics
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