Patricia Foulkrod's film
The Ground Truth is a series of interviews with US veterans of the Iraq War. This is a truly unique and important film.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Film: SiCKO by Michael Moore (Dog Eat Dog/Lionsgate/Weinstein, 2007, 116min)
Michael Moore has blended several amazing tales in his new film about the American Healthcare System. One tale is about individual Americans who were covered by health insurance, but whose insurance companies, in an attempt to control costs, denied them coverage leading to human suffering.
Another tale is about how health care is delivered in 4 foreign countries, each of which developed its own version of universal no-cost or ultra-low-cost medical care, and each of which, while spending less than the US does, produces dramatically better health outcomes and seems to have much more satisfied health care providers.
A third tale is about Moore's hypothesis that making health coverage connected to employment is just one of several systematic tactics to keep citizens fearful, stressed, and passive.
Amazingly, using a wide-range of archival footage, interviews he did in 2004 through 2006, and a sense of irony and humor, this dense material, and often tragically sad material, comes across elegantly and enjoyably. In the end, Moore believes that foundational social values in a country end up determining how much the voices of citizens can influence how systems, like the health care system, are operated. A terrific and timely film.
View the trailer, or see the movie website.
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