I had a chance at an early viewing of Sicko and decided to offer my critique and a public endorsement of it. Go see it, and take everyone you can to see it with you.
The thesis of this movie seems to be that American’s are disciplined by debt. And part of that system of imposing discipline, is imposing healthcare debt on the people.
The movie identifies part of the foundations of this when Edgar Kaiser’s Permanente, America’s largest HMO, struck a deal with the Nixon administration to create a medical care program. Part of the Nixon tapes reveal that he allowed this program to be on the government’s agenda, and that he knowingly and willingly consented to the establishment of a program that would provide less medical care for Americans at greater cost to generate more private profits.
By now, an estimated $800 billion dollars have been handed over to the healthcare industry. Thanks in part to propaganda efforts of the AMA (American Murderers Association). The movie shows an old clip of AMA president-elect Dr. Edward Annis giving a Hitler-esque speech, stating the AMA’s position. The AMA opposes socialized medicine because they fear doctors would make less money and be forced to "treat everyone fair and equal" and provide healthcare to everyone at the expense of convenience for the wealthy.
These propaganda efforts also included a record released with then actor Ronald Reagan on it equating the socialization of medicine to the establishment of an authoritarian communist government. That actor, who eventually became president and war-criminal-in-chief, was just doing his part to ensure the prerogatives of the wealthy were propagated.
Then along came Hillary Clinton who, as first lady, was put in charge of the President’s task force on healthcare. She advocated the establishment of a socialized health system under the banner of "universal coverage now" which would provide healthcare for everyone.
So the fear-mongering began. There was a media campaign which succeeded in silencing Hillary which was led by the Republican Party and financed by such organizations as the Health Insurance Association of America, the AMA, the Christian Coalition, the National Restaurant Association, and the Republican National Committee.
Thus Hillary’s efforts were subdued, and universal healthcare did not become a reality. The US slipped to 37th in healthcare quality, while Humana, United Health, Aetna and others made ludicrous profits. Hillary herself was eventually bought off and became the 2nd largest recipient of health industry contributions in the Senate, behind Rick Santorum.
The movie then goes on to explore the differences in socialized healthcare and our system of corporate healthcare. The film shows, anecdotally, that the Canadian (who live three years longer than Americans on average), French, and British medical care systems are more humane and better for citizens than the American system. Remember though, that Americans’ pejorative perceptions of socialized healthcare were probably created by the mainstream media and people like Ronald Reagan and the AMA no less anecdotally. There was even a report in the Journal of the AMA which showed that Brits were actually substantially healthier than Americans. As Dr. Milliez of France says--people in socialized medical systems, "Pay according to (their) means, and receive according to (their) need."
The film goes on to explore the theme that Americans are disciplined by debt because of a cultural acceptance of imposed discipline from the powers that be. As one woman living in France articulated, in France the quality of life is so much better because the government is afraid of the people. While in America, it is the people who are afraid of the government.
Then comes the (already) most controversial section of the film. The Republicans paraded around the 9/11 rescue workers for political capital. However, as these workers suffered from the physical and psychological ailments they incurred working at Ground Zero, the government abandoned them. Pataki, the government, working with HMOs made the standards for establishing that illness were incurred working at Ground Zero stringent, and made it difficult for them to receive treatment.
Meanwhile, "Detainees representing a threat to our national security are given access to top-notch medical facilities." So Mike Moore, quite reasonably, put two and two together and took the suffering 9/11 rescue workers to the one place on American soil where they could receive socialized healthcare, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Now, the Bush administration is odiously investigating these 9/11 rescue workers, as potential criminals, to determine if they took part in a violation of the US trade embargo, which prohibits travel to and transactions with socialist Cuba, where the workers received free treatment after they were turned away from Gitmo. A Cuban woman stated that "the more a country produces, the richer it is, the better it should take care of its people." Indeed.
Former British MP Tony Benn dealt with the theme of discipline through imposed healthcare costs best when he said that real democracy "Moves power from the marketplace to the polling station." He notes that governments often find the ability to subsidize defense at great costs and that they should do the same for public health. Benn says, "If you can find means to kill people, you can find means to help people." Let us hope that this movie inspires that kind of sentiment in America. Go see it on June 29th.