SICKO sss
For better and for worse, Moore’s Sicko scores for similar reasons. It spends more than two hours attempting to preach to the unconverted that (1) this country’s health care system is a disgrace, especially when it comes to medical insurance, and that (2) it could easily be much better. There are fewer jokes this time around, and Moore makes a point of not even appearing on-screen for a good 40 minutes, putting more emphasis on his arguments and less on his comic persona.
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It’s an honorable tactic and the arguments are strong. But when he finally turns up in the flesh, there’s something even more rancid than usual about the way he plays dumb. We’re forced to arrive at one of two possible conclusions, each fairly alienating: either Moore is correct about the majority of his audience being a pack of numskulls, necessitating his Health Care 101 approach, or he’s wrong, which means we have to pretend to be dumb to play along with him.
As a grateful recipient of the benefits of universal health care for most of a decade, when I lived in France and England in the 70s, I don’t need to be converted by Moore, and I know that many others who have never lived abroad feel the same way. But when it comes to evaluating national health in those two countries, Moore comes up a bit short.
