Verified Document

Sicko Is A Quintessential Michael Essay

Sicko is a quintessential Michael Moore documentary. The filmmaker broadcasts his views unequivocally and unabashedly. As a result, viewers are treated to an argumentative, persuasive form of documentary fused with political activism. Sicko is an important film for Americans. Moore reveals his infatuation with Canada just as he did in former films like Bowling for Columbine. In Sicko, Moore points out how the Canadian system of health care, while not perfect, still provides for all citizens equally. Moore also details the French and Cuban systems of health care to show that the United States lags behind even one of the poorest communist countries in the world in terms of providing affordable health care for all its citizens. Sicko is a scathing critique of the American health care system.

The reason for America's paltry performance in health care insurance is the capitalist medical industry and the pharmaceutical companies that sustain it through formidable political action committees, or lobbying groups. Moore shows how the medical system in the United States is a profit-driven one rather than a care-driven one. Showing a slew of homeless people without the money to afford their health care needs, Moore also offers case studies of middle class Americans whose insurance companies let them down. For example, one woman got into a car accident and expected insurance to pay for her expenses related to the accident, minus the deductible. The insurance company denied her claim on the spurious grounds that the woman had a "prior condition" that was unrelated to the accident. If private insurance companies are not fulfilling their obligations to consumers, then public insurance becomes the only solution in a free, just, and democratic society. Profit-driven health care means that unethical business practices can too easily creep into and cloud what should be a care-driven system.

Moore's production may seem shrill to some viewers, but the filmmaker does a stellar job of portraying the American health care system as being in a state of sickness. Doctors in countries with socialized medical systems are far from being poor, as Moore details physicians in England and France. Moore was ultimately able to find the car accident victim the health care she needed: in Cuba.

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore
Words: 913 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Bowling for Columbine What makes America such a violent nation? Why have massacres involving guns become commonplace in American society? In his 2002 documentary titled "Bowling for Columbine," Michael Moore explores the many aspects of American society in an attempt to answer why American society is so violent. Moore takes a hard look at a society in which fear permeate people's lives and the intense and violent reaction that is a

Bowling for Columbine and Gun
Words: 624 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

Institutionalized Violence On the other hand, it does not make sense to focus so much on the availability of firearms, simply because most violent crimes involving firearms are committed with illegal firearms and not legally owned and possessed weapons (Dershowitz, 2002). Moore himself comes to the conclusion that, if anything, the American obsession with guns is more a symptom than a cause of the complex social and cultural reasons for higher

Bowling for Columbine Irony and
Words: 1030 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

The clearly unscripted dialogue between Moore and the spokesperson (Moore must return several times to get any satisfaction and the Kmart spokesperson stutters and clearly is just unconvincingly rehearsing the company line) gives the viewer a sense that history is happening in the 'here and now' of the film, just as the viewer watched the security footage of the massacre at the high school. Eventually, Kmart agrees to no

Bowling for Columbine
Words: 1734 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

hit documentary movie by Michael Moore called "Bowling for Columbine" from a criminologist point-of-view. The criminologist point-of-view is obtained from referencing "Criminology: The Core, 8th edition" by Larry J. Siegel as well as various criminal justice research journals. The objective of the paper was to addresses if this documentary supported information taught by Siegel. The paper aims to discuss theories the movie covered, provide insight into gun control and

Bowling for Columbine Documentary Analysis
Words: 2567 Length: 9 Document Type: Essay

Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine Michael Moore's motion picture Bowling for Columbine provides insight into the Columbine High School Massacre Event in 1999 and into a series of incidents such as the U.S.' tendency to promote weapons and conflict. This film attempts to provide information with regard to the background of gun use in the U.S. And the consequences associated with this respective enterprise. The film is meant to generate controversy

Columbine Bill Nichols Argues That
Words: 705 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

On the other hand, guns kill people every day, yet we keep protecting the rights of gun owners and fight to prevent even something a simple as registration. Moore acts as a person trying to provoke a response on several occasions, returning to Columbine High School several times, even showing horrifying images and footage from the massacre that took place there. This is argument by shock, but it can be

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now