Preview

Sicko - Michael Moore

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1078 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sicko - Michael Moore
Sicko is a 2007 documentary produced, written and directed by the American filmmaker Michael Moore. The film investigates the United States health cares system, focusing primarily on health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry. Moore does not in fact pose questions as to how America should reform its health care however it does suggest many solutions.

Michael Moore depicts the American health care system as one that contains many flaws. He goes on to show different people who have not been able to afford the ridiculous sum of money to perform certain procedures. While scrutinizing the American health care system Michael ventures to Canada, France, Cuba and Great Britain in an attempt to compare health insurance and pharmaceuticals. The audience is invited to believe that America has the worst health care out of all five countries. Through this documentary film Moore suggests the causes for this predicament blaming the government for accepting bribes. Using the voices of different members of major insurers he is able to paint viewers a picture of the devastation people face. Moore uses unbalanced arguments and evidence to convincingly impose his biased opinion upon his audience. This is seen through a majority of Sicko. Moore positively portrays the health care systems of other countries, produces incorrect information and does not declare laws that have been put in place; he also uses editing techniques to show false images.

Michael Moore sugar coats the Canadian health care system by not mentioning to viewers the long waiting lists and even cancelations of lifesaving surgery. There are even waiting lists to get on waiting lists. Due to this, Timely Medical Alternatives is a thriving business that specializes in transporting Canadians, who don’t want to wait for medical care, to Buffalo. Moore also fails to mention that there is a law prohibiting Canadian citizens from paying for urgently needed medical treatments or from obtaining private health care.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Controversy surrounds health care. Daily, news reports on television, in newspapers, and the Internet discuss the rising cost of healthcare in the United States. The delivery and utilization of healthcare is a complex process. James and Stokes (2006) indicate “the process of healthcare includes diagnosis, treatment, prevention, rehabilitation and palliative care” (p. 1). Multiple entities help deliver healthcare - physicians, nurses, therapists, hospitals, insurance providers, government agencies, and commercial companies…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    icd 10 Final Project

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The font or typeface I will use or script-like fonts around 14, in bold those typically work better as heading fonts rather than body text and 12 for the body. I use of visuals communication would help me effectively deliver my message on the important issues with documentation and with the pictures and graphs, showing gains and loss of loss revenue would help them understand…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    I think that if the U.S. was ever able to change its health care system to universal health, we would benefit by adopting this practice in order to prevent bankruptcy. Reid returns to the problems of America’s health care regarding the cost, coverage, and quality on page 226 where he emphasizes the idea that they can be changed. Most importantly, many Americans are blind to the terrible health care system that they have. They try to cover it up with myths about health care overseas. Reid touches on five myths that Americans have which include topics such as everyone having socialized medicine, rationing care and limited choices, bloated bureaucracies, cruel acts of health insurance companies, and describing other systems as being too foreign.…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Assignment 4 432 APA

    • 2590 Words
    • 7 Pages

    As a Canadian nurse who has worked at several hospitals in Canada, it is apparent that our government funded hospitals leave much to be desired. The wait times in the emergency department stagger over several hours for illnesses that can be treated within minutes. Our emergency rooms are over loaded and we simply do not have the nursing or doctor staff to keep up with this demand. The issue is not only related to the growing and aging population; rather the core of the issue remains that most Canadians are without any family physicians covered by Medicare. Canada is facing a crisis. Timely access to health care services is getting progressively worse for Canadians. The single biggest reason for this is a severe shortage of health professionals. High on the list of those in short supply are family doctors. More than 4 million Canadians cannot find family physicians to care for them; compared to people with family physicians, those that have no family doctors are more vulnerable to prolonged wait times throughout the system and are less satisfied with the performance of all other health professionals, institutions, and governments (The College of Family Physicians of Canada, 2004, p.3). In response to this shortage of publicly funded physicians, I have decided to integrate a privately funded family medicine clinic. This clinic will allow patients quick and easy access to a family physician that can treat their minor emergencies as well as provide continued health care as needed. This organization is a growing trend. Today the discussion is not whether private health care should have a role in the system, but rather what role private health care will have (Mason, 2008, p.130). By integrating a privately funded family medicine clinic into Canadian society, it will not only decrease wait times in public hospitals and…

    • 2590 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    To conclude, in the last decade health care cost has risen so drastically in the United States to the point it has become a burden to families who simply trying to live and make a productive living. And the arrival of Obamacare infuriated coverage providers and health care providers to the point that lead the quality of care to dissipate. I tyrant was created in the healthcare system that wields a mighty weapon of capitalistic influence over our elected leaders. The name of this giant is called third party payors, and the weapon is campaign contributions. The cost is steadily rising with no end in…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    "Sicko" Response Paper

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The main point that Michael Moore is portraying in his documentary is that the North American health care system does not have the best interest for it's customers in mind. Throughout the documentary, Moore gives numerous examples of insured patients being denied a multitude of treatments from their insurance companies. They are denied because of the amount their treatments would cost the insurance company. These thousands of Americans pay monthly for their health insurance so that they will be covered in instances like these. Health insurance companies, such as Kaiser, refuse to pay for treatments (for their paying customers) if they deem the cost of the treatment too hefty. Moore's point of his documentary is to draw attention the corruption of the health care companies in North America.…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Escape Fire Paper

    • 1432 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The documentary Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare explains the numerous controversies in our healthcare system and where the system is going if it follows the same footsteps it has been taking for the past decade. Throughout the documentary there are many hosts in which they all give their personal insight on the American Healthcare System and how the system is failing and on the verge to a catastrophic breakdown. All of the hosts gathered their data through personal research that they did on the system and from working in their perspective fields over the years and just seeing the trends the healthcare system is taking and going towards.…

    • 1432 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    rhetorical analysis -sicko

    • 1217 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko is a very controversial yet entertaining and emotionally compelling film. The documentary draws attention to several flaws in the health care system in United States of America. It exposes how profit-based healthcare insurance companies in America exploit the people; and argues that for the people of America, socializing healthcare would be much better than the current system. The controversy of the film is restricted to those whose interest would be affected, that is, Profits of insurance companies where universal healthcare is accepted would suffer greatly, and so would investors and corporations. He travels to other parts of the world such as Canada, Cuba, France and the United Kingdom to show that yes, indeed-universal healthcare does work well in other countries. He does well in using emotional appeal, guilt and humor to articulate how there is conflict in the American healthcare system between profit maximization and the desire to provide good quality and affordable health care for all. While Michael uses logical and ethical appeals to show how healthcare systems in France, United Kingdom, Cuba and Canada are better than the United States of America, his use of emotional appeal seems to be most effective.…

    • 1217 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    For the past decades, politicians and insurance companies could carelessly proclaim that the United States had the best healthcare system in the world, but as its major deficiencies have become more apparent many people have found it harder to accept this claim. It is reported that around 59 million Americans are without health insurance and are aware that our health care system does not work for everyone. This has caused a growing recognition that the major problems of rising costs and lack of access constitute a real crisis. However, the search solutions have not been easy or clear cut. The problems of our health care system have been responded to with various makeshift solutions rather than analyzing the system itself as a whole to take…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Pros And Cons Of Obamacare

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Marmor, puts forth a comparison of the healthcare systems of Germany, Canada, England, Japan, and France to the United States. “Each, as distinct from the United States, has created a universal health care program fundamentally based on the idea that medical care is a merit, not a market good. The equal access standard does not, of course, mean ideal practice, but care is more equally distributed as a result” (Marmor p.569). This is now what ObamaCare seeks to do by imposing on the health care system that is seen to be run by private-profit companies, whose bottom line is money and not health. This idea of medical care being a “merit” and having more equally distributed care are two factors entailed in ObamaCare. This is where the elements of democracy - freedom, equality and solidarity once again come into play. Healthcare becoming more equally distributed directly deals with equality which is directly linked to solidarity and the sense of belonging or acceptance as those previously without healthcare are now in the…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Movie Escape Fire

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I say healthcare with quotations because it’s not really healthcare, it’s more sick care. Like a physician in the film said “We have a disease care system, it doesn’t want you to die and it doesn’t want you to get well” because the longer you stay sick and in need of treatment, Insurance companies continue making money. One of the issues with American healthcare is the prevention to problem solving ratio, people are treated, at least temporarily, for issues and illness that could have been easily prevented or even reversed with the right diet and activity level while saving billions. I visited http://www.commonwealthfund.org to find out how Americas health care compared to other countries and found “Data from the OECD show that the U.S. spent 17.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care in 2013. This was almost 50 percent more than the next-highest spender (France, 11.6% of GDP) and almost double what was spent in the U.K. (8.8%). U.S. spending per person was equivalent to $9,086”. If we as a people were to take better care of our bodies and overall being their wouldn’t be as much need for dangerous medication and these big insurance corporations who are making their rates as high as they want and getting away with it. One healthcare salesman from the movie actually stated that “You almost forget it’s real people and their health you’re dealing with, not just money and numbers”. Many…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Health care, and the lack thereof, in the United States have always been and will continue to be an issue. Currently, the United States does not have Universal Healthcare and those that do have health care coverage should feel privileged. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the: a) way healthcare is currently delivered, b) the history of health care reform, c) the current healthcare reform act, and d) what healthcare will be like in the future.…

    • 1756 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Affordable Care Act Impact

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages

    “Three important concepts that form the framework for health policy discussions are quality/safety of care, access to care and the cost of care” (Milstead, 2013). In March of 2010 the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed. The focus of this paper is to explain the ethical, financial, and quality of care aspects surrounding the ACA.…

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dressel, Davis, Shoen, Shea, and Haran (2008) all argue that Canada has shown statistically that their health care system is better. According to Dressel, America spends more money on health care than Canada, but have higher infant mortality rates and an average lower life expectancy (p. 573). Canada and America used to be equal, but since Canada changed their system the numbers have changed, and they have pushed ahead. Davis, Shoen, Shea, and Haran explain that it is becoming harder for Americans to access quality care because of insurance rates (p. 3).…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Health Care Professionals

    • 1766 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The structure of the U.S heath care system is certainly a topic greatly debated. Whether it is discussing the cost of health care, poor outcomes, shortages in health care workers, underutilization of other health care workers, the lack of access to care, or growing demand by consumers for health care that offers choice, quality, convenience, affordability and personalized care. It is not a secret that the United States spends more money than any other nation on health care, but only ranks 34th in the world in life expectancy and has higher mortality rates in infants than any other nation that is developed.…

    • 1766 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays