Sicko thoughts. No, not that kind.

Because I was feeling particularly patriotic yesterday (July 4th), I watched Michael Moore's Sicko. Brief and spoiler-free impressions: I liked it a lot more than Moore's previous two efforts. The movie included a lot more, you know, actual facts and arguments than it did vaguely sinister insinuations and Bush-is-stupid-therefore-I'm-right moments. I think this is the first film that Moore crafted to intentionally engage the "opposition," so to speak, rather than just preach to the choir.

I still had problems with it, though. That bit at the end about the website? I think it was a serious mistake to include it. But that's just me. And the Guantanamo Bay bits that heavily implied that criminals don't deserve health care. (They do.) But other people have already addressed these things.

I think I understand a little bit more about the opposition thanks to the movie. I can see why some medical doctors are opposed to universal, government-run health care: after all, do they want to end up treated like shit and with shit pay, like public school teachers, firemen, policemen, and librarians (to draw the same parallels that Moore drew)? No, of course not. Moore interviews one British doctor who lives in a million-dollar house and drives an Audi in order to assure us that this will not be the case. Still, one example is not entirely convincing, in the face of America's long history of treating its public servants like, well, shit. If I were a doctor, I wouldn't exactly be jumping at the chance to become a public servant, either.

Feministe has much better and more intelligent thoughts about the film, all of which I agree with.