Everyone has just come out of the 8:30 a.m. screening of Michael Moore‘s Sicko — I’m typing this from the Salle du Presse where Moore will be answering questions ten minutes from now — and I have to say that I went into it with limited expectations, but I came out teary-eyed. Surprisingly, I found this documentary about the evils and shortcomings of the U.S. health-care system just as moving as Fahrenheit 9/11 — and I never would have predicted this.
Honestly…I found myself melting during the last 20 minutes or so, particularly during the scenes shot in Havana, Cuba, where Moore takes a small group of 9/11 workers to receive affordable — i.e., extremely cheap — health care for their 9/11-related ailments that they either couldn’t afford in the U.S., or weren’t getting sufficient treatment for in this great country of ours.
The press conference is about to begin so I can’t write any more about this until later in the afternoon, but I can at least say this: Sicko didn’t tell me anything radically new about what an absurd health-care system we have, but it spelled out very clearly and, it seemed to me, honestly how much better the health-care systems are in Canada, England and France.
Plus it made me feel the hurt and the sadness that the U.S. system causes aver- age citizens, and I can honestly say that it made me feel this emotion more acute- ly than at any other time in my life. It’s not just an eye-opener, in short, but a movie that opens your emotional pores.