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Fatty fatty two-by-four
Michael Moore is a fatty fatty two-by-four (hey - that rhymes!). But that doesn’t change the fact that his new documentary, Sicko, is surprisingly fantastic. I have actually enjoyed all of Moore’s work, but I do tend to find his persona a bit grating, and some of the more obvious stunts he includes in his films don’t always resonate for me. But this flick is much more subdued and as John Nichols over at The Nation puts it, it’s “the most important political statement so far in what remains an ill-defined domestic policy debate among Democrats who propose to replace Bushism with something better.” Quite frankly, I think this film should be required viewing for every member of Congress.
Professor Dorf agrees, calling the flick “terrific.” However, he also correctly points out the flick’s “principal didactic flaw,” which is that it fails “to explain why the U.S. [healthcare] system is such a disaster.” Dorf attributes the disaster to the fact that “so much of our health care dollar goes to administrative costs that take the form of insurance companies trying to deny coverage.” Which is definitely a pretty accurate assessment of what is probably the system’s biggest flaw (of course, that stems directly from the fact that we have a private/for-profit system, which is what Moore focuses on - he’s just not quite as explicit as Professor Dorf would like in connecting the dots for the more casual viewer). Professor Dorf’s blogging partner, meanwhile (Neil H. Buchanan), thinks the movie’s biggest error is one of commission rather than omission, because he represents Hillary’s 1990’s health care initiative as a good idea, whereas Buchanan says that initiative was “a genuinely terrible idea.”
Anyway, go read Dustin’s review of the flick to get a better grasp on what it’s all about. And then head out to the theater and watch it for yourself.
