American SiCKO
In his latest film, SiCKO, Michael Moore, the acclaimed film maker examines the ailing US health care industry. Rather than examining the challenges of the nearly 1 in 5 Americans who are uninsured, Moore focuses instead on the 250 million Americans who have health insurance coverage. Even those with insurance are not guaranteed health care as evidenced by the cases of several “ordinary Americans” whose lives have been dramatically and often tragically affected by the bureaucratic red tape of the insurance industry. Moore profiles a cross-section of tactics utilized by the for-profit insurance industry including denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions and failure to secure pre-authorization for emergency services. Moore squarely places the blame for the broken state of American health care at the feet of the US government; attributing its causes to two factors: profit and fear. First and perhaps more simply, health care goods and services have historically been treat...