Michael Moore- The Real Sicko

Sigh. Michael Moore has made another pseudo-documentary, this time about the Health Care system "crisis" in the United States. To illustrate his message, he went to that bastion of freedom and universal health care, Cuba, to examine its “top-notch” system and compare it to what he deems is the woefully inferior American way of taking care of its people.

Michael Moore touts his movies as documentaries, and therein lies the problem. Random House defines a documentary as a movie that “purports to be factually accurate and contains no fictional elements.” This definition, however, does not apply to the genre of films that Moore makes. Given Moore’s fame, incredible wealth and access to almost any person in the world, one would imagine that he also has access to the most current, pertinent, accurate and factual information available before creating his films so that he may call them true documentaries. Not so.

In his anti-gun film, Bowling for Columbine, the title itself is based on deception. There was no before-school bowling class that morning before the Columbine massacre. The Columbine shooters skipped their class before shooting up their school, thus removing the entire meaning from the title of the movie. Moore claimed in the film that the Lockhead Martin plant in Littleton, Colorado manufactured “weapons of mass destruction,” when in reality Lockheed Martin's plant in Littleton makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites. Moore also distorted facts and video footage to make it appear that Charlton Heston, President of the NRA, made a pro-gun speech in which he famously said “from my cold, dead hands,” 10 days after the Columbine shooting AND in Littleton. The truth is that Heston made that speech, scheduled much before the shooting, one year AFTER the shooting and in Charlotte, North Carolina, not Colorado.

There are many more untruths, distortions and inaccuracies in this particular film, which grossed some 15 million dollars and won an Academy Award, but allow those that are listed to set the scene for my next point. “Sicko,” Moore’s latest fictional contribution to the cinematic world, focuses on what the Castro regime has allowed him to show- only the best hospitals, the best facilities, the most high-tech equipment, only the most sanitary of conditions.

But what was he doing in Cuba when his favorite country, Canada, has universal health care? To further stick it to the Bush Administration, Moore took 9/11 responders suffering from a variety of respiratory ailments to Cuba for free treatment and to take advantage of its “cutting edge” technology. His goal was to show Americans that our own heroes who were injured in the terrorists attacks on our soil had to resort to seeking out health care in a communist country. The issue at hand is that all of the wonders of the Cuban health care system featured in the film are not for the common people- they are for foreigners and tourists, you know, the ones who could possibly report back home that they had a bad experience in a Cuban hospital? Yeah, them.

Ask any Cuban who has recently left the island (because they can’t talk freely about this inside of Cuba) about their health care system and they will tell you that it is often a challenge just to get aspirin and they often have to get it on the black market. The run-down, dilapidated and unsanitary conditions in the facilities that the average Cuban must go to for care are a far cry from the hospitals and clinics reserved for high-ranking members of the communist party or the military. There are actually special facilities in Cuba that serve foreigners who can pay in foreign currency.

If the lauded Cuban healthcare system is so wonderful, perhaps someone can explain to me the following:

• Why some patients are taken to the hospital in wheelbarrows instead of ambulances?

• Why patients must bring their own linens for the hospital bed and often, a fan, to combat the stifling heat and lack of air-conditioning?

• Why cockroaches and other vermin are present in what is supposed to be “sanitary” health facilities?

• Why many common medicines are not available? If Cuba can export cutting-edge biotechnological products to other countries, surely the US embargo cannot be blamed for not allowing medicine to enter Cuba.

• Why, in a 185-bed cancer center in Santiago where some 6,000 people are treated MONTHLY, there is a shortage of basics such as codeine, anti-nausea drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics, antacids, laxatives, high blood pressure medicine, antihistamines, anti-depressants, contraceptives, vitamins and minerals?

• This particular hospital, sadly, is the norm, not the exception.

• Why 41% of patients in Cuban hospitals are undernourished, particularly after surgery. Malnutrition risks increase with extended stays in the hospital, according to the U.S. National Institute of Health.

Was any of this mentioned in “Sicko?” Of course not! The reason why is one to which I alluded earlier-- Michael Moore is so anti-American, despite the fact that he makes millions off of the American people every time he makes a film, that he will do anything he can to exaggerate and distort the truth to make the Bush Administration look incompetent, evil and silly.

Well, Michael, I hate to tell you but the American people are on to you. You lied in Bowling for Columbine, you lied in Farhenheit 911, and now by omission, you are lying to your viewers about the harsh, disgusting reality of the Cuban health care system. You are also missing an opportunity to get on your bully pulpit and bring some very much-needed attention to the evil castro regime which has been violating the rights of its people for almost 50 years. In this case, it denies Cubans the health care that they are guaranteed by virtue of the communist state. Way to go, sicko.

Comments

[Luli]

Great article! I was a blinded socialist until I read this! Thank you for showing me the light!
Luli