Sicko

I'm probably the only person left of center AND involved in the critique of medicalization who does not particularly like Michael Moore.

I just watched Sicko. I couldn't go see it in the theaters because I felt like everyone around me had drunk the cool-aid already. It is ironic because everyone around me is VERY well-informed on the health care issue and I would think that as much as they would appreciate his popularizing this very important issue, they would also have a big problem with the way he oversimplifies things. But everyone loves him. They love the way he draws easy scapegoats; they love the way he makes right and wrong so clear; they love that cloying sarcastic humor.

There was a lot in this documentary that I liked and that I'm glad he did. But most of it is his regular wheedling shtick that I find so intensely grating. His voice. That dripping insincerity, that cloying, patronizing false, rhetorical naivete. It makes me want to kill him.

I also dislike the cheesy way he manipulates stock footage to make his points.

But then again, for the record, I agree with the rest of the world that drug and insurance companies are the bad guys and that we should try and make our health care system as much like other Western Industrialized nations as possible.

It was also weird seeing how young Bill and Hilary were during their administration.