Michael Moore again brings a pressing social issue into the spotlight, only to then narrow that spotlight onto those details that comfortably fit into his film’s tone of mock indignation. This time he means to demonstrate that America’s current system of privately funded health care is a disaster – a pretty easy sell. Just about everyone has heard of a health-care horror story such as the ones Moore finds, including that of a woman whose insurance company refused to pay for her emergency ambulance ride because it wasn’t pre-approved. Moore’s research, as usual, is his strength. Along with dozens of personal testimonies, he digs up audiotape of then-President Richard Nixon essentially endorsing private insurance because it will mean less care for more profit. Moore is less convincing when it comes to offering alternatives. Again, he finds nirvana on foreign soil – Canada, Britain, France, even Cuba.
And while those country’s systems all appear to have strengths (in France doctors make free house calls), Moore never once considers their possible weaknesses – except inadvertently. When he pauses to admire the French tradition of protesting in the streets, it makes you wonder: If things are so perfect there, what are they always protesting?
