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SICKO is Michael Moore's latest heat-seeking missile aimed squarely at American healthcare, and he brilliantly hits the target. Moore elevates the documentary art form and again demonstrates the Emperor is stark, raving naked. Part of Moore's genius is the ability to take a complex, social issue like healthcare and expose its systemic problems in a way that entertains and enlightens. Thank you Michael Moore for once again prompting a long over-due national discussion; SICKO is a must-see for every adult in America, young and old.

SICKO strikes the entire range of emotions. As anticipated, Michael Moore effectively uses humor and hyperbole to underscore his points, but in SICKO, he also utilizes to great effect the poignant first-hand accounts of individual Americans faced with untenable life and death choices for themselves or their loved ones. In the theater, belly laughs were interspersed with appalled gasps and at times tears, until spirited applause erupted as the credits rolled. I laughed until I cried tears of sadness and frustration at the desperation of fellow citizens trapped in our healthcare system where greed and profits in the insurance industry trump human life.

SICKO does not pretend to be a learned treatise equally presenting both sides of the healthcare debate. Moore readily admits he is addressing only one side of the healthcare equation, but the side he presents is the one least likely to be heard, the lonely human voice of suffering. Michael Moore brilliantly intertwines each pained, almost hollow voice, until the cacophony roars the need for change and accountability.

SICKO provides example after disgusting example of strategies employed by insurance companies in NOT paying for our healthcare. One primary strategy involves delaying or denying our healthcare. Another strategy involves using delay and denials to limit reimbursement to our physicians, i.e. those who actually provide healthcare. Making money by NOT paying for healthcare is apparently quite lucrative; insurance companies are enjoying explosive profits, and their shareholders are dancing all the way to the bank.

SICKO contrasts treatment of Americans in our healthcare system with treatment of citizens in the healthcare systems of France, United Kingdom, Canada, and Cuba. The wretched excess and obscene profiteering in the American system is even more deplorable when Moore contrasts it with people whose loved ones have suffered, lost their homes, or even died because the insurance

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