*Cough Cough*

I watched Michael Moore's SiCKO last night and can't stop thinking about it.

First of all, I understand if some of you are skeptical about Moore's films. They are bias and loaded with opinions, even though he makes it seem like you are watching something fact-based. Yes, he bases his films on fact for the most part, but he definitely does not present both sides of the story. There is also evidence that he alters some information to fit it into a mold of his own making. That is the nature of cinema I suppose: You already know your script and the way the movie will turn out before you've even started filming.

However, despite knowing all of this I am still a fan of SiCKO as well as the other films Moore has produced. Not because I think everything he claims is true, not because they are interesting to watch (which they are) but because his films educate and enrage people on issues they should be educated and enraged about. Many people already knew that American health care was lacking before they watched the film, but it helped to really bring the issue to light. Things like this are necessary to collapse this idea that America is somehow Utopian. So many of its citizens idealize the "Land of the Free" as some kind of perfect prototype, and it's important for people to realize that it's not.

As a Canadian watching this movie, I was scared shitless. Yes, we have better healthcare than the States, but it made me realize how fragile that service is and how easily it could escape us. Harper has proposed privatizing healthcare, or changing to a two-tiered system. Public healthcare is one of the things that makes Canada unique from the U.S., and changing that system would be de-evolving. I can see the gradual changes occurring already, from my own personal experience. Canada's drug services are not universal. I am not covered, because I am over 21 and am not working at a job that has a drug plan. Every time I need a puffer it costs me $120 and if I were someone who couldn't afford $120 a month, I would simply need to live without it, unable to breathe.

I apologize for the rant, but I think it is so sad that it takes a loaded movie with cancer patients crying into a frosted camera lens while a sad "broken American dream" ballad plays in the background for people to become aware that something isn't right. Why don't people realize the problem until Michael Moore shoves it into their poor, sickly little faces?