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Jul
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Sicko 1Los Angeles, CA, June 25, 2007 — In an after screening Q&A held at the plushly carpeted theater in the Director’s Guild headquarters, moderated by uber-director Ron “Opie” Howard (who agreed to take on this chore because it was the only way he could get a ticket to the hottest event in town), Michael Moore talked about his latest film, “Sicko”, and his prescription for curing America’s health care system. His film veers from humor to pathos, to tragedy to adventure as he dissects the reasons we (the United States) haven’t adopted a system like the rest of the industrialized democracies loosely defined as single payer national health care. His irreverent but heartfelt approach provokes laughter, tears and real intellectual stimulation as he sets off on his quixotic quest with the zeal of Mike Wallace, the biting social humor of Lenny Bruce and the concern for the afflicted of Florence Nightingale.

The most talked about sequence, the one that’s landed him in hot water with the Bush Administration, shows Moore and a raggedy band of middle-aged, formerly middle class, people who’ve been physically and financially ruined by their deficient health care and its costs. Several are suffering from the serious medical affects of too much time spent volunteering for rescue and clean-up duty at Ground Zero after 9/11. We join them as they set out in a flotilla of chartered boats headed for the American base at Guantanamo, Cuba. They’ve heard that prisoners at “Gitmo” receive world class health care. Moore reasons that if Al Queada members can get great medical services from our government shouldn’t these heroes from 9/11 be afforded the same? Read the rest of this entry »