‘Sicko’: a must see film

Just try getting hospital treatment in Queensland, for example, unless you have invested in private insurance or are rich enough to pay fees. Public hospital treatment is first class, the problem being there is not enough of it because of political policy - and perhaps because members of parliament usually have private treatment so are unlikely to be aware of the problems.

Public dental treatment virtually does not exist; other essential treatments can leave people on waiting lists literally for years. There is often a Medicare rebate but that is not free treatment. Many people who believed in public health and therefore didn’t take out private insurance now find they cannot access treatment before they die or go blind. Meanwhile the insurance companies are doing fine.

Prime Minister John Howard has recently won some support for taking over a hospital in Tasmania but this is probably a cynical electoral move considering this federal government’s neglect of health services, especially in distant Indigenous communities in spite of the great need. A Mike Moore investigation of the governmental neglect of Australian Indigenous health could be a bigger scandal than he unearthed in the US.

Moore has made some important films on American life and death. Sicko is arguably his most important. Up to now.