Two weeks ago, I went to see the new Michael Moore movie Sicko with my wife and my older daughter. My daughter, who is hoping to attend medical school, had seen the movie already and had found it very engaging.

I remember Michael Moore’s first movie, Roger and Me, a film about Flint, Michigan and the effects the downturn in the U.S. auto industry was having on that community. I liked that movie quite a lot. Though Moore took a few cheap shots, the film was not narrowly political. Instead, it raised significant issues about a community dependent upon one industry for its livelihood and what happens when that industry is in trouble. I have long been interested in basic economic issues and considered writing my doctoral dissertation on Christian faith and economics before writing about Christian faith and political democracy. I was also interested in the film because when I was in the sixth grade my family might have moved to the greater-Detroit area where my dad was going follow his employer, an employer tied to the auto industry. He changed employers and we stayed in Duluth, but Flint might have been my home town. I hope the community is doing well.

Since Roger and Me, Moore has written books and made another movie more political and more partisan in nature. Many would dismiss his work as nothing more than political propaganda, and to be sure, Moore sometimes goes for cheap irony in a way that detracts from what he is trying to say. I did not find his approaching the Guantanamo Bay military detention center with people needing medical care, people who had helped others during the 9-11 crisis, very helpful to the point he was trying to make in Sicko. But his overall point is something we need to pay attention to. Why does the richest country in the world lack a medical system that provides universal access to its citizens?

Currently in the United States, 45 to 50 million people are without medical insurance. Others who have coverage spend a great deal of time and energy arguing with their insurer over coverage issues. Almost every other industrialized country in the world provides better access and most rank higher in measures of quality of health care like infant mortality and life expectancy. Something is broken, something needs to change.

For me, the most powerful part of the film was Michael Moore’s interview with an older Canadian man. When asked why he thought he should be paying for the medical care of others, the man replied that it was just what people did for each other, that we were all in this together. Our country has a wonderful record of innovation, individuality and initiative and we do not want to lose that entirely. At the same time we need to rediscover that sense of community caring, that we are in this together. Our health care system needs to reflect this.

I left Sicko with a deep sense that we can do better as a country in providing health care for our citizens. I believe we have a moral obligation to try, and for me that moral obligation arises out of my understanding of my Christian faith. The policy particulars need to be debated. We need to try a variety of ways to move toward universal health care access and insurance coverage. I don’t have all the policy answers, just a strong sense of the direction we need to be heading.

Interestingly enough, Michael Moore may have come “full circle.” Corporations like General Motors may soon be leading the charge in encouraging our government to find ways to provide health care for our citizens. The cost of trying to do so company by company is proving too costly, is hampering the ability of companies to hire some of the employees it needs. I am not sure Roger Smith is still around, but if he is, I wonder if Michael Moore has asked him for help in his most recent cause.

I am not beyond irony, either, though I hope it isn’t cheap.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David