Sick Over Sicko

Whether you love him or love to hate him, Michael Moore and his new film, Sicko, have ruffled enough feathers and generated enough outrage in the past few weeks that Americans are now actually talking more intelligently about health care in the U.S. You can now overhear post-film arguments laced with formerly policy-wonk-only lingo like "single-payer." The Register runs a long list of published and additional reader comments today, with a series of anecdotes not unlike the horrific ones featured in the film, which is still breaking records at the box office. (Check out our review).

After watching the film with friends who encompassed the full Moore spectrum of love to hate, all were hungry for more information about our complicated system by the time the credits finished rolling. The film, although painful and powerful to watch, does what films do: simplifies and leaves out a lot. For a much more comprehensive and super-readable dissection of our increasingly deficient health-care system, check out Jonathan Cohn's Sick (no relation to Moore's movie), a robust, meticulously researched offering with startling real-life stories and analysis of overseas health-care systems that tells the story of how we got into this mess and what we'll need to do to get out.