Sicko Documentary Analysis

Do millions of Americans die because of the United States Health Care? Michael Moore is the director of the movie “Sicko”, in which he thinks that the U.S. should adopt universal health care. He was born in Flint, Michigan on April 23, 1954, and was raised in Davison, Michigan. His documentary Sicko addresses the issues of America’s health care system and also brings to light the corrupt aspects of the U.S. health care industry. In his film he believes that the system is corrupt because it is outrageous that a country like America who believes in patriotism would allow their citizens to have such poor health care.

Moore’s Ethos is established due to the fact that he is the most successful American documentary filmmaker. He is also a screenwriter,
But Majority of Moore’s ethos is mixed with pathos. Throughout the film one can see that his research is mainly interviews with Americans who are currently affected by the health insurance industry. Moore uses different techniques to support his argument that universal health care in other countries such as Canada, France, and Britain is better than United States government regulated health care. Moore heavily relies on pathos to keep the audience engaged. As soon as the movie started there is a man named Adam who had no job and had a deep gash on his knee. He is stitching up his own wound because he cannot afford to go the hospital due to no insurance and no income. Adam is also one of 50 million Americans with no health insurance. Following that scene another man named Rick sawed of the tops of two of his fingers. He also didn’t have health insurance but he had some income. The hospital gave him two options which were to sow the middle finger for 60,000$ or the ring for 12,000$, which is a very big difference. Moore’s objective was to sicken the audience stomachs and create sympathy to get their undivided attention. After those two scenes, Moore has my attention and I wanted to see what else he had to
Moore uses a few statistics to expose how bad America’s health care is. “Fifty million Americans do not have health insurance and 18,000 of them will die in one year.” This is one of the first things stated in the movie. Moore gives a statistic that shows that something is not adding up with America’s health care. The statistics that Moore uses is very good because the movie is not loaded with a lot of stats, but just enough that will prove his argument. Another stat that the audience might think was very good was “health care programs spent over 100 million dollars to beat Hilary and her view of socialized health care”. This quote is very effective because it displays that health companies will do anything in their power to save a dollar. Moore’s use of statistics provides the logos of the argument. Where Moore uses Logos effectively he hurts it at points in the documentary for example when ever he provide statistics are facts regarding another countries health care, he provides a family who is prospering. This is all well and good but the majority audience is middle to lower class citizens and Moore is only showing upper class citizens. It seems if he is manipulating the facts in order to persuade audience members into believing universal health care is full proof. Moore’s most important use of logos is at the very end of the film where he came back