Michael Moore's New Diagnosis

Her

e’s something that won’t surprise you: Michael Moore has some gripes about how things are going in this country — and he wants to share them with you. The filmmaker behind such blistering hits as Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine and Roger & Me, Moore, 53, is back with Sicko, his soon-to-be released take on the U.S. health-care industry.

The movie, screened for TIME, is double-barreled Moore, a mix of familiar numbers (47 million uninsured Americans, the ever rising cost of care) and chilling moments (the 18-month-old baby who dies of a seizure when she’s denied emergency-room access, the husband and father with kidney cancer whose insurer won’t pay for a bone-marrow transplant). Together, they will have many moviegoers angry enough to gouge holes in their armrests.

But it’s not always clear how fair Moore plays. His romanticized take on Canada’s single-payer health-care system is a few data points shy of a controlled study, and his decision to shoot part of the movie in Cuba made him the subject of a federal investigation, which may be precisely the p.r. gold he was after. Still, the film will surely get people talking, which is just what Moore wants — and just what he did in a wide-ranging conversation with TIME.

TIME: A portion of your audience is pre-sold on your politics, but another portion is undecided. Is your finger-in-the-eye style the best way to change minds, or does it give people a reason to tune you out?

Michael Moore: I’ve already moved the needle on some things. In March 2003, I stood up at the Oscars and said we’re being led to war for fictitious reasons, and I was booed. Only 20% of the country agreed with me. I should have learned my lesson and gone away quietly. Instead, I made Fahrenheit 9/11. I did that because I believe that the majority of Americans are not only persuadable but that they have a generous heart and ultimately want to do the right thing. Now I am in agreement with 70% of the country about Mr. Bush. So it took a while.

TIME: With Sicko, do you think you picked an easy target? After all, you can’t find a whole lot of people who are happy with their HMO.

Michael Moore: This film does cut across party lines. Everybody gets sick; everybody has had a problem with insurance or the prescription drugs they’re supposed to be taking or an elderly parent who needs care. On the surface, it does seem that the only people who are going to be upset are the executives of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

TIME: So if there’s no argument that the system is broken, why use your energies to start one?

Michael Moore: Because what’s even more broken is the fact that our Congress and White House are bought and paid for by these two industries, which rival the oil industry in terms of money and influence. They have a vested interest in maintaining their control. But they’re not dumb. They know which way the wind is blowing and that this is the No. 1 domestic issue with Americans. Their job now is to try to control it so that universal health care is run through them, so that they can still skim the money, make the obscene profits and keep their investors happy.

TIME: Of the declared presidential candidates, down to the Dennis Kucinich level, say, who do you think has the best health-care plan? Including Kucinich? We could include him.

Michael Moore: Then Kucinich, but he doesn’t go far enough. He supports what he’s calling a single- payer nonprofit plan, but from my read, it would still allow [private] entities to control things, as opposed to the government. What’s wrong with the government? The right wing and the G.O.P. have done a wonderful job brainwashing people that government doesn’t work, and then, as Al Franken says, they get elected and proceed to prove the point. [Laughs.]

TIME: So you think Washington could handle a program this big?

Michael Moore: Ask anyone on Social Security if their check comes on time every month. Like clockwork. And it comes through the so-called dilapidated U.S. mail. My dad’s check literally will come on the same day every month. The government has been quite good and efficient at creating a number of systems. If I tell people the administrative costs for a private health plan —advertising, p.r., executive pay —are 20% and ask them what Medicare’s administrative costs are, they’ll guess 50%, 60%. The fact is, for Medicare/ Medicaid, it’s 3%. The last figure I read for Canada’s [government] system is 1.7%.