Last week I looked at one of the Oscar nominees for Best Documentary, a category that features amazing films, but gets little publicity. Leading up to the Oscars, I am going to explore all 5 of the films that are nominated.

The doc I chose today comes as a result of my watching the State of the Union last night and because after Thursday I will personally no longer have health insurance. The annual speech designed to explore how our country is doing got me to thinking that the state of my personal union isn’t very different than the country.   The majority of my friends don’t have any health insurance and despite making good wages, with the amount of rent they have to pay just to live in New York City, they can’t afford to shell out 300+ dollars to have insurance (when I quit my full-time job, I asked how much it would be to get Cobra - the answer was an astounding 490 dollars a month).

Michael Moore’s Sicko aims to find out why my friends and I and millions of Americans don’t have health insurance. Considering where we live and the resources our country has it seems strange that our health system would be ranked 37th in the world:

While Michael Moore has a tendency to go overboard in his exploration of things, you can’t ignore the fact that 18,000 Americans will die this year because they are uninsured and that today there are 50 million people without any insurance.

to learn about one radical organization that is exploring alternative systems of health insurance.

again to learn more facts about the health care industry from Michael Moore

Oh and as of Friday, there will be at least 50,000,001 Americans without health insurance - I’m going to try yoga and hope for the best….