Michael Moore calls for socialized medicine.

Filmmaker Michael Moore's latest cinematic provocation, dubbed SiCKO, opens in theaters on June 29. The film's premiere at the "Cannes Film Festival has been an overwhelming success," Moore says on his website. "The 2,000 people inside the Lumiere Theater were alternately in tears and laughing during the two-hour film."

According to Moore, the purpose of the film is to "ignite a fire for free, universal health care." To that end, he makes the film a vehicle for extolling the virtues of socialized medicine in Cuba, Canada, and France. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Moore spends much of the film focusing on France's socialized medicine. Doctors lead comfortable lives, patients receive attentive care, employers grant extended health-related leaves--all reasons the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked France tops in its global 2000 survey of the best healthcare countries."

The filmmaker then goes after the United States by comparing it to Cuba. "That the United States ranked only 37th on the WHO list, just two slots ahead of Cuba, particularly infuriates Moore," says an admiring L.A. Times. "With more wealth and technology than any other country, we nevertheless have 50 million citizens without insurance, 9 million of them children. As 'Sicko' anecdotally documents, many Americans eligible for insurance can't afford it, and a long inventory of preexisting conditions limits the insurability of those who can." Of course, the L.A. Times doesn't indicate what part of the supposed 50 million is ever denied access to healthcare, or explain that the World Health Organization's rating is a completely arbitrary construct or that most Americans enjoy the quality of care they receive; they just don't like having to pay so much for it.