Will Michael Moore's commission on healthcare
make it to next year's Oscars?

This year's Academy Awards ceremony featured lots of back flesh but little backbone as stars followed instructions to keep politics backstage. Last year, the social conscience of the event, Michael Moore, took full advantage of his win on Bowling for Columbine to excoriate Bushite policies at home and abroad. He was drowned out by music and his mike disappeared into the floor. This year, despite a resounding win at Cannes and a gross of US $119 million, Farenheit 9/11 went unrecognized by the Academy and Moore took his place alongside George W Bush in host Chris Rock's repartee.

As if being snubbed by the Academy weren't enough, Mr Moore has set himself up for serial rejection as he embarks on his next documentary. The target this time is US healthcare, and drug companies across the country have already issued explicit staff directives to avoid scruffy guys in baseball caps asking questions. "We can only assume it won't be a fair and balanced portrayal," Rachel Bloom in communications at Astra Zeneca told the Detroit News. Company executives may be hard to reach, but doctors are coming out of the woodwork to help him expose system flaws, Mr Moore claims.

As in most things, the US takes a more efficient and individualistic approach to documenting healthcare woes. Canada's consultations are led by government, ruffle as few feathers as possible, produce kilometre-high piles of paper that have next to no public impact and eat up millions of tax-payer dollars. Mr Moore's new movie's title says it all: Sicko. The US exam aims to blow the feathers right off the bird and will likely be shunned by government. It will also be tightly edited into a two-hour film that millions see and, if his last productions are anything to go by, make millions for Mr Moore himself. Talk about a profit margin.

— Susan Usher, Health Policy Editor