Michael Moore’s latest film, SiCKO, is from beginning to end an all-out assault on the for-profit U.S. health care system. Most of us have heard of the 47 million Americans, including 10 million children, without health insurance, a number that has been steadily rising over the last few years.

But Moore clearly states in the opening minutes of the film that SiCKO isn’t about them.  The focus of the movie is on the nearly 250 million Americans who are insured.  He focuses on how the health industry in the U.S. is set up not to provide, but rather to deny care.   As a former “denial management specialist” says in the film, “It’s not unintentional.  It’s not a mistake.  It’s not an oversight. You’re not slipping through the cracks. Somebody made that crack and swept you towards it, and the intent is to maximize profit.”

Last spring, millions of immigrant workers, their families, and allies took to the streets of the U.S. in a spontaneous movement against the draconian anti-immigrant measures being proposed in the form of the Sensenbrenner Bill (HR4437). But this was only the spark that lit up the inflammable material that had accumulated for decades. Some 12 to 14 million undocumented immigrants, a majority of them from Mexico and Central America, live in the shadows of U.S. society, doing back-breaking and dangerous work for low wages, under poor conditions, with few rights. HR4437 was simply the last “last straw” after decades of indignities, and the pent up frustrations exploded to the surface. Hundreds of ad hoc committees were organized in factories, schools, and workplaces to plan for May Day 2006 - which was almost certainly the largest national strike / boycott in the history of the U.S.

Compared with most of the world, American workers enjoyed higher standards of living for several decades, due largely to the fierce union struggles of the past. Although there has always been a vast sub-stratum of the class, working in minimum wage, non-union jobs under poor conditions, for a significant sector, it seemed that things weren’t so bad under capitalism after all.

However, with population growth and the emergence of new markets such as China, India, and Eastern Europe, where rock-bottom wages and poor conditions prevail, the capitalist class is forcing U.S. workers to compete for increasingly low wages, benefits and deteriorating conditions.  The IMF recently reported that the “effective global labor force” has risen fourfold over the past two decades. This has served to push down wages in the advanced industrialized countries, particularly among unskilled workers. Some analysts predict that the mass layoffs and “offshoring” of the past period are just the beginning - as many as 30 to 40 million more jobs could be lost in the coming years.