SAVE Digg del.icio.us Technorati reddit SHARE COMMENT PRINT EMAIL RECOMMEND One of the differences between Michael Moore's forthcoming "SiCKO" and his previous films, he writes in the publicity materials, is that "there's not one character or company to hate in SiCKO," which I caught at a screening yesterday. And indeed, most of the politicians appear as anonymous figures in suits, with price-tags indicating their contributions from the drug industry. Billy Tauzin, predictably, takes a bit of a beating. And so, less predictably, does Hillary Clinton. Moore's brief political history of American healthcare policy at first seems to lavish praise on Clinton, if with a satirical, and gendered, edge. (She's introduced as "Sassy...smart...sexy.") But his conclusion is that she sold out. After her defeat in the first Clinton term, he says, she fell silent on the issue. And "for her silence, Hillary was rewarded. And she has been the second-largest recipient in the Senate of healthcare industry contributions." The movie, which like most of his movies, is powerfully made, will probably drive some debate on the issue when it's released at the end of this month. It's basically a commercial for Western Europe, with an over-the-top ode to Cuba tacked onto the end. And Moore isn't personally in sympathy with any of the Democrats. "They don't seem to want to grapple with the real issue. It's very sad," he says of the presidential candidates in the publicity package distributed at the screening. "Even the well-intentioned people like John Edwards -- his plan seems to be to take our tax dollars and put them into the pockets of the private insurance industry." Moore, needless to say, is for single-payer.