Michael Moore arrives for the screening for his new documentary, Sicko, at the Cannes festival (AP).

CANNES -- Sicko just caused a sensation at the 60th Cannes Film Festival last night. And George W. Bush just might be squirming in the White House this morning.

Sicko is Michael Moore's new agitprop documentary. Slick, funny and wildly entertaining, the film is highly critical of the Bush administration and Congress for turning the U.S. health-care system into a profit-making machine that may be killing people by denying them drugs and surgeries.

"There is something very barbaric about a system like that," a battling Moore told a Cannes press conference yesterday about the problem of people being refused care because they don't have the money and/or because their insurance companies find loopholes to deny them proper treatment.

BETTER ELSEWHERE

The avuncular filmmaker -- who made Bowling For Columbine and won the Palme d'Or here for his Bush-bashing film Fahrenheit 9/11 -- said in the film and at Cannes that countries such as Canada, Britain and France have vastly superior universal health-care systems that the U.S. should steal and implement.

The Canadian system has problems, Moore admitted, although he paints only a rosy picture in the film. "I hear a lot from Canadians about the long lines and whatever," Moore said. "All the studies have shown with emergencies that, if you need help, you get the help right away. But the Canadian system, beginning with (Brian) Mulroney, has been under-funded and that's the problem.

"There's not a problem, though, with the actual concept of universal health care in Canada. If you ask most Canadians: 'Would you be willing to trade your Canadian health insurance card for our health insurance card?' What would your answer be? No! That is correct.

"If I were a Canadian, I would probably complain more loudly than you just did. But I'm not. I'm an American saying that something is wrong with our system, something is right in Canada. You're in a longer line than we are because you get to live three years longer than we do. Why is it that you, the French, the Brits, have a longer life expectancy? A baby born in Toronto has a better chance of living to its first birthday than a baby born in Detroit.

"There is something that you are doing right. I know that it's difficult to hear me say these nice things about Canada. I hope that you are not a country that has a hard time accepting a compliment. If we aspired more to the way that you are doing it, we would be better off. I recognize that there are flaws in your system. But that is not for me to correct. That is for you to correct."

Moore told the press conference he has until Tuesday to respond to the U.S. treasury department's notice of intent to investigate him for a trip to Cuba that is depicted in the film. In a typical stunt, Moore took a group of Americans with health problems to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay to try to get treatment from the military doctors there who provide services to detainees, including alleged al-Qaida terrorists.

GROUND ZERO

Among Moore's party were three 9/11 emergency workers who are suffering health problems from Ground Zero but have not been properly looked after in the U.S.

After being rebuffed from Gitmo, Moore takes them to a Cuban hospital where they get a warm reception, free treatment and cheap drugs.

"I have a lot of faith in the American people," Moore said. "The American people get it -- or they eventually get it. And I know they're smart enough to know that this film, at least in regards to Cuba, is about me taking 9/11 workers who have been abandoned by the U.S. government to go and get some help. I think, when Americans see this, they're not going to focus on Cuba or Fidel Castro or what other propaganda comes out of the White House. They are going to say to themselves: 'You're telling me the al-Qaida detainees are receiving better health care from us than those who went down to rescue those who suffered and died on 9/11?'

"They're not going to listen to Bush any more. I think the American people get it now. I don't think they're going to be as snookered and hoodwinked as they were with Iraq and the other things that Bush did in his first years."