'Sicko' Filmmaker Tells CNBC: Investors Should Dump HMO Stocks

AP Filmmaker Michael Moore plans to make a public call for divestment from health insurance companies during a visit to Wall Street

Filmmaker Michael Moore, whose movie "Sicko" opens Friday, told CNBC that he's urging investors to dump shares of health insurers and health maintenance organizations because "people don't need a middleman between the doctor and the patient."

Moore, whose movie takes on the U.S. health care industry, told Maria Bartiromo outside of the New York Stock Exchange that he opposes the current system, in which he claims "doctors have to call an insurance company and talk to a guy in a cubicle 1,000 miles away, to get permission to treat the patient."

“I’m hoping the (presidential) candidates running for office will come up with a universal health plan that’s free for everyone – one that’s not controlled by the private health-insurance companies.”

Moore appeared at Federal Hall in lower Manhattan, which is next to the NYSE, along with representatives of nurses' unions from California, Massachusetts and New York, to publicly call on "individuals, pension funds, the government and other investors" to yank their holdings from publicly traded health insurers.

“We fix [health care] by taking the one thing they do right in Canada, the one thing they do right in Britain, the one thing they do right in France, put it all together and call it ‘the American system.’ We’re good at doing that in this country: it’s called the melting pot.”