Be Sick... It's Free

Be Sick... It's Free (original title Il medico della mutua) is a 1968 Italian comedy directed by Luigi Zampa and regarded as a classic of the commedia all'italiana. Adapted from Giuseppe D'Agata's novel of the same name, the film stars Alberto Sordi as Guido Tersilli, an ambitious young doctor eager to climb the social ladder. Tersilli discovers that Italy's public health insurance system can be exploited for personal gain: he inflates his patient lists, prescribes unnecessary treatments and milks the bureaucracy until he is wealthy enough to open his own clinic. The film offers a sharp satire of the healthcare system and the opportunism it breeds. Ida Galli, Bice Valori and Sara Franchetti appear alongside Sordi. In 2008 the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage included it in its list of 100 Italian films to be saved, works said to have changed the country's collective memory between 1942 and 1978. A sequel centered on the Tersilli character followed.