Filmmaker Michael Moore , pictured here at a 2007 screening of Sicko in New Hampshire, says U.S. health insurers tried to discredit his documentary. (Cheryl Senter/Associated Press)

Filmmaker Michael Moore is countering claims in a U.S. government cable, exposed by WikiLeaks, that his film castigating the U.S. health-care system, Sicko, was banned in Cuba.

The confidential cable states the 2007 Oscar-nominated documentary was suppressed by Cuban authorities because they knew "the film is a myth and [did] not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them."

In the film, Moore contrasts the problems of the for-profit U.S. system with non-profit universal health-care systems in other countries, including Cuba, France, Canada and the U.K.

He visits the modern Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in the middle of Havana and gets quick health care for several 9/11 rescue workers suffering from various health disorders due to their work after the terrorist attacks on New York City.

Moore told the Guardian newspaper over the weekend that the U.S. Embassy cable, dated Jan. 31, 2008, was an attempt to discredit his film.

"The entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008! The Cubans embraced the film so much so it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35-mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of Sicko were set up in towns all across the country."

'Orwellian nature' of U.S. bureaucracy

The filmmaker, who won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine (2002), says the cable is a "stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the state spin their lies and try to recreate reality (I assume to placate their bosses and tell them what they want to hear)."

The confidential memo comes from the Interests Section in Havana (USINT), which is staffed by American foreign service personnel. In it, one of the staffers talks about her conversations with local people and her visits to Cuban hospitals.

'Preventative medicine in Cuba is a bygone ideal.'—U.S. foreign service worker

She says she went to Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital and discovered that Cubans can only get access to its high-quality care through bribes or personal contacts within the hospital's administration.

The person, who lived in Cuba for 2½ years, also asserts that a more "accurate" depiction of the Cuban health-care system would be the Calixto Garcia Hospital, built in the 1800s. According to the foreign service employee, the hospital is "dilapidated."

She concludes in her memo that "preventative medicine in Cuba is a bygone ideal, rather than the standard of practice of care."

Moore contends the memo was sent after the U.S. health insurance industry united to go after him, working with anti-Castro Cubans living in Miami, in the wake of his documentary.

The filmmaker says as far as he's concerned "a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made-up story and sent it back to … HQ in Washington."