Quake3World

Gupta admires Moore

This was a bit interesting:

Dr. Gupta on his Blog:"Last night on Larry King, I had a chance to sit and discuss health care with a man I admire. It is true. Michael Moore has been able to get people talking about health care policy in a way that I haven't seen in a long time. It is important, because we both agree on the need to fix the health care system."

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging. ... moore.html

My understanding is that Moore's facts were overall correct.
Out of curiosity, anyone know if the following is true or false regarding the studies?

Gupta: "He cited an unsourced BBC report when talking about per capita Cuban spending. That same report also talked about US per capita health spending, but he apparently didn't like that number, so instead he used a projected number from a different study. I worry that comparing apples and oranges purposely, and perhaps needlessly, muddy the argument."

and cnn finally tries to lie its way out of its own mess. how fox-ish of them to try to respin what their own people were saying to make it sound like gupta wasn't disagreeing with the bits moore nailed them on and then trying to minimize or deflect the other parts.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/ ... index.html

It sounds like a perfectly reasonable response to me.

Yea, I like the part where they give Deloitte Center for Health Solutions 7 paragraphs to advertise themselves and toot Keckley's horn.

Moore's complaint wasn't even about the company -- it was about CNN not giving full disclosure to their audience, which is the only ethical thing to do.


CNN is now trying to say that Gupta pretty much agreed with Moore on everything, but took issue with one or two numbers Moore used. If that were really the case in the original CNN story, we would have heard Gupta say something more along the lines of this:
"To be honest, out of watching a film as fact-laden as Sicko, we were only able to find a couple of very minor and immaterial discrepancies in the numbers. These are because Moore used two different sources for a couple pairs of the statistics he presented. But, even using the same sources, all the numbers still speak on behalf of Sicko's message."

Instead, what we heard was more like this:
"Well, even though Moore fudged the facts (yet again) in his movie, we were able to verify that he also used many accurate numbers. However, we also happen to know that of the people who get treated in this country, a large majority of them are just happy with the way the system is now and see no reason to change it."

Not only that, but they had to air that piece right before Moore was allowed to come on to talk about his film, so anyone who was watching heard that his facts were "fudged" first and foremost.

universal free health in america can be a reality now...just drop ur insurance...when u get sick, go to the doctor...then don't pay em afterwards...

Dave wrote:I have the same problem with his films, but that didn't bother me because the point he was trying to make is that no one is refused care and you don't have to pay with your life to get it. Sure we don't pay taxes out of our asses, but many Americans do get fucked in them by the insurance companies.

yes indeed, and it's something people forget in public vs private debates: either way, you still pay

cnn's still trying to clean up from this
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/2 ... index.html