Michael Moore Debunks Dr. Sanjay Gupta

In less then 24 hours since his blistering appearance on CNN where he repeated asked Wolf Blitzer to apologize for their failure to present the facts to the American people prior to our entering the Iraq War - Michael Moore has now fulfilled his promise and completely fact checked the erroneous report presented by Dr. Sanjay Gupta just prior to his interview.

It's been quite a while since anyone has had the cojones to take on the Wolf in such a way and even Moore points this out as he notes how long it took Blitz to confront Dick Cheney (although admittedly all he really did was confront Lynn Cheney - and lost - then whined about it)

This time though, the one who really set Michael off wasn't Blizter it was Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

First there's the trick of pointing to something that's right there in plain sight already.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN: "(Moore says) the United States slipped to number 37 in the world's health care systems. It's true. ... Moore brings a group of patients, including 9/11 workers, to Cuba and marvels at their free treatment and quality of care. But hold on - that WHO list puts Cuba's health care system even lower than the United States, coming in at #39."

THE TRUTH:

* "But hold on?" 'SiCKO' clearly shows the WHO list, with the United States at number #37, and Cuba at #39. Right up on the screen in big five-foot letters. It's even in the trailer! CNN should have its reporter see his eye doctor. The movie isn't hiding from this fact. Just the opposite.
* The fact that the healthcare system in an impoverished nation crippled by our decades-old blockade (including medical supplies and drugs) ranks so closely to ours is more an indictment of the American system than the Cuban system.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/...

There's the tried and true - half truth.

CNN: Americans have shorter wait times than everyone but Germans when seeking non-emergency elective procedures, like hip replacement, cataract surgery, or knee repair.

THE TRUTH:

* This isn't the whole truth. CNN pulled out a statistic about elective procedures. Of the six countries surveyed in that study (United States, Canada, New Zealand, UK, Germany, Australia) only Canada had longer waiting times than America for sick adults waiting to schedule a doctor's appointment for a medical problem. 81% of patients in New Zealand got a same or next-day appointment for a non-routine visit, 71% in Britain, 69% in Germany, 66% in Australia, 47% in the U.S., and 36% in Canada. (The Doc's in, but It'll be AWhile. Catherine Arnst, Business Week. June 22, 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/... )
* One way America is able to achieve decent waiting times is that it leaves 47 million people out of the health care system entirely, unlike any other Western country. When you remove 47 million people from the line, your wait should be shorter. So why is the U.S. second to last in wait times?

Then of course, there's outright lying.

CNN: In fact, Americans live just a little bit longer than Cubans on average.

THE TRUTH:

* Just the opposite. The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human development index states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5 years. It is 77.6 years in Cuba. (Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283. http://hdr.undp.org/... )

CNN: "But no matter how much Moore fudged the facts, and he did fudge some facts..."

* This is libel. There is not a single fact that is "fudged" in the film. No one has proven a single fact in the film wrong. We expect CNN to correct their mistakes on the air and to apologize to their viewers.

Anyone else get the feeling that there's an unseen "Or Else" at the end of that last sentence?

I'm thinking there is.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a site that did this type of fact checking against the MSM on a regular basis. A site that included audio and video clips as well as completely transcripts of what was said, then also included links and facts to show just how full of B.S. they are so often?

Oh wait...

There already is - http://www.mediamatters.org

Vyan