Heal Thyself, CNN

This, to me, was a rather amazing instance of fact-checking Michael Moore's movie "Sicko," particularly in light of Moore's recent argument with Dr. Sanjay Gupta over the movie (I have no qualms with Gupta here really, but I do with his network).

If CNN were to do that about all of its content, maybe they could claim once more to be “the most trusted name in news” (of course, that would cut into the territory of Media Matters a bit, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind…the network could also toss Glenn Beck by the curb and plead with Aaron Brown to come back, but I don’t think that will happen either).

I love the fact that, by the way, in instances where Moore agrees with Gupta, Moore is accused of "creating controversy where none exists." And isn't it also a hoot that Moore uses the most current data he can obtain when comparing the per-patient spending on health care in this country versus Cuba ($7,498 in this country $251 in Cuba), but he's still accused by CNN of being inconsistent in his statistical comparison? Also, the charge that Moore "fudged" the data is thrown out into this argument, but is not substantiated (Moore states that this is libel, and he's right).

Moore is again accused of "creating controversy where none exists" in Point 10 (11 points of contention are presented here) when he makes the most compelling case for a single-payer government-run health care system that I've ever seen (and if your first instinct here is to believe "the government can't run something like this right," allow me to remind you, as Moore does, that Medicare replicates this and it would not be approaching insolvency in 2019 if it were fully funded at the expense of our ludicrous private, profit-driven system).

(And CNN also acknowledges again that Moore is correct about Paul Keckley, formerly of Vanderbilt University and the head of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions; Keckley is most definitely a for-profit health care advocate who supports Republican candidates - I realize neither of those behaviors are illegal, but Moore points out that Keckley has a stake in attacking "Sicko," and on that note, CNN proceeds to recite what appears to be an excerpt from Keckley's CV.)

And at the very end, CNN, by noting Gupta's "objectivity and care" in his reporting, implies of course that Moore's work doesn't show either of those qualities (interesting comments to this CNN post, also - maybe an idea, Inky?).

And speaking of a single-payer health care system versus private, for-profit care, Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times discusses how we fare in this country with preventive medical care and regular checkups versus the rest of the world, and he also brings us the story of U.C.L.A. professor Mark Kleinman, who nearly died of cancer because his insurance carrier dragged its feet on approval of a necessary biopsy procedure. He also notes that "American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that's what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding - end of story."

Indeed.