A break down of Gupta's comments concerning Moore

[Az]

Time marks are taken from this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQUkxX-3udg

00:55
WHO rating of the US versus Cuba. Gupta plays fast and loose with the information and makes it look like Moore was saying something about Cuba being higher on the list despite the movie clearly showing otherwise. In fact the CNN bar covers the text showing Cuba ranked lower than the US in the video shown by Gupta.

01:40
Gupta points out a descrepency concerning funding. He admits that Moore only fudged a little. The truth is that Moore did not fudge at all and that Gupta got the numbers wrong. He even got the Cuban numbers wrong by a factor of 10.

02:02
Gupta claims that Americans live a little bit longer than Cubans. This is Cherry picking achieved by using a different set of data than Moore. With such close numbers it is expected that there would be some fluxuation. But Gupta does not present the issue in this manner. Instead he tries to sell it as a fixed condition.

02:14
Cherry picking again. For the specific class of patient care he sited the US does do well in wait times. But in most other forms of care the US lags behind.

03:05
Gupta brings on a speaker that makes allusions to the notion that Moore is trying to suggest that health care is free in other nations. No such statement is made. It is acknowledged that taxes pay for the health care. This is just more smoke and mirrors.

04:00
Gupta makes the unsupported claim that Moore is suggesting that universal health care would take care of all medical situations. There are always going to be elective procedures that do not warrant coverage by a universal health system. This is simply more smoke and mirrors and not in any way a fudge on the part of Moore.

03:46
Gupta seems to set up an absolute condition. He claims there is no perfect system anywhere. There is no claim in the movie that there is a perfect system. Just that the US system sucks.

So what we have here is not Gupta siting any valid fudges. The only actual numerical mistake is made on his part at 01:44 where he not only claims Moore is fudging but utterly screws up Cuba's numbers. All the rest of the so called fudges are just smoke and mirror games. There is no direct refutation of anything Moore said. Just people talking as if he had fudged.

Based on this examination this peace can only be seen as a deliberate and orchestrated attempt to smear Moore and his movie. And it can be effective. As Stephen Colbert often says, he doesn't want to know the facts. He wants to feel the facts. And that is what they are selling here. They are casting the movie and its information in a light that makes it feel like he is twisting the facts. But they show no actual twisting of the facts. The only twisting going on is on the part of the media covering this movie.

[Suich]

1. Thanks!

K & R

:kick:

[0rganism]

2. Here's a link to MM's pointwise rebuttal

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article_10017.php

Gupta's strawmen... what is the motivation? I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as insurance industry sponsorship of CNN, I suspect there's an editorial policy common to most of the news shows to always counter any anti-capitalist or anti-bush viewpoint, no matter how legit, with some kind of obfuscatory argument, no matter how flimsy. It's bigger than this one issue. But this issue is an excellent illustration of their MO.

[lovuian]

Gupta is a doctor and on the whole Doctors don't want

Universal Health He is Biased he belongs to the AMA
who gets lots of money with the status quo

[haele]

5. Every one of our doctors wants Universal Healthcare -

and our dentists do also.
They know that under medicare, everything is cut, dried and payment guaranteed - and they don't have spend the time and staffing to fight 15 - 20 different insurance companies or try to negotiate through the different group policies within those companies.
We have two different physician groups we go to that went back to covering medicare and medi-cal patients because they were having difficulty with coverage with the for-profits. They had originally dropped medicare and medi-cal because they thought they could get higher payments from private policies. Joke was on them; they weren't CEO's and major share holders, so their profit margin didn't count.

I think you'll find most doctors who work with the general public would welcome universal health care - it's the cosmetic and high-priced private practice specialists that don't like the standardized payment levels that universal health care will bring.

Haele

[0rganism]

8. CNN has editorial control as well

They wouldn't have to run a hit piece if it didn't fit a larger agenda. Insurance industry ad-buys may have been a sufficient condition for airing such blatant bullshit, but I doubt it's a necessary one. This wouldn't be the first time Moore's had his films slimed by unscrupulous and erroneous "fact checking", as Moore points out. I think it's part of a much broader agenda to marginalize certain viewpoints.

[knitter4democracy]

24. My hubby's a member of the AMA and wants a national health care plan.

He's not the only doctor in town who feels that way, either.

Primary Care Doctors, at least the ones we know (Hubby's an internist and did his residency one town over), mostly want a national health care system. They don't like Medicaid, and they're nervous about single payer, but because they work on the front lines of the problem, they know how totally broken our entire system is.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

26. I only see one doctor, my meds dispensing doctor, and he really wants Universal Healthcare

He knows it costs me 75 dollars for a 10 minute visit and 400 dollars every six months to make sure the lithium isn't ruining my internal organs.

[JHB]

27. Caveat there:

Gupta is a celebrity doctor who is not "just" a doctor and hasn't been for a while. IIRC, he's also a specialist (neurosurgeon?), not a GP who has to hire people just to fight with the insurance companies to pay even undisputed bills.

After years of "bend over and smile" treatment by the insurance companies, I'm not sure how uniform that "on the whole" is anymore. (In fact, if anyone has some real numbers on this subject, please post them!)

[Mojorabbit]

31. My hubby is a family practice doc

and he wants universal health care.

[Gelliebeans]

3. Thanks Az

for putting this together! K&R

[Emit]

4. My sister is an M.D.

And it has been my experience that, as progressive as some docs can be, when it comes to this topic and related topics in the area of medical practitioners in the US, they often find many ways to rationalize and defend their practice in an attempt to ward off what many see as the only logical answer -- national health care.

I can tell you that "socializing" medicine is a big fear of hers. Interestingly, she is a liberal at heart -- and even more so now -- but back in '04 it took a great deal of persuasion on my part to convince her of the greater picture with Bush/Cheney v Kerry/Edwards (as in numerous phone calls, quoting statistics, recommending various books -- trying to find some from unbiased sources, etc. She's the one now sending me the latest ones, though!).

The Dems' traditional support of trial lawyers and any talk of nationalizing health care leaves her very wary. (Edwards' status as a trial attorney was of grave concern to her -- freaked her out at first -- but, she voted for him anyway.)

Gupta is a doctor, and, I see his piece as an attempt to keep the status quo. The whole mess of our health care system is so complicated that a 4 minute rebuttal of Moore's film all but guarantees error on Gupta's part. At some point, just as I have told my dear sis, her profession will see big changes. I can't wait to see her response to "Sicko," btw. I better get a 6 pack ready for that conversation.

edit-typo

[eridani]

6. Surprised she isn't getting seriously sick about having her practice dictated--

--by beancounters at insurance companies? Just about anywhere else in the developed world, doctors are free to actually practice medicine.

www.pnhp.org

[Emit]

7. Oh, that's vey much part of the conversation. Very much so.

And that is also why this mess is so complicated.

[Emit]

18. And, btw, we also have an insurance salesman in the family

and while his specialty is not health insurance, he has an existing bias there.

Needless to say, it makes for interesting family get-togethers.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. It's hard to get people to vote against their paycheck.

I've reached the conclusion that asking a doctor (or an insurance company employee) to speak for the best interest of citizens is like asking Col Sanders to speak on behalf of the best interest of chickens.

Everyone who makes a living because we spend twice what the next closest industrialized country does has an insurmountable conflict of interest.

[Emit]

16. And THAT is why I am so proud of my sis for her ability to see the broader picture.

I recall during the '04 elections that she avoided politics in the OR because the majority of other docs who couldn't see past their paychecks were so rabid in their anti-Kerry/Edwards rants. She resorted to guerilla tactics, though, like leaving certain anti-Bush articles or news stories around the docs' and nurses' lounges.

[crappyjazz]

11. Canadian doctors howled about it to

and even went on "strike" ... but the system, implemented first in one province, worked ... the federal government liked it and offered to help pay for it, for any other province that implemented the same and voila..

Canadian doctors at the time tried everything, even racism tactics suggesting that foreign doctors would be "imported" to work for less ...

It's not a "socialized public" system ... it's a publicly funded one. Physicians bill the government, not a corporation. Public funding has it's problems of course, higher taxes, etc. Ontario implemented premiums a couple of years ago. It is adjusted to people's income ... no income=no premium. The premiums are minimal. I make over $50,000/year and pay about $600/year in premiums.

Other problems include a shortage of family doctors ... about 5 million people in Canada can't get a family doctor. The government is attempting to increase funding to train more GPs, to open more walk-in clinics, etc. It's a problem, but it's being addressed.

I'm sure that doctors in the US probably make more money, however, doctors in Canada are not hurting financially either.

I'm sure there are longer wait times for many, I haven't experienced it, but I'm sure it happens. But no one worries about their medical bills up here, no one has them.

After seeing Sicko, I'm truly thank for our system despite it's imperfections.

[Emit]

17. I can google this myself, but, for the sake of conversation

any idea what the average doctor makes in Canada?

I know that one of the concerns folks like my sis have is that they worked very hard, and sacrificed a great deal to earn their MDs -- and, many, like my sis, were poor college students working in labs and doing long hours in their internships at large inner-city hospitals, carrying huge credit loads and being pressed by various elitist MD professors who often made them jump through tremendous hoops resulting in great pressure to compete against fellow students in a dog-eat-dog environment.

She makes no bones about it -- she feels her income is well-deserved (she's also a damned good doctor!) -- a reasonable pay off for her years of sacrifice. IMHO, in respect to this general topic, that, in turn, creates guilt and a huge moral dilemma for doctors who have a conscience.

[eridani]

19. In Canada, the government pays for medical education

Also subsidizes malpractice premiums. Canadian doctors have lower gross income than American doctors but far fewer expenses, and thus roughly comparable net incomes. And no interference between patients and doctors.

True, doctors in Saskatchewan hollered a lot when single payer was introduced there, but they shut up damned quick when their incomes went up by 30% the following year.

[Emit]

30. Tx for the info. n/t

[crappyjazz]

20. Depends on their specialty and where they practice

Here is an article about Ontario lifting the salary cap last year:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061004/ont_doctors_061004?s_name=&no_ads=

A few quotes from the article:

"Some 1,450 doctors in Ontario earned more than last year's cap of $466,000, while salaries in specific areas targeted with extra funding to reduce wait times soared even higher, Health Ministry statistics show. Nearly 1,000 Ontario doctors pulled in over $627,000 last year."

"Figures for top physician earners show 224 family doctors in Ontario earned an average of $627,000 last year, while 374 diagnostic radiologists averaged $652,000."

"The top earners overall were ophthalmologists, 191 of whom averaged over $718,000 in earnings, followed by cardiologists, who averaged $687,000 last year."

How does it compare?

[JHB]

29. Those are Canadian dollars, right?

Just want to make sure whether they need to be converted to USD for comparison purposes or not.

[knitter4democracy]

25. Hubby trained with a couple of Canadians in residency.

They'd come here after med school in Canada because they really believed that it was better here. They were horrified by the end of residency and ran back to Canada--where they made the same they would've here. Internists' salaries are the same, for the most part, even with currency differences taken into account. Hubby often thinks about moving.

[Thirtieschild]

9. In 1960 we knew a couple of South African physicians, husband and wife,

who were in NOLA for a year to study tropical medicine at Tulane. They said that in countries with universal health care (called socialized medicine then) the people who chose medicine chose it because they wanted to help people, not because they wanted to make gobs of money.

[irislake]

15. Years ago

I read in THE SATURDAY REVIEW that when American doctors applied to medical school they were asked, "Why do you want to be a doctor?" If they answered something like "to help mankind" they were rejected because they wouldn't be likely to support the AMA block any form of government controlled health care.

Some Canadian doctors go to the U.S. and come back. Some stay because money matters more than their patients.

My ex-husband, an Orthopaedic surgeon, moved to Texas so as to avoid paying child support. (Successfully.) He had three triple by-passes and these were not covered by insurance cuz of pre-existing condition. (The surgeons and anathesists waived their fees. But the hospital charged fifty thousand plus.) When ill health prevented him from doing further surgery he returned to Canada to be taken care of by our health system.

Many doctors in Canada were pleasantly surprised by government funded health care because they collected 100% of their bills. Lots of small town doctors in the old days took chickens, eggs, or zilch for taking care of their patients.

[librechik]

12. No way! Gupta only made ONE mistake

that he'll admit to.

:rofl:

[Clintonista2]

22. Well keep in mind... he WAS only off by a mere 1000% on that one mistake!!

[zbdent]

13. Who doesn't think that, if it weren't for Gupta going against Moore,

any right-winger hearing the name "Dr. Gupta" would be expecting footage of a burning car?

[leftchick]

14. Gupta must be paid well for his service to the MIC

(Medical Industrial Complex). He is on the little TV in my Dr's waiting room all day spewing "health tips" and other advice.

[jgraz]

21. Excellent work, Az

K&R

[TheBaldyMan]

23. Great work Az, thanks n/t

[churchofreality]

28. The best part was when Moore talked about the 47 Million without healthcare

Gupta was arguing that the wait times are shorter and Michael Moore said "we've taken 47 Million people out of the line!"