Accurate Health Care Numbers: Michael Moore 1, CNN 0

CNN decided to have its health care expert, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, go after Michael Moore's new movie Sicko. One of the facts that he claimed the movie got wrong was its assertion that health care spending in the United States is $7,000 per person. Dr. Gupta said it was only $6,000. Well, this is an easy one. We go to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services National Health Care Expenditure projections and find on Table 1, line 3, that projected per capita health care expenditure for 2007 is $7,498. Along with Michael Moore, BTP eagerly awaits the apology for getting such a simple fact completely wrong. (Actually, they should make a double apology, since the point was to show that Moore was sloppy with his numbers. What exactly does CNN's health care expert get paid for if he can't read a simple table before presenting his stories to the country?)

--Dean Baker