Who is Dr. Sanjay Gupta!? He has been doing a mafia style hit job on Michael Moore’s Sicko on CNN. So, who is he? Or more accurately, what is he? He’s the very manifestation of a system that is rotten to the core. I say that for a simple reason. Doctors are bound by the Hippocratic Oath to work to alleviate pain and suffering. I should be clear that it’s commendable when he, as a surgeon, saves lives. But the issue goes beyond that. It’s shameful when he utilizes his medical credential in actions that prolong human pain and suffering.
Sanjay Gupta is clever, but he must think that others are stupid enough not to see through him. The crux of his debate with Michael Moore was that Sicko is fudging the data to make a case for a national healthcare system. I think Michael Moore did a great job of defending his figures and you can watch the debate for yourself.
It’s shameful that while 47,000,000 Americans have no health insurance, (Gupta does not dispute that) Dr. Gupta is picking a bone about whether the US per capita spending is $6000 or $7000. While 18,000 Americans die annually, simply because they can’t afford to see a doctor, Dr. Gupta is counting peanuts. I hope he’s more judicious in looking at “figures and data” when it comes to practicing medicine. This would be akin to a patient with an open gash to his head, bleeding profusely in a doctor’s office, while the doctor is concerned about the accuracy of the patient’s high cholesterol numbers!!! And let’s not forget Sanjay’s Hippocratic Oath.
Sanjay Gupta portrays himself as an honest and balanced reporter, but that should not fool the rest of us. As a journalist, Gupta had no problem with being an ‘embedded journalist’ with the US military disseminating cherry-picked, military-sanitized news to the American public. The embedded reporters acted as bullhorns for the Bush administration, giving a false image to a belligerent act that has and still is causing horrendous human pain and suffering. Dr. Gupta, in light of his responsibilities to the Hippocratic Oath, joined the throng of bullhorns. Now, he’s the champion of fair reporting!? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Sanjay Gupta was deceitful in his argument about whether the European health care systems were really free or not with the higher taxes that they pay. Michael Moore pointed out that Americans pay more in “fees” than Europeans pay in taxes, the difference being that Americans pay it to private insurance companies, and get less in return. Sanjay Gupta replied that he “gets it,” but the European system is not free. Well, by that definition, nothing ever is “free.” In fact, I’ll get more technical on Dr. Gupta. Per laws of thermodynamics, nothing can ever be free! There is no free energy in any system. If I get a free lunch, than someone at some point (most likely me) will have to pay. But, this is all the relative meaning of the word “free”, and hopefully Dr. Gupta knows better.
Since data is important and Sanjay Gupta is a doctor, let’s not forget that in science, often ratios are more important than absolute numbers. Cuban per capita spending is $250, and regardless of whether you believe Sanjay Gupta or Michael Moore, the US spends between 24 to 28 times more than Cuba on health care. Yet, Cuba’s health care system is ranked 39th, only two places behind the US at 37th! This is in light of the fact that Cuba has been the subject of an illegal US blockade for over 40 years, an act of war in and of itself.
Dr. Gupta, as practitioner of a profession that is rooted in science, should know better than to make such ridiculous use of numbers. And, I suspect that he does. He just takes the average CNN viewer for an idiot, whilst selling himself to the corporate beast. That behavior by a doctor is the very stench of the rot in the mainstream media. When doctors behave like mafia capos, who should the people turn to?
