In an interesting Slate article on what Barack Obama may deal on the health care issue, John Dickerson quotes Obama as saying, “The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds.” By my calculation, that’s 1,051,200 bankruptcies a year. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reports that the total number of bankruptcy filings for calendar year 2008 was 1,117,771. Are we to believe that 94% of bankruptcies are caused by “the cost of health care”? Um, I don’t think so. Maybe someone would like to ask Obama or Robert Gibbs about where the president got this number.
