Minor factual error

Published September 1, 2009 4:00am ET



 

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.
 

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