Quite possibly the crappiest NYTimes column for Obamacare ever
See update: Brodniak sob story debunked!
Nick Kristof is the recipient of not one, but two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism. He has traveled the world, writes critically acclaimed books, and counts Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie among his glamorous friends. He is also the author of what may quite possibly be the crappiest New York Times column for Obamacare ever.
It is subtly titled, “Are We Going to Let John Die?” and is dripping with the emotional and policy intelligence of your average Democratic Underground commenter. Kristof tells the sad story of John Brodniak, 23, a sawmill worker from Yamhill County, Oregon. Kristof reports that Brodniak has been diagnosed with cavernous hemangioma. And more tragedy:
With John unable to work, he lost his job — and his insurance coverage. Esther had insurance for herself and for her two children (from a previous marriage) through her job building manufactured homes. But she couldn’t add John to her plan because of his pre-existing condition.
Without insurance, John has been unable to get surgery or even help managing the pain. When he collapses or suffers particularly excruciating headaches, Esther rushes him to the emergency room of one hospital or another, but an E.R. can’t do much for him. One hospital has told them not to come back unless he gets insurance, they say. That meant that the couple had no income — and no insurance for anyone in the family, including the children. Neighbors have helped, and a community program has paid the rent so that they are not homeless. But bills are piling up, and John and Esther don’t know how they will cope.
The column crescendos with a clarion, hysterical call to Congress to Do Something:
John’s story is not so unusual. A Harvard study, to be published next month in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having insurance. John may become one of them.
If a senator strolled indifferently by as John retched in pain, we would think that person pitiless. But isn’t it just as monstrous for politicians to avert their eyes, make excuses and deny coverage to innumerable Americans just like John?
Kristof follows up with a blog post on his column titled, “The Human Toll of our Health System.” The comments section is filled with doctor-bashing single-payer zealots bemoaning Brodniak’s case and heaping praise on Kristof for his brilliance. Kristof writes:
Read his story and see if you still think the need for universal coverage isn’t urgent. His story seems to me the best rebuttal of the skeptics.
Of course, my column doesn’t get into the issue of costs. They are a real issue, for universal health care is expensive. But as I’ve noted the annual cost of health reform and the annual cost of our Afghan deployment is about the same — except the former is paid for, while the latter isn’t.
How crappy is this piece? Let us count the ways:
1) Crappy journalism. Read through the column and you won’t find a single doctor, hospital official, or Oregon Medicaid official quoted. Did Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kristof bother to try and confirm Brodniak’s medical condition with another source. Nope:
The doctors warn that pressure from the growth could lead a major blood vessel nearby to burst, killing him. “They tell me I’m a time bomb,” John said. With a touch of bitterness, he adds, “It sort of feels as if they’re playing for time to see if it bursts, to save them from doing anything.”
I’m not a physician, and I certainly can’t speak to the medical issues here. But I have examined John’s medical records, and they appear to confirm his story.
As for why Brodniak hasn’t been able to get the surgery he says he needs, all we have is this:
John says the principal obstacle to treatment appears to be simply his lack of insurance.
(empahsis added)
And why won’t any doctor do the surgery? All we have is what Brodniak told Kristof:
In August, he qualified for an Oregon Medicaid program, but he hasn’t been able to find a doctor who will accept him as a patient for surgery, apparently because the reimbursements are so low.
Deep investigative journalism there!
Would a New York Times editor ever allow a conservative columnist arguing against Obamacare to get away with this kind of sourcing?
I have contacted Oregon’s Medicaid office, by the way, for comment and response to Kristof.
2) Crappy emotionalism. The column leaves the tear-jerking impression that Brodniak is just inches away from dying for lack of health insurance — and that he is a shining example of why, in Kristof’s words, “universal coverage” is so “urgent.”
But, um, Kristof himself reports an inconvenient fact in his overwrought column: Brodniak has government health insurance! You read it in the sentence quoted above:
In August, he qualified for an Oregon Medicaid program…
So, the problem isn’t the absence of a government-run safety net. The problem is apparently too-low reimbursements in his case. But Kristof apparently didn’t seek any confirmation of Brodniak’s assertion that those considerations (a general problem in Oregon) were specifically at the heart of Brodniak’s apparent experience with denial of care.
And Kristof apparently is too busy gnashing his teeth about heartless politicians and greedy doctors to think about what Obamacare would actually do to solve what he and Brodniak assert is the underlying problem.
Let me help: Obamacare would slash government health care reimbursements, not raise them. Open any local newspaper and you’ll find a doctor decrying the proposed Democrat cuts, Sherlock. See also: 45% of doctors would consider quitting under Obamacare.
3) Crappy follow-up. Kristof leaves the distinct and dire impression that Brodniak’s wife and children were also cruelly left out in the cold — and that only “universal coverage” can save them all! But you may recall that Obama signed massive tobacco tax hikes into law to expand S-CHIP. Kristof doesn’t say whether Brodniak had applied for his children prior to gaining Medicaid coverage and if not, why not.
Kristof actually does hit on a very real problem that needs fixing: Dependence on employer-based health insurance. The GOP and conservatives have proposed alternatives to address this problem. Kristof is silent on the matter.
Too practical. Not human drama-inducing enough.
Reader Greg e-mails another unsolved mystery: “[I]f someone lost his insurance because he lost his job, why didn’t he qualify for COBRA coverage? It’s expensive, but if this condition is life threatening as Kristof claims, then John himself has apparently put a price tag on his own well being.”
4) Crappy hypocrisy. Kristof sounds the usual moonbat talking points in invoking the cost of the war in Afghanistan to justify shrugging at the costs of a government health care takeover.
He might be able to get away with this if had been a consistent opponent of the Afghanistan invasion from day one. But back when New York Times columnists backed the Afghanistan invasion in the months after the 9/11 attacks, Kristof argued passionately that the war wasn’t merely worth the cost — but was actually a net life-saver.
Remember?
A Merciful War
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: Friday, February 1, 2002One of the uncomfortable realities of the war on terrorism is that we Americans have killed many more people in Afghanistan than died in the attack on the World Trade Center.
Over the last couple of months I’ve tried to tabulate the Afghan death toll. My best guess is that we killed 8,000 to 12,000 Taliban fighters, along with about 1,000 Afghan civilians.
So what is the lesson of this? Is it that while pretending to take the high road, we have actually slaughtered more people than Osama bin Laden has? Or that military responses are unjustifiable because huge numbers of innocents inevitably are killed?
No, it’s just the opposite.
Our experience there demonstrates that troops can advance humanitarian goals just as much as doctors or aid workers can. By my calculations, our invasion of Afghanistan may end up saving one million lives over the next decade.
What happened to your cost-benefit calculator, Mr. Kristof?
5) Crappy junk science. Kristof ends his column by citing the bogus health statistic that won’t die. Let’s look again at the quote:
John’s story is not so unusual. A Harvard study, to be published next month in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having insurance. John may become one of them.
As I reported last month, the study was the work of dyed-in-the-wool single payer zealots who had no way of assessing whether the survey participants received insurance coverage between the time they answered the questionnaires and the time they died and no way of assessing whether the deaths could have been averted with health insurance coverage. A significant portion of those classified as “uninsured” may not have even been uninsured, based on past studies that actually did verify insurance status. But the agenda-driven researchers just took the rate of uninsurance from the original study (3.3 percent), applied it to census data, and voila: more than 44,000 Americans are dying from lack of insurance.
So, Kristof cites a junk science study to bolster his rallying cry on behalf of a man who might become the next casualty of lack of health insurance. Except that he does have health insurance and the current single-payer-friendly Democrat proposals on the table would do nothing to save Brodniak from death.
Pultizer Prize-level journalism from the Fishwrap of Record.
***
Pssst. NYTimes “opinion media monitor.” Are you there?
***
I’ve highlighted Kristof’s shoddy health reporting before.
See:
KRISTOF CITES DISCREDITED ABORTION STATISTICS
KRISTOF DEFENDS BOGUS ABORTION ANALYSIS
PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH, MR. KRISTOF
***
Twitter users, Kristof is here.
***
Update: A doctor’s message for Nick Kristof — and NYTimes readers point out more holes.
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Of course government-run health care is a terrible idea. But there has to be something better than the current system. Here is a personal example:
My sister is in school to become a PA. She took two years off between her BS and entering school for this degree to save money. She can’t be covered on my parents’ insurance because she is too old, (25) and she doesn’t qualify for any government programs because she has too much money saved.
She can’t get insurance for less than $500 a month because of a pre-existing condition (a benign brain tumor 6 years ago.) What college student could possibly afford that?
A.K.A The abyss known as Obamascare!
This explains a lot more than just crappy reporting. It explains how a liberal mind works. All emotion and NO reason.
Do you think that not one doctor will do the surgery due to the risk and possibility of the ‘malpractice’ lawsuit?
Crappiest NYT column for Obamacare ever? yes, but there is some incredibly tough competition for that title.
He also forgot about the Oregon woman who had cancer and was denied the costly treatment (by state run insurance) but was told they would be willing to pay for doctor assisted suicide.
The wonders of socialized medicine revealed in Oregon…
Gee, I was able to find that information with a single google search. Just goes to show that today’s journalists are nothing more than idealogues with an agenda.
This is BS. If he had insurance through his employer and didn’t go more than 90 days without insurance, ERISA (dating back to about 1984 I think) mandates that the wife’s insurance covers his preexisting conditions.
So if her insurance isn’t covering his pre-existing condition it’s becasue they waited more than 90 days from the date his insurance terminated. Which would have been the end of the month following the month he was let go or quit since premiums are usually paid a month in advance. But at a minimum, they would have had 90 days from the end of the month his employment ended to fill out the paper work. If her insurance initially denied him coverage, the 90 day period would have been put on hold until the appeal process had been exhausted.
At the very least her insurance company would have covered him for all issues except the pre-existing condition for a period of 18 months and then it too would have been covered.
I am chocked up at over his sense of loss. Oh that he was equally indignant ofver the numbers of those killed, robbed and raped by illegals in this country.
Even if a “Universal Healthcare”bill was passed today he would still have to wait 2 to 3 years for it to be in effect.Does that make his chances of falling over dead any different?Not many surgeons will do that kind of procedure for that condition.The success rate is not good,very difficult and the lawyers are laying in wait.
My sister just turned 64 and is NOT on medicare yet. She was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. She has NO insurance because her employer, a VERY liberal group that builds houses for the poor, doesn’t provide any. Not even co-pay. Her salary was so low she couldn’t afford it on her own. ANYWAY, on her first visit(s) to the cancer treatment hospitals here she was provided (at NO cost) with medicines, doctors, pet scans, had a pick-line inserted, and at this point has had some six weeks of radiation therapy and a month of chemotherapy. She’s been guided through state, federal and various “grant” coverage systems that, so far, have GIVEN her an initial $25,000 cost coverage, which can be renewed. Some of her medicine is $300 a month and more. It’s ALSO covered. So far nearly everything has been covered (and will be). Amazing. To ME, there’s NOTHING wrong with the American healthcare system if her case is any example.
I thought Oregon was a liberal state with free everything.
Just like a liberal to play the victim card and find the one in a million sob story to base their argument on emotionalism. Forget the facts.
This guy should have received the “pullmyleg-it-sir” award for bad journalism.
But we can let young women with breast cancer die- about as ugly a death as any have seen. But Health policy Adviser former Senate Majority Leader Tom -”Let them, But Not Me, Die”-Daschel will be there with the Opiates. That is assuming Health Policy Adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, America’s answer to Britain’s Dr. Harold Shipman, doesn’t get to them first.
May Nick Kristof’s next DRE go horribly wrong-perhaps by a Cuban doctor wearing welders gloves while Michael Moore films a documentary.
Ol’ Nickie’s next article: “Are We Going to Let The Gray Lady Die or should she just be put down-with dignity?”
A)–yes
B)–yes & yes
C)–hurry up
Or the number of unborn children killed every day.
Pulitzer Prize for journalism? LIke the Nobel prize that award is meaningless nowadays. If it wasn’t you’d be seeing the two college kids who exposed ACORN fraud at the top of the list.
The Dems are losing this health care debate and they know it. Look for ever more hysterical, heart wrenching stories. like this as a final vote nears.
So did this Kristof offer assistance to this man? Doubtful. He just insists that that rest of us pony up, thus proving he is not indifferent and pitiless like those senators. Liberalism such a great scam. It allows one to be generous and compassionate without any effort or sacrifice whatsoever. No wonder so many of our brain-dead, pampered voters are attracted to it.
SPOT ON!
this is the difference between leadership and politicians. leaders know that they may have to sacrifice some for the good of the many, politicians see the good of one pitiful story outweighing the good of society. society is a pc way of saying taxpayers.
btw; if the senator strolled by and saw john, and pulled out his wallet and gave john his money, i would think he is a humanitarian. but when he walks by and gives john my money, he’s a sleazy politician.
HA! These theives can loose the debate all day long, they will still foist this monstrosity onto hardworking tax payers. REVOLT IS NEEDED BEFORE THE VOTE!!
Exactly. I say “Keep you stinking paws off” my wallet, you damn dirty politician. (sorry Chuck)
Why hasn’t Nick asked Brad and Angelina to put up the money for the operation? That wouldn’t serve his purpose in trying to push Obummercare.
When a senator pays for something out of his own wallet, HE’S USING YOUR MONEY. If being a public servant wasn’t a PAYING position, we wouldn’t have to deal with these a$$holes
He should have done a bit more research, before making this emotional appeal. A cavernous hemangioma is a benign condition that occurs during early development. It has almost certainly been present since his birth. Most people who have this are asymptomatic and the more likely reason that he cannot get a doctor to operate on him, is because his symptoms may not be due to this entity. Otherwise, this claim of not being able to find a hospital to treat it is without any merit. In any county hospital he would be treated appropriately whether he has insurance or doesn’t. If he walked into the ER of any private hospital, he would be fully evaluated and discharged only after he is thought to be stable. Sorry for the repetition, but the only reason he is still walking around with this cavernous hemangioma it is because the doctors he met don’t believe it would benefit him to have it resected.
Not to be crass, but under the cold, money-centered, “cost-effectiveness” guidelines recommended by top Democrats like Rahm Emmanuel’s brother, perhaps John ought to be given a pain pill and allowed to expire, since his “contributing” days are apparently past — or not, depending on what’s really wrong with him.
I know people who are happier when they are sick. Happier when they are miserable. Being sick is hard work, sometimes you actually have to fight for a bill to be corrected, argue with gatekeepers at hospitals, etc. But in the end if you really like to be miserable then you will be happy.
YES, THERE ARE THOSE TYPES OUT THERE.
How many more will die prematurely as a result of government health care? Look at the UK’s system and how it kills people who would otherwise survive, and consider the Canadians who come here for treatment.
This is an argument against government health care. What do you think is going to happen to reimbursement rates in a single-payer system?
What’s John’s QALY score vs the cost of treatment?
The KEY part of the story, is he is NOW on Government run Health Insurance, and yet still has no help.
Precursor of what Gov run Health care will be like IMO.
Errah the sky is falling and it’s blue!, perhaps if we tax the color blue we can fix the problem . . . .
I love the idea that having health insurance prevents people from dying. Plenty of people die with health insurance because medical science hasn’t advanced enough to save all people from all ailments. The NYT just loves “sob story journalism”. They do it with the poor, the sick and illegals about to be deported.
That Mr. Kristof can type while wringing his hands is nothing short of amazing.
All those surprised by Kristof’s shoddy work and slanted “journalism”, raise your hands. Anyone? Anyone?
Another Pulitzer
OK, I made it up. But it’s pretty close to the NYT meme.
Bingo. I’ve heard other physician’s assessments of this affliction and they said basically the same thing. A unique and peculiar story for Kristof to write about. But I suppose it serves the MSM narrative, weakly…
Nice shot!
New York Times / Another crappy (crappiest even?) column about Obamacare.
That is what is commonly referred to in journalistic parlance as a dog bites man story.
So, Kristoff is as much as telling us that government run health care at the state level sucks the big one, and basically, and certainly unintentionally, points out what has been happening in countries with socialized medical plans: denial of service in one form of another.
What happens if ObamaCare goes through at the national level? All those on the government plans will have a tough time finding any doctors that take their crappy plans.
One conservative solution here is to provide tax deductions for the unreimbursed portion of ‘charity care’. If Medicaid only pays 40%, the doctor/clinic would get a 60% deduction for providing the care. This is THE missing check and balance against expanding government programs with low reimbursements.
Incentive 101 — If you want more of something (like providing charity care), give people a tax deduction for that activity and the marketplace will quickly take care of the problem without much fanfare.
You’d think conservatives who supposedly are for smaller government would promote these sorts of simple common sense solutions to getting more charity care — nope, doesn’t happen.
I got news for small government conservatives — Smaller government ain’t ever going to happen unless conservatives loudly and aggressively start articulating these sorts of clear and simple solutions to common social marketplace problems. Being against full blown Mandated Employer Subsidized Socialism (a MESS) in health care in favor of partially socialized health care isn’t a solution.
This statement by Kristoff ranks right up there with Obama admitting that he wasn’t aware of all of the facts of Gatesgate, but that one thing’s for sure, “the police acted stupidly.”
I want to choose my words very carefully here because I really don’t want to offend anyone. That is not my intention by posting this. If you are interested in what government run health care is all about go spend a day at a VA hospital. Talk to some of the veterans and see what they have to say about it. Now for them it is not free, they paid for it in advance with time out of their short lives and, in some cases, with more than just time. Listen to their stories about the care they receive and I am sure that you will come away with a negative opinion of “free” government health care. In fact, some of you might even get upset that veterans are being treated this way.
This story started with all you needed to know. Kristoff has won 2 pulitzers. That’s close to incontrovertible proof that he cares more about liberal propaganda than about good journalism.
There’s a reason why the MSM are in trouble.
NY Times, National Enquirer, People Magazine, Us Weekly, Washington Post…
All one in the same.
Once again dems in the media and the congress so (correctly) count on the mind numbing stupidity of dem voters, who read this pap, drool on themselves, and nod in agreement at how horrible this Country is.
I thank the good Lord daily for giving me the brains, not to be brainwashed by the lying scumbags in the liberal media, and their slimy cousins in the Congress.
Of course there’s plenty of room for improvement. Did you catch this link in Michelle’s blog entry above?
I liked it.
………………..
Being a resident of Orygun for the last 11 years, I have 1st hand knowledge of how inept the state insurance program is.
There was a money crunch(always is here, doesn’t get any bluer) in government programs back in ’01. Over night the state decided to reevaluate who is entitled to OHP and who isn’t. Senior citizens and singles for the most part were dropped, you’d never believe who was qualified though….how about your friendly illegal alien and families.
Oregon is a great example of what Obadeathcare will be like. If you think the money end(taxes, fines and costs) will be bad along with the reduction in covered services can you imagine what it will be like with 45% fewer Dr.s?
On November 30th, 2009 at 4:39 pm, drfredc said:
That is still going to artificially inflate the price of medicine. You can’t throw more subsidies at medicine and expect the price to go down.
Your plan will drive taxes up.
Sure, O-care is crap. This is the #1 reason it will pass. This article will help people who can’t think for themselves to get all wet and excited about throwing away their health care for lines and a receptionist who will field their “need” for care.
On a bright note: Haiti has some very good hospital care and the prices are reasonable. Really, I am not kidding.
It is a good post MM. I wish I had seen it earlier to post but I just came by now. Now you aren’t going to see my post here.
There is NO WAY this guy was denied health insurance on his wife’s plan due to a pre-existing condition. pre-existing condition issues do NOT apply to group (employer-based) insurance. They all have community rating and if he wasn’t able to go on his wife’s plan it was likely because it was past the open enrollment period (he’ll be able to enroll within the year).
The writers don’t understand the system. All they know is that they want to support the D’s and they want them to spend as much money as possible whether or not we have it.
CALL YOUR SENATOR TODAY!
Nicholas Kristof should be in the record books for holding the world’s record for mentioning that he went to Harvard more than any other human being in history. He is incapable of writing a column without mentioning at least three times that he went to Harvard. He can weave his attendance at Harvard into any topic. Kritof should go on the Letterman show segment on stupid human tricks. Kristof’s trick would be how to brag that he went to Harvard in answer to any question or comment that comes his way.
BTW, I wonder why Mr. Kristof doesn’t make a charitable donation to the patient in Oregon and ask his equally aristocratic friends at the NY Times to do the same. But you see, Harvard men like Kristof don’t donate their own money to needy causes. Kristof wants an elite group of men educated at Harvard to decide where everyone else’s hard earned money will be spent.
Sometimes I wonder if Nick Kristof has ever met anyone who went to a public high school or college.
Even if that’s really true, does anyone seriously think that will never happen under Obamacare?
On November 30th, 2009 at 11:22 am, sunshinerbray said:
My sister is in school to become a PA. She can’t get insurance for less than $500 a month because of a pre-existing condition (a benign brain tumor 6 years ago.) What college student could possibly afford that?
My reply:
Many schools have a student health plan that provides coverage for students. She needs to investigate options such as that.