|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
The (un)truth about health reform
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Issue
|
| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Aug 19, 2009 01:40pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Wednesday, August 19, 2009 07:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | As chairman of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, knows a thing or two about health care. But some of what he knows just isn't true.
"I'm 59," Mr. Blunt said last week during a meeting with Post-Dispatch reporters and editors. "In either Canada or Great Britain, if I broke my hip, I couldn't get it replaced."
We fact-checked that. At least 63 percent of hip replacements performed in Canada last year and two-thirds of those done in England were on patients age 65 or older. More than 1,200 in Canada were done on people older than 85.
"I'm glad you pointed that out to me. I won't use that example any more."
Mr. Blunt is a sincere man. We have no doubt he'll keep his word. But he's not the only Republican leader who has his facts wrong about British and Canadian health care. And some of his colleagues are a bit less contrite.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, recently claimed that in England, Sen. Ted Kennedy would have been denied treatment for his brain cancer.
The English National Health Service has denied that claim. The head of a related health agency complained about "untrue or misinformed" comments. And the president of the British Medical Association decried such "jaw-droppingly untruthful attacks." |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
