Facts without context
by digby
I think it's great that newspapers have found the resources to employ fact checkers. But strangely, they often seem to have such a skeptical attitude that they become rather thick literalists and fail to take context into consideration.
For instance, the Washington Post is "debunking" the idea that the Tea Partiers "cheered" for the death of the uninsured during the debate the other night:
A few jeers? Yes. Heckles? No question. “Audience” cheers? No way.
The voices that can be heard in the video — perhaps two or three of them — don’t constitute an “audience” reaction. The episode is the clumsy work of a few loons or meatheads in the audience.
A fine headline would read: “Debate hecklers cheer death of uninsured.”
But look at the whole exchange:
BLITZER: Thank you, Governor. Before I get to Michele Bachmann, I want to just -- you're a physician, Ron Paul, so you're a doctor. You know something about this subject. Let me ask you this hypothetical question.
A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.
Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?
PAUL: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.
BLITZER: Well, what do you want?
PAUL: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced --
BLITZER: But he doesn't have that. He doesn't have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?
PAUL: That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody --
(APPLAUSE)
BLITZER: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?
(Hecklers shout "Yeah!")
What was that applause just before Blitzer said "are you saying society should just let him die?" all about? Blitzer had been relentlessly framing the hypothetical as someone who needed intensive care for six months and didn't have insurance. Paul answers "that's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks" and the audience applauds.
It's not as if he was just saying "freedom is about taking your own risks" as a non-sequitor. It was in the context of a discussion about what should happen if someone gets sick and doesn't have insurance. Clearly, those people in the audience were sympathetic with Paul's belief that this fellow had freely taken a risk with his life ... and lost.
One last thing. The fact checker says that this question was particularly open to ridicule and cat-calling because it was a hypothetical. But as previously noted, Ron Paul's trusted aid died without insurance leaving a $400,000 bill behind him.
Society didn't just let Snyder die. He received a significant amount of intensive care based on the bill.
But his mother didn't have the resources to pay the hospital. Few mothers would.
Instead, as Gawker reported, Snyder's friends started a website to raise money to pay the bill. Often in cases like this, hospitals are forced to pass along as much of the unreimbursed costs to other, insured patients or to eat those costs.
One of the ironies of Snyder's case is that the former aide appears to have been a remarkable moneyraiser for Paul. Gawker reports:
In the fourth quarter of that year (2008), Snyder raised a stunning $19.5 million for Paul — more than any other Republican candidate had raised at the time.
Paul did stress that charity would always step in to pick up the slack but I guess he's too busy lecturing us all on personal responsibility to raise the money himself. Snyder's friends were able to raise less than 50k for him.
Paul should have explained that freedom to him means being able to wage quixotic multi-million dollar presidential campaigns without having to pay for the health insurance of the people who work for him --- or even help raise the money necessary to pay the hospital when one of them gets sick and dies. I wonder if anyone would have cheered for that?
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