Sen. Roberts Spreads Lies About Dr. Emanuel & Hip Replacements In Canada

Sen. Roberts Spreads Lies On Health Care Reform

Sen. Roberts' Claims Against Dr. Emanuel Have Already Been Debunked

Sen. Pat Roberts:

As many of you know, Dr. [Ezekiel] Emanuel is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.  He is a bioethicist and one of those special advisers to the president. Perhaps he could actually be the rationing czar. Dr. Emanuel has published some very disturbing ideas on how to ration care, which can be summed up by this brave new world, hump back whale graph that we have here, along with ages, aging groups of the population.  Dr. Emanuel's Complete Lives System is something that sounds a little bit like a cure all elixir sold our of Del Rio, Texas, basically works off the premise that the older you are, the more you've lived, and therefore, the less you deserve in health care.  [Roberts Floor Statement, 11/20/09]

PolitiFact Already Debunked This Smear Against Dr. Emanuel. As written by PolitiFact.com when Rep. Michele Bachmann made a similar claim, "Emanuel's hefty medical record also counts for something, as well his unequivocal public position against euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. We rule Bachmann's statement False." [PolitoFact.com, 7/27/09]

Additionally, PolitiFact wrote:

So the question is, is Emanuel saying that he thinks health services ought not to be guaranteed to patients with dementia?

No, said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the White House Office of Budget and Management. "He just unequivocally doesn't believe that."

In fact, he said, one need look only as far as the next paragraph:

"Clearly more needs to be done to elucidate what specific health care services are basic; however, the overlap between liberalism and communitarianism points to a way of introducing the good back into medical ethics and devising a principled way of distinguishing basic from discretionary health care services."

[...]

"He's a little surprised at how his record is being twisted and turned," Baer said. "It is preposterous that Ezekiel Emanuel would deny care to someone who needed it, or that he believes we should be making the sort of horrific medical decisions he's been accused of."

Some of Emanuel's academic writing is confusing for nonacademics. But Emanuel has also written extensively in more mainstream media - the Atlantic and Wall Street Journal , for example - about his opposition to euthanasia and his belief in appropriate end-of-life care.

Here's a quote from a Jan. 7, 1997, commentary written by Emanuel for the Wall Street Journal : "For the millions of others, legalizing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide would be of no benefit. To the contrary, it would be a way of avoiding the complex and arduous efforts required of doctors and other health-care providers to ensure that dying patients receive humane, dignified care."

FactCheck.org: "Emanuel Is Describing The Implications Of A Particular Philosophical Trend, Not Offering A Policy Prescription." According to FactCheck.org, "the context makes it clear that Emanuel is describing the implications of a particular philosophical trend, not offering a policy prescription. We'll also note that Emanuel's article actually said that children with learning disabilities should get medical help to ensure that they 'can read and learn to reason.' We're not sure how McCaughey interpreted this to mean that services should be withheld from 'a child with cerebral palsy.'" [FactCheck.org, 8/14/09]

Sen. Roberts' Claims About Hip Replacements In Canada Are Downright Lies

Sen. Pat Roberts:

This type of thinking is just unbelievable, tell someone they can't have a knee replacement because they're too old. How old is too old, according to Dr. Emanuel? The Wall Street Journal reported on the age rationing that occurs in Canada. In that country, apparently, 57 is too old for a hip replacement or hip surgery. [Roberts Floor Statement, 11/20/09]

In Reality, Over 60% Of Hip Replacements In Canada & Britain Are Performed On Patients Over 65 Years Of Age. As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "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." [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8/16/09]

PolitiFact Rated The Claim PANTS ON FIRE.  According to PolitiFact.com:

As for the the number of Canadian hip replacements for the 85-and-older demographic, the newspaper actually underestimated how many there were. The number for 2006-2007, according to the same report, was 1,577.

Just to make sure these numbers were valid, we checked with Shirley Chen, a senior analyst at the Canadian Joint Replacement Registry, a project of CIHI and orthopedic surgeons in Canada that collects statistics on hip and knee joint replacements. She confirmed the numbers reported here.

For Britain, the Post-Dispatch got its figures from a 2000 report by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, a group that determines whether particular treatments are covered by the British National Health Service. The report said that "the over 65-year age group accounts for two in every three" hip replacements.

When we called Britain's National Health Service's Information Center for Health and Social Care - the NHS's hub for medical statistics - they provided new numbers showing that 87 percent of hip replacements were performed on people age 60 or over. That's a different age bracket than what the newspaper used, but it still means Blunt was wrong.

Blunt acknowledged his mistake to the Post-Dispatch and promised to do better. "I'm glad you pointed that out to me," he told the newspaper. "I won't use that example any more." He blamed the bad information on testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, given by "some people who are supposed to be experts on Canadian health care." We looked through past congressional testimony using both Congressional Quarterly and Google but we couldn't find a reference that fit the description. Blunt's office did not respond to our request for an explanation.

Unlike others who have been caught in falsehoods in the health care debate, it's notable that Blunt has acknowledged his mistake and said he was sorry. But still, he was wrong about both countries and would be eligible for hip replacements for many years to come.

Public officials have a duty not to get things wrong, especially when it has the potential to frighten people. (You may recall we gave Vice President Joe Biden a Pants on Fire for saying during the swine flu scare that when you sneeze, it travels through the whole plane.) Likewise, this claim could scare many senior citizens. So we have to set the meter ablaze and give Blunt a Pants on Fire! [PolitiFact.com, 8/12/09]