Grading PolitiFact:: Mitt Romney and free hospital care

Does PolitiFact feel that it must equivocate on the statements of Republicans as a service to its readers?

Sometimes it seems that way.

The issue:

(clipped from PolitiFact.com)

The fact checkers:

Dan Gorenstein:  writer, researcher
Bill Adair:  editor

Analysis:

PolitiFact claims among its principles the standard practice of considering a claim in its original context.  Truth-O-Meter ratings take into consideration, we are told, the point the claimant had in mind.

Judge for yourself.

PolitiFact:

Responding to a question about health care at a Wolfeboro, N.H., town hall, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney defended the health care law he signed in Massachusetts, saying it was partly a response to people who took advantage of a federal law that allows them to get free emergency coverage.

Emergency coverage?

PolitiFact makes it sound like Romney is saying that the federal government has obligated itself to provide insurance coverage to at least some people in Massachusetts.  But Romney was talking about the well-known, if poorly understood, provision in federal law that requires most hospitals to provide emergency room treatment regardless of patients' ability to pay.

PolitiFact quotes Romney:

"We found that because of federal law, federal law requires that hospitals treat people whether or not they can pay. So someone (who) doesn’t have health insurance -- they can go to the hospital and get free care. And we found a growing number of people were dropping their insurance and going to the hospital if they got real sick."

Romney's point?  A growing number of people in Massachusetts were using the federal law as a free insurance policy.

So ... where should PolitiFact put its focus?

In this case, we wondered if Romney was accurately describing the federal law and whether it truly equates with free care.

There's still time at this point in the story for PolitiFact to properly consider the context along with Romney's point.  But the phrase "truly equates with free care" puts up a bit of a red flag.  The term "truly" often occurs in the company of a fallacy of equivocation.

PolitiFact proceeds to describe how the law works.  Yes, hospitals receiving funding through Medicare must "'provide a medical screening examination' for an emergency condition 'regardless of an individual's ability to pay.'"

PolitiFact adds:

If the patient’s symptoms qualify as an emergency, the law says "hospitals are required to provide stabilizing treatment for patients."

So what does "stabilizing treatment for patients" mean in practice?

Matt Fenwick with the American Hospital Association says it means "your condition has been stabilized. (Medical providers) have done everything they can do to make sure your condition is not getting any worse."

Some of our gentle readers may think that receiving a medical screening examination and/or stabilizing treatment as described above reasonably qualifies as "free care."  But PolitiFact would not have Romney mislead you like that:

Our ruling

Romney said that federal law "requires that hospitals treat people whether or not they can pay. So someone doesn’t have health insurance they can go to the hospital and get free care."

Experts told us that one aspect of Romney's argument has some validity: Many people rely on emergency rooms for care when they have nowhere else to go, which is expensive and a burden on the health care system and the larger society. And hospitals sometimes provide more free care than the law requires.

But Romney is wrongly suggesting more extensive treatment is required by federal law. He implies that hospitals are required to provide more free care than is actually mandated. In fact, the law just requires stabilizing treatment in an emergency. We rate his claim Barely True.

Romney "is wrongly suggesting more extensive treatment is required by federal law"?  No, there's nothing in the context to suggest that.  Romney's statement is ambiguous about the extent of free care mandated through Medicare hospitals by the federal government, and that ambiguity is appropriate for two reasons.   First, Romney doesn't need specificity in order to make his point about the costs to taxpayers.  Any degree of free care that constitutes the financial impact he pictures in his statement makes his statement true.  Second, people understand that free emergency room care does not cover every medical problem.  Probably nobody in Romney's audience was misled on that point apart from any journalists present.

Romney is correct that federal law requires hospitals to offer health care regardless of the patient's ability to pay.  If PolitiFact wants to fill in the details of law to clarify what Romney's talking about, that's fine.  But Romney's point does not require that type of detail.  Nor does Romney say anything to imply a level of free care beyond what exists in fact.  Again, we have PolitiFact seizing on an ambiguity and socking it to the Republican based on an uncharitable (and unreasonable) interpretation.


The grades:

Dan Gorenstein:  F
Bill Adair:  F