Sanders Campaign Demands Washington Post Retract 'Fact Check' of Medical Bankruptcies Remarks

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

Since Wednesday, the Post has come under fire for publishing a critical review of Sanders' citation of a peer-reviewed editorial that ran in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). Sanders had said earlier this month that "500,000 people go bankrupt every year because they cannot pay their outrageous medical bills" and "500,000 Americans will go bankrupt this year from medical bills."

The Post's Salvador Rizzo gave Sanders' recent remarks "three Pinocchios," a designation the newspaper uses for statements that have a "significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions." Despite handing down that rating, Rizzo noted that when Dr. David U. Himmelstein—the editorial's lead author and a public health professor at City University of New York's Hunter College—was asked by the Post "whether Sanders was quoting his study accurately, he said yes."

(snip)

In the op-ed, they provided some details about the AJPH study and noted that "dozens of politicians and publications (including the Post itself!) have cited that study as a reliable source." Regarding the statistic at the center of the ongoing controversy, Himmelstein and Woolhandler wrote that "even the 530,000 figure is an underestimate of the number of people affected by medical bankruptcies."

"Most bankruptcies involve more than one person—an average of about 2.7 people, often including a spouse/partner and children," they explained. "That means that the 750,000 bankruptcies last year involved more than 2 million people. And even if you use the most restrictive definition of medical bankruptcy—i.e. including only debtors who 'very much' agreed that medical bills were a cause of their bankruptcy—Sanders' 500,000 figure is, if anything, too low. The right number is more like three quarters of a million."

(snip)

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/31/sanders-campaign-demands-washington-post-retract-fact-check-medical-bankruptcies

[George II]

2. Wouldn't it behoove the campaign to provide specific, not estimated or assumed, numbers to prove...

...the Washington Post was wrong?

Lacking that, it's just a "he say, they said".

[Thekaspervote]

4. Indeed.. kind of like let's see the tax returns

[Vegas Roller]

8. Supporters need to feel like there is still life in the campaign

So a heartbeat here and there .. a sporadic gasp ... gets those donations flowing.

[SidDithers]

3. commondreams...nt

Sid

[Uncle Joe]

6. Washington Post...nt.

[bahrbearian]

10. That was cool how Bernie got Bezos to raise his wages to $15

Bezos will never forgive him for that and he gets a lot of support.

Why the Washington Post ‘s New Ties to the CIA Are So Ominous
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-the-washington-posts_b_4587927

[George II]

11. No he didn't.

[George II]

12. To date no one has been able to demonstrate that what the Washington Post said wasn't true.

[Vegas Roller]

5. commondreams

[Uncle Joe]

7. Washington Post

[bahrbearian]

9. Bezos, Man of the People