Talk About "Phoning It In"

The New York Times’ Nick Kristof  phones in a boilerplate pro-ObamaCare column. Michelle Malkin phones its ersatz subject for clarification:

Today, I did something that Pulitzer Prize-winning NYTimes columnist Nick Kristof apparently didn’t do: I talked to a spokesman at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon.

I called them up after OHSU’s Dr. Johnny Delashaw left a comment about Kristof’s piece spotlighting the horrible plight of John Brodniak, an Oregon man with a neurological condition that he says no one would treat.

Kristof used Brodniak’s plight to argue for universal health care, decry Brodniak’s deadly lack of insurance (even though he got Medicaid coverage in August), and lambaste doctors for refusing to treat Brodniak due to low reimbursements.

Well, OHSU confirmed for me two things:

1) OHSU is a safety-net hospital not far from where Brodniak lives. The hospital accepts all Medicaid patients and would not turn Brodniak away.

Okay, are you ready for Number 2?

2) Brodniak is a patient at OHSU — and has been a patient there for the past three weeks.

In other words, at the time Kristof’s article was published this past Sunday, Brodniak was already being treated and cared for by some of the best neurologists in the country!

The spokesman told me that the Brodniaks were willing to confirm “reluctantly” for me that he has been a patient there for nearly a month, but they refuse to talk to me directly. The spokesman also told me that OHSU will not make its doctors available for further comment on the matter.

Kristof’s readers have been raising money to pay for the Brodniaks to get treated.

Will Kristof tell his readers the rest of the story? Or isn’t the whole truth fit to print in the Fishwrap of Record?

Over to you, Clark…