franken FURCHTGOTT-ROTTPity the U.S. Senate committee witness who tries to slip a fishy statistic past Al Franken. The fearsome Harvard math major punished conservative economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth for claiming that Democrats’ reforms would jack up bankruptcies for medical reasons. 

In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday (pdf), Furchtgott-Roth argued:

As configured, the three plans under consideration today would cause job loss and impede job creation, increasing the probability of bankruptcy. They would encourage American firms to move abroad, taking jobs to other countries.

But Franken countered that people in other countries with national health plans don’t go bankrupt for medical reasons.

Here’s a partial transcript:

FRANKEN: I think we disagree on whether health care reform, the health care reform that we’re talking about now in Congress should pass. You should that the way we’re going will increase bankruptcies. I want to ask you, how many medical bankruptcies because of medical crises were there last year in Switzerland?

FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: I don’t have that number in front of me, but I can find out and get back to you.

FRANKEN: I can tell you how many it was. It’s zero. Do you know how many medical bankruptcies there were last year in France?

FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: I don’t have that number, but I can get back to you if you like.

FRANKEN: Yeah, the number is zero. Do you know how many were in Germany?

FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: From the trend of your questions, I’m assuming the answer is zero. But I don’t know the precise amount and would have to get back to you.

FRANKEN: Well, you’re very good. Very fast. The point is, I think we need to go in that direction, not in the opposite direction. Thank you.

The witness — who in print at least makes sport of shooting down others’ studies — tried to come back at Franken with a statistic on American cancer-survival rates. Franken would have none of it: “That’s because we find easily survivable cancers to count as ones that we survive.”

Franken is a co-sponsor on a Senate bill that would help people nearing bankruptcy due to crushing medical bills.

Two weeks ago, Franken used a similar math-attack on another witness who claimed that aggrieved workers get better results from arbitration than lawsuits. The senator undercut that stat by demanding to know how low arbitration awards could go and still be counted as favoring the worker.