Fair and balanced or a journalistic hatchet job?

It’s the latter, if you ask folks at the University of Chicago Medical Center, following a FOX News piece profiling its controversial Urban Health Initiative.

The piece that aired last night on FOX’s “Hannity’s America” program portrayed the Urban Health Initiative in an unflattering light, accusing the hospital of patient dumping and ignoring poor patients for wealthier ones.

“The opinion piece that aired on the Fox News Channel July 22 contained so many factual errors and skewed claims that it would be pointless to catalog them all. This biased segment clearly was meant to advance a partisan political agenda having nothing to do with the Urban Health Initiative or the University of Chicago Medical Center,” says UCMC spokesman John Easton.

The piece, reported by Ainsley Earhart, focuses on the many publicized criticisms of the Urban Health Initiative. Community members near the Hyde Park hospital complain UCMC is trying to keep poor patients out of the hospital, but UCMC says the main goal of the program is to connect patients with medical homes in the community. That way they don’t use the emergency room as a source for primary care.

But Earhart editorializes that the program “certainly provides the university physicians here a convenient way to focus on their wealthy patients and push the uninsured out the door.”

Though the broadcast made much of the issue of patient dumping, the university has never been officially accused of that, even during the hullabaloo over its handling of a 12-year-old boy who was mauled by a dog.

The American College of Emergency Physicians said the case of the boy – who ultimately went to Stroger Hospital for surgery – came “dangerously close to patient dumping.” And U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) called for an investigation of the hospital’s practices, citing media reports regarding patient dumping.

As UCMC cuts its budget by $100 million, it has decided to close a number of clinics, including a popular women’s clinic. But Easton says the hospital still looks to provide medical care to community members.

“The Medical Center is engaged in a long-term effort to create a coordinated and accessible network of health care providers on the South Side of Chicago. No other private medical center in the region does more to care for low-income patients or treat challenging medical conditions,” Easton said in a statement.

The FOX piece notes the Urban Health Initiative was crafted in part by former UCMC executive Michelle Obama.

It attempts to tie criticism of the program to President Barack Obama’s plan for health care reform, though the president had nothing to do with the hospital’s program. Obama advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod, however, were instrumental in selling the program.

“The Urban Health Initiative was developed in Chicago, which is the home of the Obamas,” said David Catron, a health care consultant, who was featured in the story.

“There’s an audacity here by the Obamas in my mind,” Hannity said in the report. “Meanwhile they did this, they benefited from this financially. Her pay went up significantly when he became a state senator at this very hospital.”

Why does UCMC look so bad in this piece? Besides the ominous music, black and white graphics and slew of criticism, it’s because UCMC is not represented.

Earhart says UCMC officials declined to be interviewed.

Balderdash, says Easton.

Easton says FOX asked for 10 minutes with UCMC vice president Dr. Eric Whitaker, no more, no less. UCMC declined to agree to those terms.

“At some point they quit returning our phone calls,” Easton says.

 See the FOX story: