About Clinton's hosptial gaffe. I have a bone to pick.

[Bread and Circus]

Not vetting and then repeating such a charge is inexcusable on many grounds:

1.) It's one thing to not vet a feel good story but it's entirely another to irresponsibly repeat a story, which as reported by Clinton, nearly amounts to a wrongful death without checking into it.

2.) Repeating such a story, if not true, could lead to material harm to that community hospital. I can't say what culpability the hospital in fact has, but that's for people who are actually directly involved and KNOW the case.

3.) All of this throws sand in the eyes of the average voter because such an occurence is not exemplary of what usually happens in the case of the uninsured. It's rare for hospitals to outright deny care and it is against the law to deny emergency care and any kind of fetal distress is an emergency. What happens more often is that the care is rendered but that people can't afford the medical bills and are often forced into bankruptcy.

4.) Demonizing hospitals is the wrong road to take, especially when you take into account that the hospital in question is a community hospital in a town of 21,000. Obleness Hospital is a private non-profit (just like the hospital in my small town). It is really hard for hospitals like that to survive and render local care for their communities.

5.) The hospital in question takes medicaid and officially renders FREE CARE ( please see their pdf for billing details: http://www.obleness.org/aboutobleness/billingpractices.pdf ) . It literally took me two minutes look that up, by the way.

6.) Instead of directly vilifying hospitals and indirectly vilifying nurses, doctors, and ancillary staff (radiology techs, physical therapy, occupational therapy, lab techs), Clinton should be going hard after insurance companies and drug companies.

Bottom line: The important thing to focus on is adopting a system that is effective and cost effective. The broken patchwork system we have now is beyond repair and mandated universal insurance will not solve the problem, neither will non-mandated universal insurance. A universal federal single payer system that provides for all necessary preventive, chronic, and episodic care is what we fundamentally need. Our Democratic leaders do us all a dis-service by not standing up for federal single payer care. By making false charges against community hospitals that economically struggle to provide care for their communities is not only dangerous and wrong, it is opportunistic. Hospitals aren't the bad guys. If anyone is the bad bad guy, it's the politicians (Democrat and Republican alike) that have failed to stand up for a system that works.

[Erin Elizabeth]

1. Great points, K&R

[sandnsea]

2. The woman had insurance

$100 payment is mentioned. It sounds as if she did not have the $100 that many insurance companies require you to pay when you go to the emergency room.

It is as wrong of US to make accusations when we don't know the whole story, as it was for Hillary to do it.

If the woman had insurance, and still didn't see a doctor because of deductibles or co-pays, then that proves the point that mandated insurance isn't going to solve any problems.

[Yael]

19. I have a $50 ER copayment and have NEVER had to pay at the ER

The hospital takes my insurance information and bills me.

The story has more holes in it than Snipergate.

[sandnsea]

27. Maybe her insurance is different

Or maybe she didn't understand her insurance. I'm just saying, we still don't have all the facts and I'd really like to get them because I want to know why this woman and baby died.

[Yael]

31. That isn't the insurance company's call

It is the hospitals.

Have you ever been told by an ER that you won't be seen until you pony up the co-pay?

[sandnsea]

33. I know people who have been told to see the doctor

That they don't have a medical emergency. Things are changing. Point is, we don't know and we should be wanting to know. People are dead.

[Yael]

34. Agreed

[dchill]

32. "NEVER had to pay at the ER"

Right. It's illegal to deny care. They cannot, and do not, demand payment before giving medical care. It doesn't happen. They would be found criminally negligent and possibly lose their charter. THAT would be the thing a responsible official would look into upon hearing this story - whether that official was a deputy sheriff or a United States Senator. Not just use the story as a self-promoting political haymaker.

[sandnsea]

35. They only have to accept life/death cases

And more and more of them are drawing the lines.

[dchill]

36. Not in my experience.

[sandnsea]

37. Get ready

It used to be that doctors didn't turn people away either, but they sure do now. In any event, you go to our hospital with something the clinic can manage, they'll tell you to go to the clinic. I've read plenty of stories about people being referred to county hospitals out of private ER's because they'd been stablized. It's only logical that if you don't have insurance and a life threatening emergency, they won't see you at all. And if you go to the ER and the insurance company decides it wasn't necessary, then you've got a whopper of a bill. There are lots of things that could have kept that woman out of the ER, and I want to know what it was.

[dchill]

38. "...and I want to know what it was."

But, does Hillary? Really? I seriously doubt it. Seriously.

[sandnsea]

40. But that isn't my particular point

She repeated a story without vetting it because it was so sensational. I don't want to do the same thing. There is a real reason the woman didn't get medical care in time and I'd prefer to focus on that.

[dchill]

41. I know - I'm just venting...

and not vetting. :)

[izzybeans]

3. It is always helpful to have the dog and pony story straight, otherwise the point gets lost

It's an avoidable gaffe, you are right about that for sure. It makes a mockery of the real need for reform. Why not go into case and tort law and get solid stories backed up by the court system?

[boston bean]

4. I just read this in another thread, you decided to make an OP?

[Yael]

20. This way people like me get to rec it

You can choose to hide it.

Its a wonderful system.

:thumbsup:

[Armstead]

30. It's important enough for its own thread

[flor de jasmim]

5. This story is symptomatic of her not considering the consequences of her own actions:

As in Bosnia: no thought to the young girl, the military, the Bosnians in general, the way it makes Bill look (yeah, I'll send my wife and daughter into danger), ...

[LisaL]

6. First of all, Hillary did not name the woman or the hospital

in her speeches.
Given that, I don't understand why the hospital came forward when it was not mentioned, and claimed the story Hillary is telling isn't true. Hillary did not say this particular hospital turned this woman away.
Second of all, the hospital sites "privacy concerns" so you don't know what the real story is.
Third of all, the woman did not die in the hospital that came forward, she died in Columbus.
And forth of all, Hillary repeated a story told to her by a supporter.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. but her campaign did.

and that is when the story went off the rails.

I wonder if the real problem is that she cannot tell the difference between a lie and the truth.

[LisaL]

11. Her campaign did? WTF are you talking about?

The NYT article claims Hillary's story came to the hospital attention when it was published in a local paper. But the paper did not name the hospital either.

[UALRBSofL]

7. The issue to this story, one I think would be best

Is for Hillary to call for an investigation ASAP. I have a feeling there is a wrongful death issue, personally. That said, if she persues this issue and MSM picks up on it I believe the public will have more respect for her and believe she will follow through on her health care plan that it's the best plan we will get from all three candidates. Plus, I think she would get some positive air time from it as well, though that isn't the issue at hand. A wrongful death is the main issue. As I have observed, the Obama bloggers are the first to try to twist this into a negative issue on Clinton, and, following up on what I said would flip it around on the Obama Camp.

[boston bean]

8. This is just par for the course, never mind what this type of shit slinging does to the overall

argument of Universal Health Care.

If we can throw Hillary under the bus one more time, whether she deserves it or not, is worth any price.

[virtualobserver]

10. she brought it on herself.....

She is in desperation mode and is trying to make the case for her nomination. They are throwing caution to the wind. She is presenting a sales pitch. Sometimes people die in that pitch, and sometimes there is sniper fire. It is more like creative writing.

[LisaL]

12. The woman did die, you genius.

Just not in the hospital that is coming forward and claiming the story is not true.

[virtualobserver]

14. Obviously, but not under the circumstances she cited

which was the point, "Genius".

[LisaL]

15. Since hospital is citing privacy concerns, I wonder how you

know what circumstances this woman died under?

[virtualobserver]

17. I don't have a video that moment, but the hospital states that it did not deny treatment to her.

If they are lying, that would have legal implications.
The bottom line is, Hillary did not verify the story prior to making it a part of her stump speech. So it underscores that fact that she was just repeating a dramatic and emotional story without worrying about its acccuracy.

Just a question....I know that Hillary's plan differs from Barack's in terms of mandates for Adults also, not just children, but exactly how would her plan have helped this woman in terms of her deductible?

[LisaL]

18. The woman didn't die at that hospital. The woman died in Columbus.

Hillary never named the hospital, let alone claimed this particular hospital denied treatment to this particular woman.

[virtualobserver]

23. But she did claim that the worman was uninsured....which wasn't true

and was using that woman's circumstance to make the case for her health care plan. The hospital that clearly treated this woman responded to this.

this deputy was repeating a story learned "secondhand" as he put it.

Look, this was clearly a tragic experience for all of the people involved. Hillary just needs to be a little more cautious.

[roguevalley]

26. her campaign said on CNN that they didn't vet it. the reporters

tracked it backwards and found all they needed to know. If hillary had done the same damned thing, they would never have used it. they would have made up a story that couldn't be found out or not used one. Simple lazy stupidity and the fall out is what you get when you fuck up like this. Its earned.

[sandnsea]

29. It does need to be pursued

to prove that crappy insurance doesn't solve the health care problem, and mandating crappy insurance is even worse.

[Bonobo]

13. Yeah, but the most important thing is that Jillary wins, right? Fuck everything else.

That's her attitude to a T.

[InsultComicDog]

16. See, I was working for the CIA with my wife, Morgan Fairchild.. whom I've slept with..

See, I was working for the CIA with my wife, Morgan Fairchild.. whom I've slept with. And we were spies. Yeah! She was on the cover, and I was under-.. water! Yeah, that's it! I was disguised as a fish in the Hudson River! Yeah! And I was about to bite into a worm when I was caught. Yeah! And they dsold me to the Russian Tea Room, where I was filleted and eaten. And the next thing you know, I was.. I was back in the Hudson!

So I got on a jet, and I flew to Switzerland with my wife, Morgan Fairchild - whom I've slept with. And we were gonna hide.. deposit the money, when my plane crashed in the Himalyas. Yeah, that's it! And to stay alive, we ate the survivors. 'Cause the dead ones were rotten! Yeah! So there I was, fighting over the tall co-pilot, with my wife, Morgan Fairchild - whom I've seen naked! When suddenly, the co-pilot woke up, and he kicked me in the head, and I blacked out! And the next thing you know

[Cheap_Trick]

25. InsultComicDog, is this you?

[TahitiNut]

21. Poor Hillary ... so often a victim of bad information.

I guess she failed to read another NIE, huh? Darn hospitals! They just didn't fully inform Hillery - even if not asked.

:eyes:

[Yael]

22. Forgetting that we have a pathological liar in the WH now who doesn't see the need to vet

anything before he speaks, I have another issue with this on a different level.

Michael Moore researched stories of UNDERinsured people for 2 years. He has so many stories of system abuse and neglect that he could write his own encyclopedia. Names, dates, facts -- all backed by people who would be honored to stand on the stump with a candidate and tell their story.

Hillary prefers fabrication over truth to the point that she put UHC in the crapper with this one. Rather than take a KNOWN and VETTED story to make her case, she takes semi-true gossip and adds 90% bullshit to 10% truth just to hear herself speak.

No thanks.

[Divernan]

24. Simple-the local hospital didn't give her $$$, as opposed to Big Insurance & Big Pharma

I just got back from a week at a small island in the Caribbean - Saba, one of the Netherland Antilles, population 1,400. Fourteen hundred people is less than the number of people living in my subdivision.

This island is a Dutch posession. We asked the 65 year old taxi driver, who took us on a tour of the island, about health care for Saba's citizens. He and his wife pay a total of $200 PER YEAR for their health insurance - no deductibles. Holland subsidizes a medical school on the island, and provides a hospital, ambulance and old age home. The govt. subsidized medical school has students from Europe, the US, the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Specialist MDs come over to live on this lovely island and teach for a few years at a time - thereby providing the islanders with a wide range of excellent medical diagnostic/treatment care. The hospital will be expanded next year to include more surgical facilities.

When the driver's wife needed open heart surgery last year, the Dutch government/national health care program paid for her to travel to Holland for the surgery. EVERYONE GETS EXCELLENT QUALITY MEDICAL CARE FOR ON AVERAGE ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS A YEAR.

There are no Big Health Insurance companies there. I know my primary physicians' office in the US employs as many people to handle the insurance/Medicare paperwork as they do to actually treat patients.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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[SunsetDreams]

39. you want to know why?

Because it's awfully hard to blame someone when a story gets handed down by their family. Just like it wouldn't be fair for us to blame Hillary for the Sir Edmund Hillary story.

[yepstein]

42. Hospital gaffe and 3 AM ad

It's 3 AM and the phone rings in the White House. How do you want your president to vet the information before acting on it?