Hillary Clinton Tells False Health Care Horror Story, Exposed in NYT

[jefferson_dem]

Run time: 02:25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5BwOujrNQ   Posted on YouTube: April 05, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: April 05, 2008 By DU Member: jefferson_dem Views on DU: 3578

 
April 5, 2008
Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells
By DEBORAH SONTAG

Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.

Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy in late February.

A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, said candidates would frequently retell stories relayed to them, vetting them when possible. “In this case, we did try but were not able to fully vet it,” Mr. Elleithee said. “If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that.”

<SNIP>

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/us/politics/05woman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[ikojo]

1. Notice the tepid applause from the audience when

Hillary says that in as rich and good of a country that we can do better..I guess not even those in her audience believe she will do anything to challenge the health insurance industry.

[Bonobo]

2. There are people that are willing to lie to get what they want, and there are those who are not.

Hillary has proven herself to be perfectly happy to tell untruths to score points and consistently tacks with the political wind to score political points.

She would be a dangerous President because of this.

[madrchsod]

3. it is clear she should have never used this story.

this story and her sniper story shows she will say anything to make herself important...

[ElsewheresDaughter]

27. A man in Ohio told her the story ....she did NOT make it up....get over your hate !

[Craig Livingstone]

33. She knew better

at best, it was bad staff work. That is how she works, I know, i worked with her for many years. You are backing a shady player. I am sorry but that is the truth.

Craig Livingstone

WH Staff member 1993-96

[leftofcool]

4. The Sheriff says its true a hospital says false

Who gains with the lie? Hospitals have been covering their butt on these things for years

[liberal1973]

6. Ironic that get the truth to a simple fact is so hard.

[journalist3072]

8. Exactly! Of course the hospital is going to try a little CYA.

[speedoo]

15. You're being silly and desperate.

It should be a simple matter to determine whether or not the deceased woman had insurance. Do you really think the Clinton campaign did not do exactly that before admitting they were wrong in having Hillary advance this story?

Oh wait... it's the Clinton campaign. They are incompetent, so who knows?

[marshall]

26. Who knows if that unnamed sheriff's deputy even exists

At best it is foolhardy to repeat in a major stump speech something that sounds like it was idle gossip around a water cooler.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

29. I saw him tell the story to Hillary as she sat next to him...get a grip of your hillary hatred!!!

[jjr5]

38. I don't "hate" Hillary

That's wrong. I'm angry at Hillary. Obama has not made nearly as much mistakes as she has. And McCain, just hasn't gotten as much attention. I like reply #33. There's no way she didn't know this story had holes in it. She might not be a good person.

[marshall]

39. I saw him this morning

Hopefully Hillary has learned to not make unsubstantiated rumors part of her stump speeches. It's like a political version of "gossip" and she needs to stop being a part of it.

[sellitman]

5. Another "Mis-speak"

Oops.

[Chisox08]

17. Hillary must be sleep deprived

All those 3 am calls must be getting to her.

[JeanGrey]

7. This is getting beyond silly - and it is now into "frightening"

I do not WANT THIS WOMAN any where near the Whitehouse. What is it in God's name that the Clinton's cannot seem to tell the truth? It is like they are living in some fantasy land they've created for themselves..................

[Ahpook]

25. Richies:) They do indeed live in fantasy and

feel all us schmucks should take out their fucking trash.

Being 30ish:) i would have never expected this country to go the way it has. There is always going to be a thug, and WE weed them.

This shit has gone FAR enough.

So at that point, I don't read many articles or threads here anymore because nothing surprises me. I want a grand surprise someday watching all of these fuckers marched off to jail to rot. That includes the media, all the way down to the Fox weather person dragged off for being full of shit:)

Superman is not a coming..

It's us:(

[MindMatter]

9. God, she's almost as bad as Ronald Reagan

just making shit up. No wonder Limbaugh is telling everybody to vote for her.

[niceypoo]

10. Obama supporters smear campaign rolls on...

Which is what, previously, we only saw from republicans

This is exactly what the republicans did to Al Gore in 2000.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200702270011

[babylonsister]

11. Why don't you dispute this video if it's a smear? Because you can't?

"Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured."

"Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff's deputy in late February."

This is video of Hillary Clinton telling the story in Wyoming on March 8, 2008.

[DailyGrind51]

12. Why use a fake story?

There are true stories from newspapers throughout the country
about persons dying without health insurance.  It would not
have taken Hillary's staff much time to find one and obtain
the proper permissions to use it.  She could have even
consulted Michael Moore's website for "Sicko"! 
"Policy by anecdote" is a Reagan legacy and should
note be adopted by any Democrat.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704040052apr04,1,2642079.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=2&cset=true

NATION
Death by no insurance?
Doctor and patient had colon cancer. She was uninsured and
died. He is alive, convinced she could be too.
	
		
By Lindsey Tanner
Associated Press

April 4, 2007

Dr. Perry Klaassen lived to tell about his frightening ordeal
with colon cancer.

His patient did not.

Same age, same state, same disease. Striking similarities,
Klaassen thought when Shirley Searcy came to his clinic in
Oklahoma City. It was July 2002, a year after his own
diagnosis.

But there was one huge difference: Klaassen had health
insurance, Searcy did not.

His treatment included surgery two days after diagnosis and
costly new drugs. He is alive six years later despite disease
that has now spread to his lungs, liver and pelvis.

"I received the most efficient care possible. I was 61
years old and had good group health insurance through my
workplace," he wrote in a medical journal essay that
contrasts his care with that of his uninsured patient.

The doctor didn't name Shirley Searcy in his March 14 article.
After all he'd been through, he couldn't remember her name.
But he dug for days through old medical files searching for
her identity after he was interviewed by The Associated Press,
hoping to shine a more powerful light on the plight of the
uninsured.

The widowed mother of eight grown children, Searcy had little
money. When she began to sense she might be sick, she put off
going to the doctor for a year because she knew she couldn't
pay the medical bills. Deeply religious, she put her faith in
God, according to her family.

By the time she saw Klaassen, her cancer had spread from her
colon to her liver. She had surgery but rejected chemotherapy.

"She just really didn't feel like she wanted to endure
what that would cost physically or financially," said her
daughter-in-law, Karen Searcy.

Shirley Searcy died Dec. 22, 2003, about 18 months after her
diagnosis.

Searcy's is a story that's far from unique. An estimated
112,000 Americans with cancer have no health insurance,
according to Physicians for a National Health Program.

Klaassen's essay in the Journal of the American Medical
Association illustrates the issue "close and
personal," said the publication's editor, Dr. Catherine
DeAngelis.

It underscores that insurance can be a life or death issue,
said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying
Health System Change, a non-partisan policy research
organization.

Klaassen, now 67, no longer sees patients but works part-time
as medical director of an Oklahoma City group that recruits
doctors to give free care to needy patients.

Always healthy and vigorous, his diagnosis in 2001 came as a
shock.

Klaassen had a colonoscopy within two weeks after seeing his
doctor for pain in his lower abdomen. When the specialist with
the results asked, "Is your wife with you?" Klaassen
wrote, "I knew immediately that I had colon cancer."

Surgery two days later showed the disease had spread outside
the colon wall and to nearby lymph nodes. It was not as
advanced as Searcy's, whose disease had spread to the liver.

Searcy married young and had her first child in her teens. Her
mechanic husband died in a 1978 car crash, leaving her to
raise the family alone. Social Security helped, but the
Searcys never had anything extra, family members said.

"Life dealt her more I guess than some people have been
dealt," Karen Searcy said.

She didn't work outside the home, didn't venture often beyond
her 4 acres and the ranch house where she raised her children
in Blanchard, about 30 miles from Oklahoma City. In her later
years, reading stories to her dozens of grandchildren was a
favorite pastime. She'd figured she'd live long enough to
qualify for Medicare at age 65, family members said; she
missed it by a year.

"She put off [seeing a doctor] because of no health
insurance, and she wanted to trust the Lord. She was hoping to
be healed," said her daughter, Melba Spalding.

Klaassen knew immediately that it was colon cancer when she
saw him. A colonoscopy weeks later confirmed the diagnosis and
that it was incurable.

It was "heartbreaking to all of us," Spalding said.
The family had always been close, and Searcy "was pretty
well the hub of it," she said.

With insurance, Searcy would have sought treatment sooner,
family members said.

"I believe with all my heart that if she had gone to a
doctor early on, that she would still be living," Karen
Searcy said.

Klaassen also thinks things would have turned out differently
if she'd been insured.

"If she had survived at least a year more, she would have
had new pills available to her," the same ones that have
helped control his disease, Klaassen said.

"People say ... nobody ever dies because they don't have
insurance, and I say, 'Yeah, they do.''

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

[krkaufman]

13. Along these lines, did anyone else become suspicious on Friday ...?

... hearing Hillary's detailed tale of her recollection, as a college junior, of her actions on hearing of MLK Jr's assassination.

"Like many of you here who are of a certain age, I will never forget where I was when I heard Dr. King had been killed. I was junior in college and I remember hearing about it and just feeling such despair,” Clinton said, pausing, her voice quivering.

“I walked into my dorm room and took my book bag and hurled it across the room. It felt like everything had been shattered, like we would never be able to put the pieces together again."

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/04/politics/fromtheroad/entry3994189.shtml

Alas, there's little chance of getting verification on this one....

[JeanGrey]

20. ANYTIME I hear Hillary say "I recall how this happened" I just

cringe.

[krkaufman]

21. Same, here. It's the extra details that she throws in ...

... that makes her stories so unbelievable.

I almost want to see her win the nomination, just to hear McCain say "there you go again" when Hillary starts off on one of her fairy tales. Republicans would mess themselves.

[JeanGrey]

22. I do not understand why people aren't getting this. Republicans

want Hillary to be the nominee. Why do you think that is? Duh. Remember her "Chelsea was almost killed in 9/11, was jogging around and ran into a coffee shop and heard the plane hit"? Then we find out she wasn't even awake and was awakened by a friend and saw it on on TV.

WHAT IS IT with them and the truth?

[krkaufman]

23. Dunno.

Sadly, it may be overcompensation for the gender bias she faces. Just dunno, though. I hope she has a long and productive career, on behalf of New York state.

[JeanGrey]

28. If she continues this she might not even have that.

[Craig Livingstone]

34. She is vile

honest.

[JeanGrey]

40. She obviously is a power mad I don't know what.

Her best interests are her. No one else.

[krkaufman]

35. Trying to figure out what the heck her goal is is waaay beyond my pay grade.

And, agreed, her Senate reelection may not be a cozy next time around, depending how things go in November.

[JeanGrey]

42. What gender bias? She has faced no gender bias. I

don't know anyone who dislikes Hlll because she's a woman. They dislike her for the crap she pulls.

[L0oniX]

14. She must have found out about the incident from one of those 3 am calls.

[atal]

16. I don't get it, why did she have to lie and make up a story

There are hundreds if not thousands of true heartbreaking stories out there.

Why lie?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

30. she did neither! ...I saw the man tell her the Gd'damn story!!!

[JeanGrey]

41. OH so you repeat anything told you? This is Presidential?

Oh give me a break, would you

[quantass]

18. k&r

[gimberly]

19. Facts Shmacts

[RBInMaine]

24. This one really isn't that bad, although they should have vetted it first.

They should now correct the record, but if she was honestly relating what she was told, this isn't that bad.

[elleng]

31. 'False,' 'Horror,' 'Exposed,'

we do not NEED YOUR EXAGERATED terms; the facts do not justify such.

[Craig Livingstone]

32. I worked in the Clintoon White House

She has lied about many things.

Her senior staff, harold Ickes, Susan Thomases, Mark Penn, Capricia Marshall (in my opinion) are vile and evil. They spend their lives using minorities in 'coalition building' then when a candidate comes along that the part activists seem to love--they shoot him in the foot!

She lied about NAFTA. I was there. I selected the individual that coordinated the NAFTA signing event on the White House lawn. She was all over the event and preparations and looked very happy about the outcome, to me.

I believe that she personally wanted the travel office folks removed. She had Harry Thomasson given WH access. They knew Monica was a problem. Her chief of staff had me admonish her many months before the story broke--they are all to blame (myself included). I should have left my post three months into the job when I had to order george Stephanopolous and Dee Dee Meyers to finish their security paperwork or I would be forced to deny them access to the WH Complex. It was a joke to them.

Beyond that nonsense ... why do so many good people want the Clintoons back? They will use the office for personal gain. I have heard nothing, that would leave me to believe that WJC has cleaned up his act, so why let them sully that sacred office yet again.

I do not have a horse in this race. i liked Richardson for his vast experience both abroad and at home. A proven leader and executive, oh well.

Craig Livingstone
WH Staff member, 1993-1996

[SleeplessinSoCal]

36. She's treating Democratic voters like they watch FOX News

[happygoluckytoyou]

37. MY FAVORITE PART OF THE STORY IS WHEN THE SNIPER SHOOTS