Sunday, April 06, 2008
Earth to Hospital, How Do You Know that Hillary Was Talking About Your Hospital...?
During some of her stump speeches, Hillary told a narrative about a woman who died last summer; it was a story told to her by a sheriff's deputy. Period. Now if anyone has a problem with it, go beat up on the deputy.
But here a couple of precious baubles from corrine and myiq2xu at Corrente that brilliantly make a few points: "What does the hospital have to gain," corrine asks, "by coming forward to challenge the story? Hillary never identified the woman or the hospital."
And myiq2xu writes, "They weren’t being sued (not that has been reported anyway) and they disclaim liability. They breached patient confidentiality (just enough for this story, then invoked it to avoid providing details)"
As Corrente points out, this latest outrage at "DailyObama" is reminiscent of all the gnashing of teeth by GOP operatives when overarching facts of a story are essentially accurate.
The New York Times headlined the story and wrote:(How dare she repeat a tragic story without fully investigating and “vetting” it first.) But the NYT’s story, if true, doesn’t prove that Hillary was dishonest, nor does it disprove most elements of the story. Hillary heard the story from a Ohio deputy sheriff. If he was wrong, that doesn’t make her a liar. The hospital denies that it refused to give the woman care and states that she did have medical insurance. They wouldn’t lie, would they?
[T]he story doesn’t say what caused the stillbirth of the woman’s child or her subsequent death.
If indeed the woman was insured, the story is even more tragic than as originally told. If the woman had insurance but was denied care because she could not afford a $100 co-pay that makes Hillary’s argument for universal healthcare stronger, not weaker.
For those who want Hillary's hide for not fact-checking the hospital story, how about a few pounds of flesh from Obama for not fact-checking all those lovely Rev. Wright speeches...? She's just saying...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.
