Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped (into the stimulus bill) without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department. Full Story »
Posted by Subramanya Sastry
Unless I'm missing something, the hyperlink provided to " "H.R. 1 EH, pdf version" links to a version of the bill that is not paginated, making it impractical to follow the author's references throughout the remainder of the story. Perhaps they changed the online format after she wrote the story. Crosschecking her interpretations of these passages would have been made practical had she provided section and subsection numbers. I am downgrading my previous review after considering this and other research I have done on this since my original review.
(With apologies, I have moved these comments from the Notes section where I typed them in error. They are my personal views and should not have been entered as notes. [editing in brackets]) I have a hard time believing Obama would consciously do this as stated [I should have said implied] by the author [I should have said by the author's title and her reference to the bill in the article as the "Obama stimulus bill" ]. It seems like political suicide and goes against the ... More »
This opinion piece stirred a major controversy this month for making unfounded assertions about health care provisions of a new stimulus bill recently passed by Congress. Betsy McCaughey's claims have since been debunked by an excellent analysis from FactCheck.org (see link).
By presenting her opinions as facts, Ms. McCaughey unnecessarily muddled an important issue, causing public confusion. This could have been avoided by a less opinionated and more nuanced discussion about her concerns, drawing on factual evidence rather than her own views.
McCaughey brings up what are undoubtedly some worthy questions to ask about health care. Unfortunately, her arguments are presented in such an unfair, unbalanced way that it is hard to know when she is twisting facts and circumstances, and when she is presenting legitimate arguments. For example, while there may be some curbs to treatments, does it mean that fewer Americans die overall? She does not acknowledge the 'good of the many' side at all.
This story provides links and even page numbers to support it's claims. Unfortunately the one claim I looked into (page 464) was not corroborated at all. A survey of other stories shows the claim that the stimulus bill would provide less care to seniors is controversial. No other experts are brought in to support the claims.
Betsy McCaughey has no standing to be writing about health-care reform. Her celebrated takedown of the Clinton health plan was, as James Fallows meticulously detailed in The Atlantic many years ago (see links), a fraudulent piece of journalism. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, I would not trust one word that she writes, including "and" and "the."
According to Media Matters, McCaughey is up to her old tricks with her Bloomberg piece. The Media Matters analysis has already been submitted to NewsTrust, and you'll find it in the links. After I submitted this review, I realized that Fallows treated McCaughey's fraudulent journalism more fully in his book "Breaking the News" than he did in The Atlantic. Highly recommended.
Revised February 28, 2009. Betsy McCaughey highlights provisions that she claims were snuck into the House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Unfortunately she writes beyond her evidence in claiming that the language of the bill will foster the creation of a government bureaucracy that will one day interfere in the patient/physician relationship. Her concerns may be somewhat justified, however; unlike the nationalized healthcare systems that are universally rated as excellent, provisions that encourage heavy government monitoring of physician recommended treatment protocols could negatively impact healthcare and result in cost-benefit rationing. This is quite unlike the top-rated French system, ... More »
Revised February 28, 2009. I abhor any approach to healthcare reform that will vest too much power in an overarching government bureacracy. We must be careful to avoid the worst that socialized medicine has to offer--specifically the Canadian and British systems. Why not emulate the best systems (as exemplified in France, Sweden, Denmark) rather than the worst.
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