http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/05/u...userland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin 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.” The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said. Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday. As Deputy Holman understood it, Ms. Bachtel had died of complications from a stillbirth after being turned away by a local hospital for her failure to pay $100 upfront. “I mentioned this story to Senator Clinton, and she apparently took to it and liked it,” Deputy Holman said, “and one of her aides said she’d be using it at some rallies.” Indeed, saying that the story haunted her, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly offered it as a dire example of a broken health care system. At one March rally in Wyoming, for instance, she referred to Ms. Bachtel, a 35-year-old who managed a Pizza Hut, as a young, uninsured minimum-wage worker, saying, “It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor.” Mrs. Clinton does not name Ms. Bachtel or the hospital in her speeches. As she tells it, the woman was turned away twice by a local hospital when she was experiencing difficulty with her pregnancy. “The hospital said, ‘Well, you don’t have insurance.’ She said, ‘No, I don’t.’ They said, ‘Well, we can’t see you until you give $100.’ She said, ‘Where am I going to get $100?’ “The next time she came back to the hospital, she came in an ambulance,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “She was in distress. The doctors and the nurses worked on her and couldn’t save the baby.” Since Ms. Bachtel’s baby died at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, the story implicitly and inaccurately accuses that hospital of turning her away, said Ms. Weiss, the spokeswoman for O’Bleness Memorial said. Instead, the O’Bleness health care system treated her, both at the hospital and at the affiliated River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology practice, Ms. Weiss said. The hospital would not provide details about the woman’s case, citing privacy concerns; she died two weeks after the stillbirth at a medical center in Columbus. “We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient,” said Mr. Castrop, the health system’s chief executive. Any implication that the system was “involved in denying care is definitely not true.” Although Mrs. Clinton has told the story repeatedly, it first came to the attention of the hospital after The Washington Post cited it as a staple of her stump speeches on Thursday. That brought it to the attention of The Daily Sentinel in Pomeroy, Ohio, which published an article on Friday. Neither paper named the hospital or challenged Mrs. Clinton’s account.
If she goes on Leno and jokes about it, it never happened. Remember...if you can poke fun at yourself for lying, then you're just funny...and you can sit at the cool table.
If Hillary were elected President (God forbid), no leader of any nation would believe anything she had to say. Her word would never be accepted without snickers just offstage.
Proof positive Hillary is a habitual liar. Who gives a flip if it happened to a thousand other women in the country last year due to our health care policies. That is unimportant. John McCain has sterling character; no habitual lies for the straight talking expresser-- no sir. Therefore Americans should vote for him just like they voted for Bush based on character over the habitual liar, Al Gore. Remember the internet and a couple of other non-issues? Character is what counts in a president. Who gives a flip about health care or Iraq or the economy. These are just issues which come and go. People who fall for this bs dserve the government they get. Too bad for the rest of Americans who have to go along for the ****ed up ride.
A candidate for the Presidency of the United States manufactures a story about a critical issue. Actually, it would be better if she manufactured it. She took a story about a woman who died and changed all of the operative facts to suit her political aims, and you are somehow ok with that. Whatever. You state that this happened to "a thousand" women last year. Funny how neither Obama's campaign nor Clinton's campaign can come up with a concrete example. In fact, when Clinton wanted an example, she made one up. I believe that serious health care reform is needed, but I wonder if this is being somewhat dramatized. If you do not believe that character matters, that's your call to make. When you end up with a President that promises everything you could ever hope for and you end up with politics as usual, then you should have seen that coming from the liar you voted for.
I'm no longer worried about GWB because I can't do anything about it. I can, like others (and you, Sam) raise alarms when it comes to the Big Three .... Hillary, McCain and Obama. One of them will be our next President so scrutiny is necessary.
Along these lines, the big concern (to me) about a candidate like this is that they have no concept of reality. The fact that they make things up at will during a campaign suggests that they believe they are above any sense of accountability. That's the type of attitude that leads to some of the big issues the Bush admin has - things like just writing executive orders to override anything they don't like, rewriting science because it doesn't agree with them, etc. That also fits what we saw with the endless shady things from the first Clinton administration (travelgate, etc) - maybe not technically illegal, but certainly skirting the edges. You also see this in their past with things like Whitewater. Ultimately, an administration that doesn't consider themselves accountable is the worst kind for the long-term health of the country.
Tell you what guy, there are so many instances where you take the words out of my mouth that I've lost count. Several times I haven't even needed to post because you say it first. Hillary's utter disregard of the truth (which goes WAY beyond normal campaign exaggeration) exceeds even what I expected. The never-ending metamorphosis of her campaign theme since Iowa is also mind-numbing. Yet this is the person who says another candidate in her party cannot win against the GOP while she can! As some used to say, "unfreakingbelievable". I'll ask again: Is this what "experience" does for Hillary? If so, just imagine what it would do for her administration? It's too scary for me to even think about. Another thought: Just imagine Hillary with a Dem congress that would do everything in it's power to cover up her abuses?
The better question is why not do a real story when they apparently are so plentiful? Let's do that. Hillary's health care plan is apparently to deduct from people's paychecks the premiums for insurance that they do not presently have because they cannot afford it. Brilliant. I voted for Bush because as governor of Texas, he was sucessful at uniting members of both parties. Even Bob Bullock had an admiration for GWB. I had no idea that he was going to get into office and lose his mind. I bet you fell for "I have a plan for that" with no details on what that plan was. I bet this November you will fall for "Yes we can" with no details on how we can. Really? Catching a candidate in a complete fabrication is no a way to assess character? How odd. I happen to be one of those uninsured. Trust me, I know that there need to be changes to the system. I also believe that the proposals on the table are either not a real solution (Hillary) or simply expensive and inefficient (Obama). I also know that if I am in need of critical care, that there are avenues to get care. People don't just die in this country because they cannot get an ER. You won't get Dr. Red Duke...but you can get care. I know this from firsthand experience. They bill you (and I pay the bill). But many people get the bill and ignore it because they cannot pay. Talk about overblown and taken out of context. While I want this war over, it is folly to assume that we can just leave and never have a presence over there like we have any other place we have been in combat. Count glynch in on wating liars and scoundrels. Thanks for being so honest about it.
This is one of my biggest concerns. She'll have enough of a majority in both branches of Congress that there will be exactly zero oversight, just as there was none during the first many years of the Bush admin. These kinds of things seem much more dangerous in the long-run than any particular policy choices of a candidate, half of which get undone as soon as the other party takes control anyway.
You're not going to get a story about Hillary health care vs. McCain health care because they aren't running against each other. In the general election, there will be plenty of stories on the policy differences between the candidates. Right now, in Obama vs. Clinton, there just aren't very many policy differences. And what differences they do have, have been covered over and over in the debates.
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.” The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said. Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday. As Deputy Holman understood it, Ms. Bachtel had died of complications from a stillbirth after being turned away by a local hospital for her failure to pay $100 upfront Yeah, this type of flub, assuming the hospital is correct, should be the key to presidential politics, reflects lack of contact with reality, habitual lying and a complete lack of accountablility. What more do you need? Clinton is out now. If you can find a mistold story like this that has not been vetted by Obama, than you must go McCain. If you find a mistold unvetted story like this by McCain than you must go Obama. Simple. This is the way to choose a president.
Except that one story is not the issue - and that was made clear in the title of the thread with the "Yet another". It's the pattern of behavior that concerns people.
Major, don't you remember the "pattern" of doing stories like this about Gore? Do you really think the same thing could not be done to McCain? or Obama. This particular story is a particularly weak one. So they did not vet the story enough. The NYT is striving to continue their story line of Hillary the habitual liar. I am not even a Hillary supporter. I just object this type of story substituting for real political and presidential stories. Maybe I am just pised the way the press ran a similar series of stories about the boyscout Al Gore enabling Bush to run as a man of truthfulness and character.
