Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells

[Lord Poe]

Christ, she's at it AGAIN?

By DEBORAH SONTAG
Published: April 5, 2008
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.

[Darth Wong]

See, this is why I get pissed off when people dismiss stories of politician dishonesty by simply saying "all politicians are dishonest". Some politicians are more dishonest than others. And Clinton is so fucking dishonest that I'm starting to wonder if she has some kind of mental disease.

[Lord Poe]

See, this is why I get pissed off when people dismiss stories of politician dishonesty by simply saying "all politicians are dishonest". Some politicians are more dishonest than others. And Clinton is so fucking dishonest that I'm starting to wonder if she has some kind of mental disease.

WTF? Is she sabotaging her own campaign? How could any of her handlers NOT fact check this story? Obama won't come near her for VP as it is, as he hardly needs this anchor around his neck.

[Spin Echo]

I thought about posting this story, but Clinton getting caught in a lie hardly seems to be news anymore.

[Shroom Man 777]

Is nothing this woman say true? Does she have a Chronic Backstabbing Disorder or something? Is she TRYING to get sodomized by the Obama Campaign's big black cock of Change?

Mang.

[Havok]

Two things I notice...

1) The story source to Clinton was from a cop.

This is something I notice a lot. I think it is the appeal to authority fallacy yes? He is a cop so he must be correct, no matter what the topic. Even if it has to do with subjects he would not be an expert about such as insurance and health care. Sad to see that our supposed ready to go on day one leaders fuck something like this up.

2) The lady that died MANAGED a Pizza Hutt.

Even though it is just a Pizza Hutt, that is NOT a minimum wage, uninsured job.

[Darth Wong]

The really stupid thing is that there are plenty of health-care horror stories in the US without having to make one up. With 40 million uninsured people in the country, it shouldn't be hard to find a legitimate health-care horror story. But she is so accustomed to lying and making shit up that she didn't even bother.

[Adrian Laguna]

The anecdotal story is one of Obama's trademarks, I think she was trying to ape him. However, being Hillary, she someone managed to turn a simple but effective rhetorical tool into a massive fuck-up. Doesn't she have people in the campaign who are paid to verify that what comes out of her mouth is, in fact, true?

[CmdrWilkens]

The anecdotal story is one of Obama's trademarks, I think she was trying to ape him. However, being Hillary, she someone managed to turn a simple but effective rhetorical tool into a massive fuck-up. Doesn't she have people in the campaign who are paid to verify that what comes out of her mouth is, in fact, true?

She does, unfortunately these are the same people who have declared that every state she doesn't win "doesn't matter," that accepted stripping Michigan and florida before clamoring for their entry, that decided that ignoring Caucus states would be a smart campaign move, and who haven't been able to pay the bills on time YET. So basically sure she has people but their quality is not exactly top notch by all appearences.

[Frank Hipper]

The anecdotal story is one of Obama's trademarks, I think she was trying to ape him. However, being Hillary, she someone managed to turn a simple but effective rhetorical tool into a massive fuck-up. Doesn't she have people in the campaign who are paid to verify that what comes out of her mouth is, in fact, true?

She does, unfortunately these are the same people who have declared that every state she doesn't win "doesn't matter," that accepted stripping Michigan and florida before clamoring for their entry, that decided that ignoring Caucus states would be a smart campaign move, and who haven't been able to pay the bills on time YET. So basically sure she has people but their quality is not exactly top notch by all appearences.

It's been said, but bears repeating:

If her campaign is such a catalogue of incompetence, how is she to be trusted with running the country?

[Drooling Iguana]

I think the last eight years have shown that you don't have to be competent to be President.

[Broomstick]

Even though it is just a Pizza Hutt, that is NOT a minimum wage, uninsured job.

If you truly have minimum wage you'll qualify for state assistance in getting health care in most cases. It's people making MORE than poverty wages who are most likely to be uninsured in the US. "Worrking poor" up into the lower middle class.

Anyhow - the woman in question was, apparently insured so it's a moot point in this instance.

The really stupid thing is that there are plenty of health-care horror stories in the US without having to make one up. With 40 million uninsured people in the country

>cough< 47 million. And counting >cough<

it shouldn't be hard to find a legitimate health-care horror story.

No. It shouldn't. Hell, i could hand over a few but does anyone ask ME? Nooooooooo........

Hell with it, didn't J give us one in the venting thread recently?

[Drooling Iguana]

If I were of a more paranoid temperament, I'd suspect that Clinton is so deep into the pockets of the health insurance companies that she's trying to discredit the idea of universal health care.

[Broomstick]

The health insurance industry gives heavily to BOTH political parties and has well-funded lobbyists. Draw your own conclusions

[Darth Wong]

If I were of a more paranoid temperament, I'd suspect that Clinton is so deep into the pockets of the health insurance companies that she's trying to discredit the idea of universal health care.

It drives me nuts to see both parties taking such pains to say that they oppose the idea of government health insurance. Especially when the politicians themselves use government health insurance.

[Broomstick]

Um... no they don't, Mike.

Fed employees are given a selection of health insurance plans to choose from, but those plans come from the private sector. It's just that instead of the usual situation, where an employee gets whatever the hell the employer decides to buy, the Fed employees can choose if the want the plan from Blue Cross, or from Aetna, or from United Health....

But it's still private insurance purchased from private health insurance companies. Federal employees do not receive public/government insurance unless they are old enough to be eligible for Medicare - and even there, they still purchase any desired supplements from a menu of private company policies.

[Darth Wong]

Um... no they don't, Mike.

Fed employees are given a selection of health insurance plans to choose from, but those plans come from the private sector. It's just that instead of the usual situation, where an employee gets whatever the hell the employer decides to buy, the Fed employees can choose if the want the plan from Blue Cross, or from Aetna, or from United Health....

But it's still private insurance purchased from private health insurance companies. Federal employees do not receive public/government insurance unless they are old enough to be eligible for Medicare - and even there, they still purchase any desired supplements from a menu of private company policies.

I may not be a huge expert on the American government, but I was under the impression that veterans' health care is completely government run, in which case it would be odd to me that the politicians themselves don't use something similar. Is that not the case?

[Broomstick]

No, it's not - veteran's health care is a separate program from what civilian government employees use.

The military has Tri-Care, which is administered by private companies that bid for the privilege (at one point I was involved with that, until we lost the contract) but the military sets the rules. Veterans' have their own system. Every other Federal employee has insurance purchased from the private sector by his/her employer, the Federal government.

The fact Congress does NOT use the veteran's system might have something to do with why it's in sad shape.

[Qwerty 42]

SomethingAwful just got snarky with Clinton today:

++http://www.somethingawful.co*/d/news/cl ... -yarns.php

[CmdrWilkens]

There are essentially two, and only two, purely governmental helathcare plans in the US. The first is the actual network of military hospitals and aid stations serving active duty and reserve military bases in the US and abroad. While some of the hospitals do have some civilain staff the hospitals themselves (and the associated clinics which are more numerous) are run by military doctors and treat active duty members and their dependents for a whole host of issues some of which even include elective surgeries. (Famously in order to allow military plastic surgeons to practise the military pays for something on the order of 1,000 boob jobs a year)

The other plan is the Veterans Health Administration Hosptials (A subcompotent of the Veteran Administration). The VHA is notoriously underfunded and they shutter facilities on a semi-regular basis (mostly since with the death of the WWII generation there just aren't as many retired/discharged military personnel who qualify for the care). At the same time when they do have money they have occasionally made significatn progress, I know a ways back there was an article which i've posted in a couple previous healthcare threads about the efforts of the VHA to completely digitize their records and make both preventative and resonsive care better for veterans all while spending far less per person than most private insurers despite having a client base that is almost universally older and with many more debilitating injuries and conditions due to the nature of the profession.

For federal employees (including Congress) the government subsidizes healthcare through multiple HMO plans which an individual can select from. Most of the plans have a pretty small monthly contribution if at all and cover everything from pre-existing conditions to most routine and even most non-routine care. That being said the plan administrator is still the private company its just that the government pays something on the order of 95% of the cost

[Broomstick]

For federal employees (including Congress) the government subsidizes healthcare through multiple HMO plans which an individual can select from.

Not just HMO's - there are also preferred provider, and high deductible/health savings account options (the last of those within the past couple years) although not all options my be offered to all Federal employees.

Basically, the best of private health care programs are available to Federal employees at prices significantly lower than you will ever see in the private sector.