Right-Wing Health Care Propagandist Betsy McCaughey

Right-Wing Health Care Propagandist Betsy McCaughey
On Monday, former Republican lieutenant governor of New York Betsy McCaughey published a commentary on Bloomberg.com, falsely claiming that health information technology provisions in the economic recovery package will have the government “monitor treatments” in order to “‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions.” “This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy,” declared McCaughey.

Who is McCaughey? In 1994, she was a key player in the attacks against the Clinton health care plan, writing a a “viciously inaccurate” article in The New Republic that claimed the plan would lock people in to government-run care. This claim was “simply false,” but it “completely distorted the debate on the biggest public policy issue of 1994.”

McCaughey’s inaccurate attack on health IT was quickly picked up by the conservative echo chamber of Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report and Fox News. Yesterday and today, McCaughey made appearances on two Fox News shows and Lou Dobbs’ CNN show in order to promote her misinformation. Watch it:

On CNN this morning, senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen fact-checked McCaughey’s claims, finding that the bill “didn’t actually, specifically say” what McCaughey claims it says:

COHEN: Now, we asked Betsy McCaughey, because she’s been through this bill page by page, “point us to the language that says that this bill will dictate what your doctor does,” and she showed us language that didn’t actually, specifically say that. It didn’t say that the government will have the right to dictate what your doctor does. But she says it’s vague enough that the government would be able to do that. And, of course, we ran this by the folks who wrote the bill. They said that any accusations that this bill will allow the government to dictate anything to your doctor, they say those accusations are “wildly inaccurate and preposterous.”

Cohen then explained how investment in health IT would allow doctors to “switch over from those paper records that most of them use to electronic records,” which “many say are much more efficient and allow for much more patient safety.”

Fox passes off GOP press release as its own research typo and all

Fox passes off GOP press release as its own research typo and all
Summary: In purporting to "take a look back" at how the economic recovery plan "grew, and grew, and grew," Fox News' Jon Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods -- all of which came directly from a Senate Republican Communications Center press release. A Fox News on-screen graphic even reproduced a typo contained in the Republican press release.

Senate Should Pursue Truth About Bush-Cheney Abuses

Senate Should Pursue Truth About Bush-Cheney Abuses
Proposing the creation of a "truth commission" to examine the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush-Cheney administration, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy declared Monday that, "The past can be prologue unless we set things right."

"As to the best course of action for bringing a reckoning for the actions of the past eight years, there has been heated disagreement," the Vermont Democrat explained in a lecture delivered at Georgetown University under the title: "Restoring Trust in the Justice System: The Senate Judiciary Committee's Agenda In The 111th Congress."

Outlining differences of opinion on the issue, Leahy said:



There are some who resist any effort to investigate the misdeeds of the recent past. Indeed, some Republican Senators tried to extract a devil's bargain from the Attorney General nominee in exchange for their votes, a commitment that he would not prosecute for anything that happened on President Bush's watch. That is a pledge no prosecutor should give, and Eric Holder did not, but because he did not, it accounts for many of the partisan votes against him.

There are others who say that, even if it takes all of the next eight years, divides this country, and distracts from the necessary priority of fixing the economy, we must prosecute Bush administration officials to lay down a marker. Of course, the courts are already considering congressional subpoenas that have been issued and claims of privilege and legal immunities - and they will be for some time.

There is another option that we might also consider, a middle ground. A middle ground to find the truth. We need to get to the bottom of what happened -- and why -- so we make sure it never happens again.

To that end, Leahy continued:



One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process and truth commission. We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind. Their straightforward mission would be to find the truth. People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts. If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers, and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecutions in order to get to the whole truth. Congress has already granted immunity, over my objection, to those who facilitated warrantless wiretaps and those who conducted cruel interrogations. It would be far better to use that authority to learn the truth.

During the past several years, this country has been divided as deeply as it has been at any time in our history since the Civil War. It has made our government less productive and our society less civil. President Obama is right that we cannot afford extreme partisanship and debilitating divisions. In this week when we begin commemorating the Lincoln bicentennial, there is need, again, "to bind up the nation's wounds." President Lincoln urged that course in his second inaugural address some seven score and four years ago.

Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. Sometimes the best way to move forward is getting to the truth, finding out what happened, so we can make sure it does not happen again. When I came to the Senate, the Church Committee was working to expose the excesses of an earlier era. Its work helped ensure that in years to come, we did not repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to think about whether we have arrived at such a time, again. We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past.

Though he acknowledged that the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush-Cheney administration were worse than the Watergate-era abuses of former President Richard Nixon and his aides, Leahy was unduly deferrent to the White House, saying that, "We need to see whether there is interest in (in this proposal from) the new administration."

STD Prevention is Good for the Economy

Idiots, otherwise known as the Klan.

Fact-Checking Conservative Outrage Over STD Prevention Provision In Economic Recovery Package
Another day, another shrill Drudge headline. On Monday, Drudge put up an unflattering picture of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), accompanied by the headline, “PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY.” His conservative fans in Congress, of course, quickly went on the attack against the sensible family planning provision in the House economic recovery package, and in an effort to compromise, President Obama agreed to drop the provision.

Drudge’s newest attack today focuses on the legislation’s provision to help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases:

Democrats may have eliminated provisions on birth control and sod for the National Mall in the “job stimulus” — but buried on page 147 of the bill is stimulation for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases!

The House Democrats’ bill includes $335 million for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.



Aside from the fact that many conservatives are squeamish about giving money to anything associated with sex, they seem unable to grasp the concept of preventive care and how it can help lower government health care spending. The $335 million provision to help stop the spread of STDs is part of a Prevention and Wellness Fund in the economic recovery legislation.

In 2006, CAP President and CEO John Podesta and Jeanne Lambrew — who is now a top health care adviser in the White House — proposed a similar idea. This fund would support clinically-proven prevention and wellness strategies that, in the end, would not only improve Americans’ health and productivity, but also lower U.S. health care costs. As Podesta and Lambrew explained:

Preventive health care service could reduce government spending on health care. If all elderly received a flu vaccine, health costs could be reduced by nearly $1 billion per year. Over 25 years, Medicare could save an estimated $890 billion from effective control of hypertension, and $1 trillion from returning to levels of obesity observed in the 1980s.

Some reasons that increased funding for STD prevention specifically will ultimately save the United States money:

– Increase workforce productivity. More than 56,000 people become infected with HIV/AIDS each year. The CDC estimates that the new infections cost the country $56 billion in medical care and lost productivity.

– Lower health industry costs. STDs, some of the most preventable diseases, cost the U.S. health care system as much as $15.3 billion annually.

– Lower federal government costs. The federal government is expected to spend $12.3 billion on HIV/AIDS-related medical care in 2009.

What’s more disturbing is that a new report by the CDC finds that the spread of the most common STDs — which are more likely to hit women and minorities — are on the rise. Obama has made clear that the economic recovery package is about getting people back to work; it’s hard for people to work if they’re struggling to get care for an infection.