With so many actual horror stories from the world of American health care, why on Earth would a Presidential candidate talk about something fictitious? Leave it to Senator Clinton to repeat a story that isn't true and to say it enough times that the hospital in question has to make the issue public. I just do not understand why everything has to be embellished? Is she trying to make her campaign fall harder and faster than Bill could back in January?
From The NY Times:
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.
The Clinton campaign thus far has made a pitiful excuse to defend their defamation of O'Bleness Memorial Hospital. Not having a chance to vet a story does not fly on the Presidential campaign circuit. That is a rookie mistake and at this level rookie mistakes can be major blunders.
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