Owned: Stewart smacks down healthcare reform opponent McCaughey

// added August 21, 2009 // 49 comments //
atomiclegion

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http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/08/21/tds/

Back in the early 1990's, Betsy McCaughey wrote "No Exit," an article for The New Republic on the Clinton administration's healthcare reform plan. The piece was filled with falsehoods -- so many, in fact, that the magazine later disowned it. But by then, it was too late; McCaughey and her article had played an instrumental role in killing the Clinton proposal.

Now, she's back, and is again the chief propagator of some of the most pernicious myths about the Obama administration's plan.

McCaughey's latest falsehoods have taken hold with a disturbingly large portion of the American public. But she couldn't get them past "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, who had her on his show Thursday night and subjected her to one of his better interviews, meticulously picking her points apart and demonstrating their inaccuracy, leaving her stumbling and stammering in an attempt to defend her position. By the end of it, he told her, "I like you -- but I don't understand how your brain works."

Two videos of the interview are below; both are extended beyond what was actually aired on television.
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49 comments // Owned: Stewart smacks down healthcare reform opponent McCaughey

  • Varex_Sythe
    • 0
      Varex_Sythe  

    • Since when is failing to find a source that would prove your point and disprove your opponents referred to as holding your own?

      She said herself what page her evidence was on. Unless pages are randomly numbered now instead of going in order like they have been for the past many years, she was stalling for time rather than admit she was wrong. That's not a win, nor is that holding your ground. That's using a stall tactic to avoid looking incompetent at best, a lair at worst.

    • 6 months ago
  • malgui01
    • 0
      malgui01  

    • Sorry but it appeared to me that she held her own against Jon. I support the president and his health care goals. But Betsy held her own.

    • 6 months ago
  • PaulTheFifth
    • 0
      PaulTheFifth  

    • its mind-boggling to me when anti-health care conservatives try to spread lies and expect people to take them as fact...although these people have their fringe supporters, most of the people in this country are sensible, critical people, and as long as that is the case, these tactics won't work.

    • 6 months ago
  • eldamon
  • chasingame
    • 0
      chasingame  

    • Come on macfan, she doesn't mention Obama's birth certificate, unplugging grandma, or the death camps. Of course msnbc is government run. Wait... Hmmm? Maybe not. Well, whatever the case. If you can't promote these crazy ideas you will never be a "news" program in some peoples eyes.

    • 6 months ago
  • ocanada
    • 0
      ocanada  
    • chasingame:

      You do realize that Fox literally received talking points from the white house, and that the Defense department hired former generals to pretend to be impartial spokesman for the lead up to war and then its defense. Primarily employed on Fox News.

      MSNBC may be progressive but at least it has people like Hannity, Pat Buchanan, and Michael Smerconish as hosts and frequent guests and they do not take white house talking points. If anything they have criticized the president on his left flank much more than Fox ever did for Bush on his right flank.

    • 6 months ago
  • chasingame
    • 0
      chasingame  
    • chasingame:

      ocanada... This was supposed to be a response to macfan on an earlier post on this thread. I accidentally put it hear. If you go back and put it in context I think you will see that we are on the same page.

    • 6 months ago
  • allstarz8
    • 0
      allstarz8  

    • you know, ive gotta give her some slack. through all the beating, (which was hilarious) she still smiled and made little side jokes. atleast she was respectful in her downfall...

      i love john stewart.

    • 6 months ago
  • RaceBannon
  • samthesixth
  • TommyMarx
    • 0
      TommyMarx  

    • Can someone please explain to me what possible motive ANYONE would have for denying senior citizens care? It's not the government that screws us over re: healthcare, it's the insurance companies she represents that will deny every claim because they know half of the people won't protest. What a lying scum!

    • 6 months ago
  • wayseeker
    • 0
      wayseeker  

    • Her argument sounds like it makes sense to the person who hasn't gone into it as far she has. She's good at selling her points and has an advantage over the average person. Of course most cons are good at what they do.

    • 6 months ago
  • RaceBannon
    • 0
      RaceBannon  

    • I'm glad all the pundits, newspapers, anchorman, comedians are fighting for the "public" option and not universal healthcare. Of course all of them work for the same guys or their networks do anyway.
      These are the same people who knowingly manipulated public opinion to war, then played stupid when it came time to critique the war and now we're supposed to expect them to tell the public about healthcare because Obama is president? Whhaaaa? I like stewart, but he's just towing the line and that isn't good enough...

      UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE for everyone !!! Nothing less. The public option will not lead to socialized healthcare at all, just another reason for you to work 40 hours a week.

    • 6 months ago
  • ocanada
  • iMoco13
  • BKsaysAction
    • 0
      BKsaysAction  

    • Yeah she was definitely unprepared, I mean she didn't even bookmark the page and spent most of the interview relooking for the page that she called "dangerous" and her idea with the debit card was horrible.

    • 6 months ago
  • Addias_Mervin
    • 0
      Addias_Mervin  

    • She had half of the bill sitting right in front of her, and yet she only explicated on one simple page, I say she was unprepared. A lot of numbers were thrown around so I would like to fact that myself.

      One thing that irks me the most though was her comment on the US ranking in "infant mortality rates and life expectancy."

      ...if we exclude crime and vehicular accidents were #1,(the only way I could see that being true is if that exclusion applied to US alone, and everyone maintained their original position.) I mean really thats a reach.

      Her logic to me didn't make sense and she seemed more of a conversation hog, she didn't want a discussion she just wanted to hear her own voice.

    • 6 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • Wraak
    • 0
      Wraak  

    • Where was she 'owned'? Someone give me a part # and time stamp, pl0x. I don't see any occasion where she was really truly owned.

    • 6 months ago
  • river_rollin
  • asherp
  • Ish05
    • 0
      Ish05  
    • asherp:

      It's your willful lack of understanding the implications of the bill that is hurting your thought process. Maybe someone needs to smack you with a brick upside your head to straighten you up.

    • 6 months ago
  • Chheang
    • 0
      Chheang  

    • I don't get it... she's trying to save seniors right? And Medicare = socialized medicine... socialism = evil...

      so shouldn't she be pushing for medicare to be shut down? and if private insurance is so great, why not force seniors to spend their retirement money on private insurance?

      She says the bill would strip money from medicare to pay for another system for people who can't afford medical care (social medicine... btw, which = evil). She goes on to say that we're going to have a huge BOOM of seniors who will enter into medicare (medicare = social medicine = evil). Granted, if she's right, medicare would be less funded. However, in her argument, social medicine = evil so if these folks who are so against social medicine (republican baby boomers), they will pay for their own private insurance... THUS less people in medicare.

      At the end of the day, this is all wrong. WTF are we doing w/ private insurance anyways? We say, if you're old and private insurance companies won't cover you, we'll offer you great medical care for FREE (BTW, it's medicare and it's social medicine). However, if you're young and too poor, you get jack shit... BUT we'll take medicare taxes away from you on your wages. WTF?!?!?!

      Oh... last comment: her thoughts on her own proposal... ~50B $$ for 25M people... And comment on how some percentage would qualify for medicaid (social medicine)... did someone not mention that with these number of people entering into medicaid, somehow, medicaid would have to get more money anyhow?!?!?! Yep, MEDICAID WANTS TO KILL OLD PEOPLE.

      Thus: time to abolish medicare, medicaid, and tell everyone to go f-ing buy their own damn insurance.... or die.

      So damn frustrating... f- all of this.

    • 6 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • kingfugazi
  • socaly4life
  • bailey78
  • ras_menelik
  • artemis6
  • MilchMann
    • 0
      MilchMann  

    • Honestly, I was a little disappointed with this interview. I felt that he was not as prepared for this as he should have been. This laughable excuse of a human being named McCaughey opened herself up for Crammer style thrashings of facts on about 5 different occasions... and all John had to say was that he did not believe that. That is weak sauce in my book, and in reality she won that debate... the only thing that John Stewart managed to do was get in some small quips about the validity of her sources... and then he provided none.

    • 6 months ago
  • lucidstone
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  
    • MilchMann:

      Did you expect him to read the bill, or something?

      I noticed that instead of entertaining her distractions (throwing out false numbers in hopes of follow ups to trail the conversation off in another direction) he stayed on the goal of the interview: making her look like an idiot for bringing up the "death panel" bullshit in the first place.

      I agree, she was full of plenty of shit, but shoveling it around wouldn't have gotten him to the goal.

    • 6 months ago
  • Ish05
    • 0
      Ish05  
    • MilchMann:

      Well Milchmann, as you can see by most of the replies on this thread, the people have their minds made up. You can read the proposed bill to them, point out the implications of the bill, and people will willfully deny any evidence being presented to them. That is why it is going to take a very long time to get back to the principles of this nation, if ever.

    • 6 months ago
  • MilchMann
    • 0
      MilchMann  
    • MilchMann:

      Point well taken Ish05... I am stuborn though, so I continue to appease people and answer their questions.

      When she started in on the government penalizing doctors for not following procedures bit... that is because procedures haven be proven to save lives.

      Hospitals put incoming patients into things called DRG's (Diagnostic Related Groups). Medicare and Medicaid require patients to be put into a DRG and the guidelines to be followed during the care of the patient. These guidelines are exactly what they say, guidelines, if the doctor feels that there needs to be a change they can use APS-DRG's to do just that (APS-DRG's are used for severity of diagnosis). These systems are proven to work, a specific one that has been implemented in hospitals over the last few years is the
      ACSETS or Acute Coronary Syndrome Emergency Treatment Strategies... and it has cut down on coronary deaths by 20%.

      http://managedhealthcareexecutive.modernmedicine.com/mhe/News+Analysis/ER-strate...

      This woman is running around touting that doctors will be penalized for not following DRG's when in fact they are already required to do so on what is considered the best health care in the nation Medicare... with its 90%+ approval rating of its clients... who also are more prone to needing to use their health insurance.

      Interestingly enough... DRG's are based off of compiled evidence of what works... like john said, but he was ignorant of the fact that these things are already being done.

      There are inconsistencies with what the president has said about the funding of health care and what this woman was trying to pass of as well that she could have been called out on with hard facts as well... John did a terrible job of retorting to this claim the first time it came up... he did a decent job when he pulled her into it the second time.

      She goes on to claim that removing health care from direct control of congress is a political decision... which it is, but she wants to say it is to protect members of congress... when in reality it is to protect the health care from lobbyists and this has been stated publicly as the reasoning... that and to put it in the hands of people who actually know about medical care.

      With that... I say no, I would not have expected him to read the bill, though I imagine he may have read a fair amount of it... what he should have done is look for the empirical facts that refute what he knew was going to be brought up... John Stewart did a sub par job on this one... if we are holding him to the standards of John Stewart that is.

    • 6 months ago
  • CreditFigaro
    • 0
      CreditFigaro  
    • MilchMann:

      Well, we can agree to disagree on that. You are totally right about all of these truths, and I simply feel that his approach was more effective at achieving the goal of the interview.

      What we won't be able to agree to disagree on is that we aren't holding him to the standard of John Stewart, we are holding him to the standards of Jon Stewart. ;-)

    • 6 months ago
  • lucidstone
    • 0
      lucidstone  

    • "Hem, hem."

      Wow . . . she is so well rehearsed in her theatrics, mannerisms, intonations . . . she's an effing Grade A proffesional bullshitter. I felt like I was watching "Thank You For Smoking".

      The level of constant "polite" condescension she was exhibiting towards Stewart was staggering. She'd make a questionable point and follow it up with patriotic message to try and block rebuttal. She tried to make a direct plea to the audience to question Stewart's character by openly insinuating that he doesn't care because he's a rich man . . . and knows exactly what she is doing with every calculated move.

      That woman is pure evil, the real life embodiement of Dolores Umbridge, I despise this woman down to her pink fingernails . . . just, effing, wow.

    • 6 months ago
  • onemalefla
  • chasingame
    • 0
      chasingame  

    • Dumb bitch. She makes Medicare sound like the best thing since sliced bread and then defends the current insurance system. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that her job is to just try to scare people that are on medicare out of supporting health care reform. They got Beck scaring the crazies. O'Reilly stirring up the short fused red necks. Hannity lining up the idiots. And this bitch trying to scare those on medicare. Put that along with their regular "news" programming it would seem that the bought and paid for Faux Fucking Media Machine has covered most of its bases. I just wish the people that follow and believe these jag offs would pull their heads out of their collective asses and see it for what it is. With the help of Fox News THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY IS RAPING THIS COUNTRY AND WE ARE LETTING THEM DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • 6 months ago
  • hollyMiamiFla
  • clownpuncher
  • chasingame
  • macfan
  • macfan
  • atomiclegion
  • Jessica_Sarsgaard
  • beingwoman
    • 0
      beingwoman  
    • Jessica_Sarsgaard:

      Yeah, allot- Bill Moyer posts the bonus CEO get each quarter- and this last one in July. The most was 30 millions dollars the least was 9 million. And this is their bonus for one quarter. No wonder there is this fight. Greedy, greedy, greedy. Shameless and vulgar.
      We need public, government healthcare and then we need to put the insurence companies out of business.
      They are not needed- just a middle man raping our country.

    • 6 months ago
  • lifestudentno83
  • Valentin0o
  • lifestudentno83

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