Former Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey is the Instigator Behind the Right Wing Firestorm Over Fictitious "Death Panels" in Health Care Reform

If former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is getting her talking points from former New York Lt. governor Betsy McCaughey about the fictitious health care "death panels," then she is far dumber than I thought. New Yorkers will remember McCaughey most for oddly standing throughout Gov. George Pataki's 1996 State of the State speech - then running against him after he dumped her from his ticket. This is the last person who the public needs to take serious. Betsy McCaughey is in this dogfight just for the monetary gains. Where has she been all these years since Pataki kicked her off his ticket? I can't recall seeing her leading the charge for any type of health care reform in New York state and dare I say, the country.

McCaughey, 60, is back and proclaiming herself as a self-styled expert whose writings on Obama's health care plans. The problem is that many other Republicans are echoing her sentiments and they are patently wrong. Even the AARP Executive Vice President John Rother has said "Betsy McCaughey's recent commentary on health care reform in various media outlets is rife with gross - and even cruel - distortions." Still the Republicans continue to lend credence to this lie.

"I believe it's an important public service," McCaughey said yesterday of her commentaries, which spin snippets of legislative language and medical-journal essays by a few Obama advisers to paint a terrifying picture.

"Members of Congress haven't been reading this bill, and I think that's shameful," she added. Others say what's shameful is McCaughey's distortions of the Democratic-backed House bill, specifically a section on "end-of-life" consultations that Palin -in a Facebook screed - dubbed "Obama's 'death panel." Source: NY Daily News

The truth is that the bill section simply aims to provide Medicare coverage for once-every-five-year conversations with doctors over what life-prolonging measures, if any, a patient wants taken in the event of a terminal illness or injury. Hello people, this idea was first championed by a conservative Republican senator, Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who seems to be distancing himself from even that fact. McCaughey didn't bother to do her research, she just ran with this lie, providing back-up for Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Chuck Grassley and others, by sounding the "death panel" alarm.

McCaughey got the ball rolling on former senator Fred Thompson's radio show on July 16, when she called the bill "a vicious assault on elderly people" that will "cut your life short." She then wrote a column July 24 that claimed Obama advisers don't want to "give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy."

Sorry, but it seems to me that Ms. McCaughey, who was formerly married to billionaire Wilbur Ross, only motivation in this matter is money. According to the NY Daily News, she has collected some $23,600 per year in board fees and options from a drugmaking company, Genta Inc., although she resigned in 2007. She remains on the board of medical equipment company Cantel Medical Group, pulling in $30,000 in fees yearly.

Photo credit: Betsy McCaughey, NY Daily News