Hillary and the Emergency Room

I complained a couple of days ago about Hillary telling a story that may not be true. I'd like to examine this in more detail. First, here's the story as it was told to her by Sheriff's Deputy Bryan Holman.

"I'd like to tell you a story of a young woman I know that didn't have health insurance. She worked at a little pizza place around here, and she was pregnant and worked, of course, for minimum wage. She went to the hospital, and the hospital told her that she needed a $100 up front, which she didn't have."

He continued, "Of course, didn't make a lot of money. So they had billed her a couple times for it. And after getting pregnant she went back, like I say, went back again. They told her she needed $100, which she didn't have. And so they refused to see her because of-- she had a bill and stuff from being there before. So she went to another local hospital, and they'd seen her and stopped her labor and told her to come back in two days. Well, before she got back within those two days, her baby died."

Hillary grimaced.

"So they life-flighted her to a hospital in Columbus, and within 15 days, she died," Holman added. "And they come to find out that they'd misdiagnosed what the problem was. And it was a smaller hospital and didn't have the needs to take care of what she needed at that time. But-- her family and them think that if she'd had good insurance and stuff and was taken care of at the first hospital, of course, that had the medical needs to take care of her, that her and her baby would, you know, of course, they'd still be here. That's just, you know, I think that the health insurance thing really needs to be addressed and for people, you know, who work for minimum wage and different things."

Without verify any of the details, Hillary started repeating this story at campaign stops. Recently a hospital complained that the facts were wrong. The woman did have insurance and was treated. Hillary supporters have pointed out that the story mentions three hospitals. The first one remains un-named and is the one that turned the woman away. It was the second hospital that complained. I don't think that this matters.

The first point is that Hillary was using this story to promote some form of nationalized health care but she heard the story second-hand and repeated it without verifying any details. It does not matter if any of the story was true or not. What matters is that she did not know. That's no way to justify legislation that will affect the entire country.

The second point is that there are problems with the story. According to the deputy the woman was turned away from a hospital because she couldn't pay $100. Federal law says that emergency rooms cannot turn people away because of inability to pay. If a hospital did turn her away it would have been for a standard prenatal checkup. There is nothing in the story to show that a prenatal checkup would have made a difference.

The third point is that one of the hospitals involved says that she did have insurance.

Finally there is the expected end result. The second hospital mis-diagnosed the problems. Deputy Holman is sure that the first hospital would have provided a proper diagnosis and he seems to think that, if we provided insurance to everyone, then hospitals would be better equipped or that people could skip the smaller hospitals and go straight to the betters ones. That's not how nationalized health care has worked in other countries. If you provide health care free of charge then the demand overwhelms the supply. The government looks for ways to cut costs and hospitals end up under-equipped and under-staffed.

But none of this matters to Hillary. She sees a chance to use a sad story to get into the White House.