Here's part 1 that was aired. After it's over, part 2 will start, but instead go to the second embedded video which shows the full part 2 (though they call it extended part 1) and then all of the rest (extended part 2).
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Betsy McCaughey Pt. 1 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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A few things strike me about this interview. First, I haven't seen anything else on TV that actually read from the bill. Second, they do cut each other off a lot, but they also manage to let each other finish. Third, Stewart had obviously read the bill and lots of background info and could bring it up off the top of his head. He's more knowledgeable on the facts than any other journalist I've seen on TV. I don't think any of the news anchors could do that or any of the cable pundits aside from possibly Rachel Maddow. Fourth, Stewart can do that while being brief and funny and his guests aren't used to the forum and are at a disadvantage, and the audience's cheers don't help that.
I've been reading the bill too and parts are difficult. McCaughey mentions some of the issues; something that sounds good in one part can be different because of some other part. Much of it is just changes to existing laws and only lists the modifications and you need the full context. That said, the troubling part is she says she thinks the purpose of the bill is to deny old people care. Maybe that came across badly from the pressure of the show, but still. It sounds like she might have some issues with the wording of the language that could be tweaked to solve the issues, rather than throwing out the whole thing. If her only issue is that doctors will be incented to ignore patients when they want to change their living will at the last minute, then that sounds like something that could easily be fixed. She also says it will cut medicare by $500 billion from Medicare and that will kill old people but the other complaint with the bill is that it will cost too much.
Jon Stewart provided the most time of anything on national TV to get to the details of the issue. Including actually reading the bill. He had on someone who could speak authoritatively and gave her plenty of time (24 minutes). It wasn't completely successful at getting her point across, but wow it was good and I hope it happens more and improves even more.
4 comments:
Just saw this interview and couldn't believe it. Does she really believe that this bill somehow mandates that physicians talk about how they will force you to die? I just read the relevant section, and it truly says nothing of the kind.
It says it will pay for a DISCUSSION of end-of-life care every five years, or more frequently if a patient's condition is deteriorating. It states, quite specifically, that "the level of treatment may...range from an indication for full treatment to limit some or all specified treatment." (p 430, line 12). In fact, this is 10 lines above where she was mis-stating that the bill forces doctors to withdraw nutrition and hydration from the ill.
I don't understand how a bill that allows a conversation in which a patient says to do "full treatment" in any way constitutes government ordered "death panels".
Yeah, I don't get that either. And given I just spent the past 5 days learning a little bit about PQRI, I think I can make a mostly-uneducated assumption that patients are allowed to change their minds and the doctor would still get paid. The idea of PQRI, in my opinion, is that a)there's a rule that the doc needs to have a discussion with the patient and b)he needs to have the discussion according to the law's direction. Whether or not the patient says, "okay fine, I'll take the gold plated enema" is immaterial. The doc simply reports that he had the talk. Also if I understand correctly, in order to get your medicare reimbursement you only have to send in a set number of measures per month, not EVERY measure. But I'm a little unclear on that part.
But one interesting thing I thought she brought to the table was the subject of moving the medicare decision making to an independent panel instead of being in the hands of elected officials. Forget about the bogosity of her claims that we'll cut funding for old people for a sec. What she said about how this independent panel could make decisions simply on a cost analysis instead of on what the PEOPLE want...that was interesting. I'm not saying it's accurate or right, but it's worth some further discussion.
The point of the independent panel is I think to take politics out of the decisions. That should be a good thing. Also to have some experts on the panel making decisions instead of congressmen.
Certainly. As long as it's a healthy mix of doctoa and bean counters rather than just bean counters.
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