RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hillary in 2008

Sunday, April 6, 2008 2:05 AM MDT

Officials with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign have acknowledged a health care anecdote in her recent stump speeches, including at least one in Wyoming in March, may not have been true and wasn't thoroughly checked for accuracy, according to a New York Times story published Saturday.
Since Ohio's March 4 primary, Clinton has shared the story of an 35-year-old Ohio woman who worked for minimum wage in a pizza parlor and died after giving birth to a stillborn child. The woman was uninsured, Clinton said, and twice denied medical care at a local hospital because she couldn't pay a $100 fee up front.
Trina Bachtel did die in Columbus last August two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio, the New York Times reported.
But hospital administrators said Friday that 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, according to the Times.
"We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” O'Bleness Health System CEO Rick Castrop told the newspaper.
"We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient,” Castrop said. Any implication that the system was “involved in denying care is definitely not true.”

During her March 7 rally at Casper College, Clinton said she hoped her administration would get to a place where there is quality, affordable health care for all, and recounted the story of the Ohio woman.
“It hurts me to know that in this rich, good country, this woman and baby died because they couldn’t come up with $100,” Clinton said.
When Bachtel returned to the hospital she came in an ambulance, she said. Doctors were not able to save the baby and the woman died later, Clinton said.
She learned of the story from a Meigs County deputy sheriff whose home she visited while campaigning in Ohio. She told the story as recently as late Friday in Grand Forks, N.D.
Clinton has not named Bachtel or the hospital in her speeches, The New York Times reported.
However, Clinton's anecdote implicitly and inaccurately accuses that hospital of turning Bachtel away, hospital spokeswoman Linda M. Weiss told the newspaper.
Instead, the O’Bleness health care system treated her, both at the hospital and at the affiliated River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology practice, Weiss said.
Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee acknowledged that the campaign had tried but hadn't been able to "fully vet" the story before she began repeating it on the campaign trail, according to the Times.
"If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that and she won't repeat the story," Elleithee said.