Last night, Jon Stewart's guest was Betsy McCaughey, a former Lieutentant Governor of New York who keeps popping up in health care debates to spread what even some who kinda side with her describe as misinformation. She's been given a lot of credit for crafting lies — and I'm convinced they were, pure and simple, premeditated lies — that sank the "Hillarycare" initiative. She seems to have helped launch the "death panels" whopper about the current proposals. The interview ran long and was truncated for air but you can watch the whole thing over at the Daily Show website. (I'd embed it but they're probably getting so many hits over there than an embed here would move like you were connected to the Internet via a Dixie Cup and string.)
It was one of those interviews where your reaction will depend a lot on what you want to believe. If you think, as I do, that we're in a place where some people will say (and even convince themselves of) any stupid thing that will kill "Obamacare," then Stewart eviscerated her. If you want to see the proposals nuked, then I guess she held her own in a hostile environment. There were many spots throughout the discussion where I wished that one had let the other finish a sentence that was already in progress.
James Fallows points out some of the flaws in her argument…and Mr. Stewart came close to a point I think should be made in all this. Even if you can somehow parse and twist some clause in the bill to seem to say that doctors will be rewarded for forcing patients to adhere to advanced directives if they change their minds, that's not anyone's intent. There is, in any doctor-patient relationship, a certain amount of minimal trust that has to exist. They all hinge on the presumption that your doctor, whoever he or she is and whatever the laws may be, isn't sitting there thinking that they can make an extra $25 if they prescribe what's bad for you. If your doctor's thinking like that, you're in big trouble, regardless of how the laws are written…or even if nothing gets changed.