Betsy McCaughey--still bat sh!# crazy

Jon Stewart reading verbatim the H.R. 3200 to Betsy McCaughey that the end of life consultation spelling out exactly what life sustaining treatment the patient will be willing to receive. Below is the pertinent part of the legislation that read aloud, with McCaughey declaring immediately afterward that 'sustaining treatment' meant ending life and she had written "disgusting" on her personal copy of H.R. 3200.

17 INITIATIVE FOR END OF LIFE CARE.—
18 (1) PHYSICIAN’S QUALITY REPORTING INITIA
19TIVE.—Section 1848(k)(2) of the Social Security Act
20 (42 U.S.C. 1395w–4(k)(2)) is amended by adding at
21 the end the following new paragraphs:
22 ‘‘(3) PHYSICIAN’S QUALITY REPORTING INITIA
23TIVE.—
24 ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of re
25porting data on quality measures for covered

432

1 professional services furnished during 2011 and
2 any subsequent year, to the extent that meas
3ures are available, the Secretary shall include
4 quality measures on end of life care and ad
5vanced care planning that have been adopted or
6 endorsed by a consensus-based organization, if
7 appropriate. Such measures shall measure both
8 the creation of and adherence to orders for life
9sustaining treatment.
10 ‘‘(B) PROPOSED SET OF MEASURES.—The
11 Secretary shall publish in the Federal Register
12 proposed quality measures on end of life care
13 and advanced care planning that the Secretary
14 determines are described in subparagraph (A)
15 and would be appropriate for eligible profes
16sionals to use to submit data to the Secretary.
17 The Secretary shall provide for a period of pub
18lic comment on such set of measures before fi
19nalizing such proposed measures.’’.

I've met McCaughey when she was running for Democratic nomination for governor in 1998. My initial personal reaction upon meeting her was "Wow, she's a deer caught in headlights." She abandoned the Republican party because being the incumbent Lt. Governor was unacceptable to her after being pulled from her career of being a right-wing columnist without ever running for elective office.

Howard Dean for Secretary of HHS

Tom Daschle succumbed to tax scandal has withdrawn his nomination to head the Department of Health & Human Services. There probably is no better person to oversee health care reform than Dr. Howard Dean (former DNC chairman, 2004 Democratic canidate, former VT Governor that overhauled health care to provided every child in the state with health coverage.) The knowledge of the health care system that Dean would bring to the position would be invaluable to the Obama administration as well as the nation and to providing real solutions to national health care crisis.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Dean had put forward in his stump speech the need for incremental changes for health care to end up down the road to be universal. He had said that the failure of Hillary's health care in 1993 was because of the attempt to jump directly to full coverage.