Clinton ‘Told True Tale of Woe’
07 April 2008 6:14 pm by Taylor Marsh
See
NoQuarter for the background on this story.
Here’s Ann
Kornblutt’s late breaking story, which she teased on David Gregory’s show
today, that corrects the record:
For weeks, Clinton repeated an anecdote she heard in Ohio on Feb. 28 involving
a young woman who lost her baby and later died because she lacked health insurance
and did not have $100 to gain access to a nearby hospital.But over the weekend, Clinton came under fire when officials at O’Bleness
Memorial Hospital, after reading about her remarks, demanded that she stop
recounting it because the patient, Trina Bechtel, was admitted there and did
have insurance.That part, it turns out, is true. But so is Clinton’s claim that Bechtel
did not get care at another hospital that wanted a $100 pre-payment before
seeing her, according to the young woman’s aunt, Lisa Casto. “It’s a
true story,” said Casto, 53. … ..But court records show that Bechtel had a civil judgment against her by the
Holzer Hospital Foundation for the amount of $4,426, entered in 2002, which
was repaid in 2005. A call to an official at Holzer Medical Center, which
is run by the foundation, in Ohio was not immediately returned.Casto said her niece, who suffered from preeclampsia during her pregnancy,
did not seek care at the first hospital she when she fell ill because she
knew she did not have the $100 out-of-pocket she believed she would need to
be seen. Instead, she went to O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, where her baby
was stillborn. Bechtel was later flown to Columbus and died there. She was
35.Casto said she has been stunned by the amount of negative attention
her niece’s story generated, and that she was sorry it had hurt the Clinton
campaign. She was, and is, she said, a supporter. “Did I vote for Hillary?”
she said. “You’d better bet I did.”
Will the people who got this story wrong correct the record?
Maybe you should help them along. First stop, Andrea Mitchell.
