Clinton's healthcare anecdote grounded in errors: Almost everything wrong

[dkf]

The emergence of Trina Bachtel into the 2008 presidential campaign was the result of inaccurate information passed on to Clinton, her campaign's failure to vet the account and the neglect of news organizations to promptly check out the story.

As it turns out, almost none of what Clinton said was accurate. Bachtel was insured through her job managing a pizza restaurant, she was under the regular care of an obstetrics facility in Athens, and she had been part of the O'Bleness Health System in Ohio.
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Bachtel was manager for about six years of the Gallipolis Pizza Hut, where her benefits included health insurance, said Stanley Jarvis, a regional manager for the restaurant chain and a friend of Bachtel's.

In 2005, she joined the O'Bleness Health System in Athens, according to Linda Weiss, a spokeswoman for O'Bleness.

During her pregnancy in 2007, Bachtel was under the care of River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology, which is part of the O'Bleness system and across the parking lot from O'Bleness' hospital in Athens.

According to Jane Broecker, an obstetrician at River Rose, Bachtel made 14 visits between Feb. 8 and July 31. "She came regularly for appointments," Broecker said.

In addition, records made available by O'Bleness show that Bachtel visited the hospital seven times in 2007 on an outpatient basis. Six of those visits took place on the same day she had been at River Rose.

On Aug. 1, Bachtel was admitted to O'Bleness, where her baby boy was stillborn. Two days later, she was transferred to Riverside Hospital in Columbus and finally to Ohio State University Medical Center, where she died Aug. 15.

Bachtel died of adult respiratory distress, with pneumonia and liver failure contributing to her death, her death certificate says.

Broecker said that even if Bachtel had not been insured, she would have been treated at O'Bleness. "The hospital is a charity provider," Broecker said. "We don't turn pregnant patients away."

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2008/04/11/hilflap.ART_ART_04-11-08_A1_UE9T91B.html?sid=101

[Raven]

1. Thanks for the research you've done. Wouldn't you think that

someone would have enough respect for the dead to have vetted this story, talked to the family, gotten it right or not used it?

[dkf]

2. How awful for the family. I agree.