Betsy McCaughey, Dylan Ratigan Spar Over Health Care Reform

Betsy McCaughey is a famous liar whom the media keep inviting on their programs to continue to lie about health care, instead of banishing her to some wilderness, where she belongs, to lie to woodland creatures. And so, today she ended up on Dylan Ratigan's Morning Meeting with Representative Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). There was a brief, mad moment where I thought that this might end well, but it didn't.

I'm getting used to the tactics McCaughey deploys in situations like this: heavy-duty pretense that she supports health care reform, the Palin-esque answer-a-question-with-an-answer-to-a-question-of-her-liking technique, the ability to quickly provide information and opinion that's completely beside the point, et cetera. Unfortunately, Ratigan wanted to have a discussion on health care competition and cost containment, and that didn't dovetail too well with what McCaughey prefers to do in such a debate: set aside all substantive issues so that she can fearmonger about seniors being killed by the government.

McCaughey did her best, though, defaulting to the secondary position of insisting that there wasn't enough tort reform in the bill. Ratigan was quick to point out that as a cost-containment measure, tort reform would be a spectacularly insignificant one: "Why would you start with tort reform when you have an aniti-trust exemption for insurance companies?" Weiner attempted to inject actual facts, noting that the CBO determined that eliminating 30 percent of all tort claims would yield marginal savings of .04 percent, because most of the states already cap tort claims.

And so, McCaughey just unleashed her SENIOR CITIZEN HEALTH CARE APOCALYPSE nonsense, accusing Weiner of being ignorant and telling Ratigan that he wasn't a "fair moderator," to which Ratigan replied, "Well, you're not a fair answerer." Ratigan gamely attempted to get McCaughey to reconcile how she'd continue to provide the current level of unsustainable funding to Medicare without updating the system to address its inefficiencies, to no avail.

McCAUGHEY: This will go down in history as one of the most browbeating interviews in television history.

RATIGAN: I hope that it does, and maybe you'll learn to go on television to answer questions as opposed to casting accusations.

I doubt that very much!

WATCH:

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PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST:
Betsy McCaughey's Ideas Called "Hyperbolic... Dangerous" By Jon Stewart (VIDEO)

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Comments

[Sobeton]

McCAUGHEY got owned! No BS on the morning meeting..

[helenwheels]

Corporate commun!sm? Hmmm.... seems more like corporate fasc!sm to me.

[Greg2000]

And Dylan was the first to call the Obama administration out about their complaisance to wall-street excess,besides HuffPo.

[Greg2000]

It was really an exceptional interview where you have a very knowledgeable journalist who actually could count from 1 to 10 unlike Wolf Blitzer. Had we had three news anchors like that, we wouldn't have never had the health-care fever we had last august.

[TexDemo]

The best place for a tool is in the woodshed, and Dylan and Weiner accomplished just that--way to go, boys!

[Malkin72]

I really like Dylan.

His focus on incentives is what is missing from most debates.

Human nature is what it is...therefore people need to be incentivized properly.

[Catita]

The real "hero" of this conversation has been Weiner. He was one of the first congressmen to come out swinging for health care reform and the public option. He stood up on his ideals and did not buck down to following the weak democrats who can't even must the votes to pass a water down bill.

[PoliticalJunkie67]

A shrill shill if there ever was one.

[somama4bean]

O.K. - dedicated liberal here...but come on people...I have seen Ms. Betsy at work on a number of shows and yeah, she's a hard pill to swallow...but McHaughy and Ratigan's behavior did not make me proud. They came off as school yard bullies and chauvinist pigs. Seemed like they could have turned it down a notch and still made for "ratings worthy" TV - and maintained some semblance of dignity for all involved.

[Malkin72]

Why are THEY chauvanist pigs?

Because the woman couldn't hold her own?

Don't get in the game if your opponents have to toss you softballs.

[Malkin72]

Also, why does that simpleton, Betsy McHaughy, deserve ANY semblence of dignity?

She and her lies are trying their hardest to deny health care to people who need it. She deserves nothing.

[iMissMollyIvins]

Wasn't McCaughey Linda Blair's stunt double in The Exorcist?

[Perry Clease]

The elephant in the room is the GOP

[NRI1969]

McCaughey is insufferable.

[TruGal]

Ratigan rattled Betsy the bully.

[SteevK]

She's Orly Taitz without the accent "Let me finish!!" and spending half her time accusing the host of bias...
.

[thundermummy]

Wow. She really is full of crap.