Weiner Battles McCaughey In Explosive Health Care Debate

Daily Beast:

If you like partisan combat, the New York University/Langone Medical Center in Manhattan was the place to be Monday night. Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and the leading purveyor of discredited right-wing health-care rumors, squared off against U.S. Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, a once and future mayoral hopeful who's called for a complete federal takeover of health care.

The results were as explosive as advertised, bringing the virulence of a summer town hall meeting--complete with heckling, shouts of "liar!" and signs conjuring socialism to one of America's most liberal zip codes.

Read the whole story: Daily Beast

Comments

[robertbeatty]

02:06 PM on 10/09/2009

How can anyone believe what Congressman Anthony Weiner says?

Unfortunately, Congressman Weiner will say anything to support his arguments, regardless of whether or not it is true.

In a debate on Lou Dobbs Tonight, Congressman Weiner asserted no less than six times, that illegal immigrants would not be able to purchase health insurance through the Health Insurance Exchange established by HR 3200. In fact he stated specifically, "We policymakers have already said you can't sign up for insurance, you can't sign up for any of the benefits if you're not documented. That's easy to verify and that's in the law."

He was even brazen enough to say, "I will show you the page in the bill."

I have been waiting for three weeks for Congressman Weiner or his staff to do just that.

It turns out his own staff knows that this is a lie!

In an email from Weiner Washington staffer, Marie Ternes, she states, "undocumented immigrants would be allowed to participate in the insurance exchange."

So why does Weiner continue to spew lies?

Why don't you call and ask him: [phone]

[LOU LOU]

02:23 PM on 10/07/2009

I don't live in his district, but I'm writing a check to Anthony Weiner. Will his gov't run health insurance plan allow us to clone him? Bravo Anthony!

[ReelBusy]

02:16 PM on 10/07/2009

Watch the entire 1 hour and 22 minute debate here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1h9m2teWU4&feature=player_profilepage

[BlueDog1]

10:58 AM on 10/07/2009

This woman is programed and if your conversation is not assoicated with her programming she just continues to talk about her programing, "It's Bluecross Stupid"

[Bozwellian]

09:00 PM on 10/08/2009

(...ah, anyone remember when BLUE CROSS first came about as a NON PROFIT ? Long , LONG ago ...these days they rape profits like ALL others in the insurance biz and with little care of the "consumers" or patients in need of proper treatments.
As for Betsy, she is from the GOP stable of yak-ables --they have honed the group and the groupspeak they all abusvely use when regurgitating their fancified notions ...Have often wonddered why the Dems or others do NOT have simlars able to regurgitate THEIR talking points --too often they , the Dems come off as thinking it perhaps too beneath them or is it that they truly figure folks DO have abilities to think things out and make best of choices in whatever the options up ped and etc...Never quite sure and awlways amazed at the ease that somes off so effortlessly to gurgle and garble the righteous notions no matter how ill founded and lacking actual factoids--they lie with such impunity , and yes do indeed mean LIE , outrightly LIE and some actually do believe their OWN lies so guess that is how they keep on keeping on and ever mouthing off !

[windup]

08:51 AM on 10/07/2009

Every interview BM has is ugly because she lies through her teeth. This one was great because her main lie is about how concerned she is for seniors, and here they got her to admit that in order to cut costs she supports a proposed plan to increase the minimum age for getting medicare to 70. That means that future seniors between 65 and 70 will have no health insurance if they aren't working and getting it through employers. Since that's an age when most people need medical care, that should certainly cut costs and most of them will probably die before they hit they are eligible for Medicare. The Dem. from Florida was not wrong.

[Witchitalineman]

08:01 AM on 10/07/2009

I like Anthony Weiner. We need more of him or her in congress.

[ReelBusy]

02:18 PM on 10/07/2009

Sorry, Cloning isn't covered and having DNA is a pre-exsisting condition.

[PhilipTaylor]

06:58 AM on 10/07/2009

A MUST SEE INTERVIEW WITH ANTHONY WEINER On Oct 6, 2009:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_meeting

I just saw Dylan Ratigan and Anthony Weiner and the Right-Wing De@th-Panel woman Betsy ? on Morning Meeting and it was AMAZING!

Betsy was arguing she wanted to protect Seniors by NOT letting people who are in their 40's get Medicare until they are 70! Weiner tore her a NEW ONE!

Dylan kept forcing her to answer questions and finally she and Weiner agreed that Competition between Insurers was the Way to go!

[Tommygun264]

07:21 AM on 10/07/2009

The only thing I didn't like about the appearance on Dylan Ratigan was they put "(R) Former New York Lt. Governor" after her name, as if she is there speaking as a representative of the pub party. She may be a pub and have once held office, but she is currently financed by a medical supply company, the same one that forced her to step down from their board of directors the morning after Jon Stewart pulled the page out of her prop binder (typed on one side of each page with empty line spaces between each line in order to make the large Bill look gigantic) and proved her claims about death panels were a lie. She may have been fired from the board, but she still owns her shares and collects a salary as their shill. MSNBC should have put "paid representative of health care supply corporation" after her name because that's her current job.

[arvay]

05:28 AM on 10/07/2009

The problem is that too few Americans know enough about the issues to realize that McCaughey is a fraud and Wiener is not only expert, but way ahead of the Obama administration on health care.

[jjgg5]

01:20 AM on 10/07/2009

Didn't Eric Cantor say he would debate Anthony Weiner about healthcare reform? If so, I bet Mr. Cantor has changed his mind.

[Zen0469]

01:11 AM on 10/07/2009

Betsy certainly caught her lumps. Perhaps we should have more of these thumping occasions. It might cause her to tell fewer lies.

[alice09]

01:05 AM on 10/07/2009

No way the people who cried out and held signs of socialism were New Yorkers (the city). They were either paid operatives or imported to support her or came from other areas. Ok, maybe a very wild duck or two. We don't live in that phobic fantasy land here. And the cries of liar don't wring true either, unless it was to her who has been disproven time and time again and yet continues to lie despite it.

[pinkyboo]

12:36 AM on 10/07/2009

what a looniecrazybitch.

[sweetwhine]

12:45 AM on 10/07/2009

How did you guess her middle name?

[BlackWidowPilot]

11:55 PM on 10/06/2009

I am "...not profitable enough" according to the nice Blue Shield/Blue Cross broker I managed to get off the record over seven years ago, 'cause I'm self-employed and disabled.

That broker was nice enough to explain that I would "...never get private health insurance sir, you're self-employed and have degenerative arthritis, you're simply not profitable enough!"

That some people still assert that the deaths of circa 15,000 Americans including *children* each year due to lack of access to affordable healthcare is acceptable, that placing corporate profits of a very few insurance industry CEOs over the very lives of thousands of Americans each year is somehow morally defensible, simply beggars belief, and only exposes the utter intellectual and moral bankruptcy of creatures like Betsy McCaughey that seek to defend the status quo of corporate profits over human life.

Leland R. Erickson

Citizen

One of the 47 Million

[PlinytheYounger]

11:31 PM on 10/06/2009

One problem with a person with the perspective and half-truths (and outright lies) that McCaughey presents is that we pretend they bring another side to a story.

It is necessary to present all relevant sides of an issue, but if one side represents lies and a complete lack of understanding of the issue they deserve to be ignored. Why give them a platform to vomit their drivel?

We might as well have someone shouting down the meteorologist during the morning news because he/she is a closet communist because they won't confess it's going to snow in July. If we don't, how can we be fair and balanced?

[enoughalready13]

12:55 AM on 10/07/2009

Money will make people say anything ... it is the ultimate corruptor.

She is getting paid BIG BUCKS to spew nonsense.

[alice09]

01:20 AM on 10/07/2009

i've been saying this everywhere I could. A false impression is created because these people are presented as a reasonable "other side" who represent the opinions of the same number of people as those in reality.
By presenting views this way, a fake reality is created by the media that then affects reality and decision makers.

[layman]

11:07 PM on 10/06/2009

This woman lied about having a PHD. on Jon Steward's show. What else has she lied about. She's total fraud.

[fem56]

12:11 AM on 10/07/2009

Phd in constitutional history.