Going after McCaughey

I just finished moderating DL21C's debate in Manhattan between Anthony Weiner and Betsy McCaughey (of which, I hope, video soon), and couldn't help being struck by the difference in the reception to her 1994 New Republic article, which won her a National Magazine Award, despite White House fury, and the frontal assault on her this year.

Weiner devoted about a third of his opening statement to a frontal assault on McCaughey, who he said represented the worst of the health care debate. As she frowned nearby, and to occasional gasps and shouts of "rude man" from her supporters in the audience, he cited the headline of today's New Republic takedown: "The Never-Ending Lunacy of Betsy McCaughey" ; he cited her "pants on fire" rating from Politifact; he told her the thick binder she was holding was the "wrong bill" -- or at least an out-of-date version of the House bill; he noted that her think tank takes money from PhRMA; and he later said he felt like he was debating a "pyromaniac in a straw man factory."

He seemed to be echoing the structure of the last such frontal attack on McCaughey: economist Henry Aaron's appearance on a panel with her at which he ran "through PowerPoint slides that detail--quote by excruciating quote--McCaughey's reputation as among the most irresponsible, dishonest, and destructive players on the public stage."

Some of McCaughey's claims have been substantially debunked, or don't match up with the current legislation. Others are broader conservative health care critiques. In either case, she's nowhere near the player she was in 1994 -- in part perhaps because she's seen as a partisan, not an honest broker, and that's due in no small part to the relentless, effective assault from the left, a refighting of the last war that ensures they won't lose that battle, at least.

One element of the debate's substance also interested me: McCaughey made the case that American health care spending is not excessive, and that Americans spend more because we "earn more" and want more and better health care. It's a case the organized health industry wouldn't dare make for itself in the face of demands from Congress that it cut costs, and one that leads her to argue that the best way to deal with what she sees as the only crisis -- a number of uninsured she puts a bit over 10 million -- is simply to spend $500 billion insuring them.

McCaughey also allowed that one form of government intervention is positive: The practice of refusing to reimburse hospitals for treating infections contracted in the hospital, which is the focus of the group she now heads.