Death panel originator Betsy McCaughey resigns in disgrace

August 21, 8:08 PMPortland Progressive ExaminerMichael Stone

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   Betsy McCaughey

Death panel originator Betsy McCaughey resigns in disgrace after humiliating herself on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. An obviously prepared and informed Stewart calmly demonstrated McCaughey's entire position on health care reform to be as solid as Swiss cheese.

McCaughey, former Lt. Gov. of New York, is given credit as the originator of the death panel myth. This false claim that Democrats’ health care reform proposals will lead to the creation of “death panels,” has been a staple of the Republican campaign of misinformation and dirty tricks.

The "unplugging grandma" meme has been a successful diversion and distraction to meaningful and relevant discussion about health care reform.

Host Jon Stewart met with a great deal of success as he aggressively challenged McCaughey's positions on health care reform.

From Media Matters:

After previously backtracking from a claim that Page 425 of the House health care reform bill would provide for "mandatory" end-of-life counseling, former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey -- a serial misinformer about health care reform proposals -- falsely claimed on The Daily Show that another page of the bill -- Page 432 -- would make such counseling "mandatory" and that a provision on that page "penalize[s]" doctors who do not adhere to government standards. In fact, as host Jon Stewart noted, the language McCaughey cited does not make end-of-life counseling mandatory and does not "penalize" doctors, but rather provides incentive payments for doctors who report "data on quality measures" for end-of-life care.

After finding herself the subject of widespread ridicule after her appearance on “The Daily Show”,
McCaughey has stepped down from her position as a director of Cantel Medical Corp., which bills itself as a “leading provider of infection prevention and control products in the healthcare market.”

From a press release:

CANTEL MEDICAL CORP. (NYSE: CMN – News) announced that on August 20, 2009 it received a letter of resignation from Ms. Elizabeth McCaughey as a director of the Company. Ms. McCaughey, who had served as a director since 2005, stated that she was resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform.