The Morning Dose---4/8

Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post is today's source for the Morning Dose. In her latest article, Anne highlights the facts concerning Clinton and her hospital story, which despite what many in the Obama-loving media would have you believe, was true:

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The aunt of a young pregnant woman who died after a hospital told her she needed to pay $100 up front for care said in an interview on Monday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been telling the story accurately on the campaign trail -- following claims by a different Ohio hospital that it did not turn the patient away.

For weeks, Clinton repeated an anecdote she heard in Ohio on Feb. 28 involving a young woman who lost her baby and later died because she lacked health insurance and did not have $100 to gain access to a nearby hospital.

But over the weekend, Clinton came under fire when officials at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, after reading about her remarks, demanded that she stop recounting it because the patient, Trina Bechtel, was admitted there and did have insurance.

That part, it turns out, is true. But so is Clinton's claim that Bechtel did not get care at another hospital that wanted a $100 pre-payment before seeing her, according to the young woman's aunt, Lisa Casto. "It's a true story," said Casto, 53.(...)

(...)Casto said her niece, who suffered from preeclampsia during her pregnancy, did not seek care at the first hospital she when she fell ill because she knew she did not have the $100 out-of-pocket she believed she would need to be seen. Instead, she went to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, where her baby was stillborn. Bechtel was later flown to Columbus and died there. She was 35. 

Casto said she has been stunned by the amount of negative attention her niece's story generated, and that she was sorry it had hurt the Clinton campaign. She was, and is, she said, a supporter. "Did I vote for Hillary?" she said. "You'd better bet I did."

Anne's article, important to note, also clarified the issue on the patient's insurance situation. The woman did not have insurance originally, as Clinton correctly noted.  At the time of her death, however, she was insured, but, "the damage", so to say, was already done to her health from not being able to be treated originally.