Too bad one can't downgrade posts.

A health advocate would have had this investigated post haste ... their "investigation" shows where they heart truly lies. (Pardon the pun.)

When a public official is informed of an egregious situation, he/she has responsibility to investigate adequately. Not to simply "vet" the story politically! Sheesh! No! When Hillary and her staff were told of this situation, they should have used their powers to fully investigate ... in order to address the alleged violation, thereby protecting patients from future harm. They were presented with an egregious systemic situation and should have brought to bear the full color of the law against it. How dare they even bring the story to the public without also, at the same time, showing that these things will be dealt with swiftly and efficiently for our protection.

A domestic *red phone* moment and she failed the test.

Linda in PA -- "A domestic 'red phone' moment and she failed the test" -- what a great summation! I would love to see it picked up by the MSM and repeated far and wide.

McClatchy takes inventory of the fibs and finds most Americans do not believe her.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/32711.html

So you like it dirty, eh?

I looked up your blog page. Are you really in Serbia?
I see you posted the same comments on all the other blogs. You must be a new species of troll. I get naming rights...

Serialus ejacutrolli

Dear heart, she was simply quoting a policeman who told her the story. That moment was captured on video, and was shown last night on ABC News. Her big "lie" was that she failed to properly check out his story before running with it. I really don't expect to see any Hillary supporters jumping ship over that.

Neither do I expect to see any Obama supporters jumping ship over that little matter of the questionnaire he said he never filled out and never even saw. Remember that one? Gun control, I believe. When his answer on the questionnaire became public, he said that it was filled out on his behalf by an aide, and he never even saw it. But now it turns out that Obama's handwriting is on the questionnaire. A photocopy of it was on ABC News last night as well. Oops. Which candidate is "lying" now? And who really cares? People who feel the need to jump all over these little gaffs only highlight just how little difference there is between these two candidates.

By the way, today's Gallup poll shows Obama and Clinton still in a statistical dead heat.

Let's suppose the situation outlined by Clinton was actually true, that this was a minimum-wage worker with no health insurance. This woman must have recognized her situation was serious - she didn't go to a doctor's office, she went to a hospital - but was unable to get medical help for herself and her unborn child because she could not scrape together $100. In a critical situation, she had no source of money available to her.

So ... where would she get the money to pay for mandatory health insurance? I don't know what kind of tax credits Clinton thinks would be available to lessen the financial burden when even the current Medicare system charges the indigent elderly (those whose Social Security payments are only a couple hundred dollars per month, but too high to qualify for Medicare ) more than $50 a month for coverage.

Establishing one's empathy credentials by creating a falsehood doesn't just hurt Clinton, it hurts the fight for a better healthcare system.

vox, you make a fair point, but I still don't think that this is a serious enough story to merit the top recommended posts. It may be an intentional embellishment, but at least in this case, she's not embellishing her own record or misrepresenting Obama's. It seems like every election has a candidate getting called out on one of these sensational stories that aren't true.

She should obviously not have told the story, but whatever. I think that the attention it has received at TPM cafe is due to Obama supporters delighting in a case of "gotcha". I don't like it when Clinton people do it to Obama or when Obama people do it to Clinton.

I love how consistently piss-poor Hillary haters are at investigative reporting or even basic critical thinking. Because you don't have any details of the circumstances of Trina Bechtel's death, you are going to end up being wrong. When that happens (and it undoubtedly will), will you admit your own mistakes and post a retraction/ correction diary? Of course you won't! 'Cause the biggest bashers are always the real-life weenies.

So how the hell do I know what the future holds? I don't. But I have written and edited enough nonfiction articles of my own to understand just how many details remain unreported in this story. Enough to get burned by.

So here we go with the lastest from The Athens Messenger:

O'Bleness may have been hasty in accusing Clinton of telling a false story....

...[Bryan] Holman claimed the hospital he was referring to when he spoke to Clinton wasn't O'Bleness, nor an affiliate.

Holman said when he spoke to Clinton, he never mentioned the name of the hospital that allegedly denied the woman care, nor did he mention the woman by name.

Holman, a friend of an uncle of the woman, said his understanding from talking to the family is that she initially went to a hospital other than O'Bleness, where she was asked to pay $100, possibly because she owed money.

"The family thinks that whatever hospital she (initially) went to, she had a bill and couldn't go there," Holman said. He said he believes the woman went to O'Bleness after she was turned away from that other hospital.

Holman said that other hospital could have been "anywhere in Ohio and West Virginia."

WaPo is starting to slowly backpedal too:

But it is unclear whether the hospital in question in Clinton's story is, in fact, O'Bleness.

Hope this diary gets lots of recs.