John Stewart pwns Betsy McCaughey

I have no idea how this could be so terribly misinterpreted. Crazy people like this are going to hurt a lot of uninsured Americans because they won't get their health care in time.

Did she really think that in an environment away from her comfortable little Fux News friends, she would be able to get away from losing her place on this and looking completely unprepared to respond to a pointed question?

What bugs me is that Stewart is a comedian, and he does a better job than journalists at setting incompetent PR flaks back on their heels than professional journalists have done.

Imagine - comedians being sharp enough to call lobbyists on their bullshit. We should get one to run for Senate. It would be a pretty smart state to elect a comedian, wouldn't it?

Bad form on his part. She came unprepared, and he badgered her so that she never did get a chance to explain her nonsensical interpretation.

Making her look like a ditz is funny (this is the comedy channel) but from a public-policy perspective it would be better to let her make her case and then blow it out of the water.

It isn't remotely Jon Stewart's fault that someone who has been making the rounds of the news shows is unprepared to answer the questions he asks, even if he asks them unconventionally. Particularly so when they've been blowing her case out of the water on prior shows.

This is the only time I've ever seen anyone force any aspect of the health care issue to the point of reading pieces of the bill out loud.

I have to admit that while I did not hear "kill grandma" in those words, I also didn't hear anything intelligible to the average person. Law is worse than science when it comes to writing.

What we clearly need is for Jon Stewart to finish his career on the Daily Show and then run for office. This is only one of many, many times that he clearly understands issues better than many of those involved.

@3: Watch the 2 unedited/extended parts on the comedy central website, she finally gets around to stating her case (though its still very weak).

she looked like a fool, partly due to John Stewart's skill and partly due to her own foibles: she was unprepared and she flounted middle-school-cute mannerisms that came off as immature and insincere.

But she did have a point, even though she didn't articulate it clearly. The bill incorporates end-of-life counseling into a provider's quality metric. This in turn would lead to a global adjustment to the provider's reimbursement. In other words, the bill not only allows pay for the time spent in counseling, but also increases the providers total income depending on the overall fraction of patients who receive the counseling. Her objection seems to stem from the next piece: the quality rating adjustment also incorporates determining what fraction of patients adhere to their directive.

Given my preference (as a physician) I would rather not see that part of the bill pass. But not if it means scuttling the rest of the bill.

Her objection seems to stem from the next piece: the quality rating adjustment also incorporates determining what fraction of patients adhere to their directive.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!

A patient can not adhere to an advance directive, since by definition it's not in effect when the patient is calling the shots.

The question is whether the provider complies with the directive, and that absolutely is a quality metric. About damn time providers are held accountable for the all-too-common practice of ignoring ADs.