Obamacare ‘Death Panel’ Inventor Turns Tail And Runs During ‘Daily Show’ Appearance

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On Thursday night’s episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Betsy McCaughey, renowned Obamacare critic and inventor of the infamous and fictitious ‘death panels,’ was supposed to make a guest appearance during a correspondent segment on the Affordable Care Act. After she sat down with Jordan Klepper for an interview to be used in the segment, titled ‘The Obamacare Apocalypse,’ she abruptly left after she was asked how do critics respond to all of the good news that has surrounded the law since its implementation and the fact that fewer and fewer people want to see it repealed. Instead of answering Klepper, McCaughey pulled off her microphone and left.

Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Comedy Central (McCaughey appears about one minute in):

The exchange between McCaughey and Klepper went as follows:

KLEPPER: It’s been a tough road for critics of this law. The people aren’t behind repealing this — are we gonna get them on our side?

MCCAUGHEY: (removes microphone) I wanna just turn this off for a second.

KLEPPER (voiceover): But she was too upset to talk about it.

The rest of the segment consisted of Klepper talking to a nurse who no longer has to run a free clinic because all of her patients were able to get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act and can see a doctor in a fully-staffed office anytime they want. Klepper also spoke to some of the nurse’s former patients who had nothing but good things to say about the health care law. Overall, the segment was a biting satire about how predictions of doom and ‘death panels’ regarding Obamacare have not come to fruition and critics of the law are now left with nothing to complain about.

As for McCaughey, she is still chugging along, writing uninformative tripe on conservative websites trying to convince the already converted that Obamacare, and pretty much anything Obama does, will be the death of Western Civilization. She writes a weekly column for Newsmax, a well-known conservative rag. McCaughey also appears now and then on Fox News, particularly when they need someone to spew propaganda against the ACA. However, outside of wingnut circles, her credibility is close to nil. The ‘death panel’ claim was rated as PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year in 2009. Also, in 2009, Jon Stewart famously skewered her over her claims that the health care law would call for senior citizen review boards where life expectancy would be discussed with patients.

Now, with the health care law fully implemented, and the benefits of it being realized by people on a daily basis, fearmongering about Obamacare fantasies may not be profitable anymore for conservative commentators. That is bad news for people like McCaughey, but good news for the American public.

Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).