On Tuesday, Jay had a guest: Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York. I thought the exchange was interesting because McCaughey was raving about the benefits to society of Medicare over the past 40 years, and she was troubled that the new health care reform package being debated would represent a step backwards. Jay, meanwhile, didn’t mention his own opposition to Medicare until I called him on it.
But it turns out the really interesting piece is that McCaughey has been making the rounds on the talk show circuit peddling a lie. On Tuesday she said something very much like this:
The health care reform bill "would make it mandatory — absolutely require — that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner."
That quotation is taken not from a transcript of Jay’s Show but from a spot the previous week with Fred Thompson. PolitiFact has rated that claim “Pants on Fire.”
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