Copyright 2012 The New York Sun Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:33:17 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Betsy McCaughey :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Betsy+McCaughey admin@nysun.net (Seth Lipsky) webmaster@nysun.com en-us BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/national/misconception-on-health-care-law-could-be-key/87777/ Fri, 6 Apr 2012 10:33:03 EST If the Supreme Court upholds the health law’s mandatory insurance, the ruling will likely turn on a misconception rather than constitutional principle. During the oral argument on March 27, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the packed courtroom that all Americans are engaged in healthcare commerce, so Congress can use its commerce power to compel them to pay with insurance. Mr. Verrilli declared that “this is not a purchase mandate.” He argued that the law merely requires people to use... BETSY MCCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/medical-benchmarking-is-deadly/82256/ Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Maureen Daly cried when she heard the official reaction to the report released last week by New York State on infection rates in hospitals. The State Health Commissioner, Dr. Richard Daines, said the report shows that "New York hospitals' results are clearly just fine: they typically fall within the national range. Some areas were a little higher or lower, but nothing leaps out at you as an area of concern." Just fine? Not to Ms. Daly, who lost her mother to a hospital infection in 2004. Her... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/giving-away-new-york/79150/ Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Governor Paterson is reportedly having trouble finding a distinguished business leader to head the Empire State Development Corporation. That's not surprising. The agency's giveaways are an embarrassment. The ESDC selectively dispenses tax relief and other financial benefits to companies in regions that need economic development under its Empire Zone program. It also gives grants of between several hundred thousands of dollars and several millions of dollars to companies for plant expansions... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/about-this-job/73313/ Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST When Lieutenant Governor Paterson announced on March 13 that he would assume the duties of the governor of New York State in five days, he said he felt like the "student who's getting ready for the final exam" but didn't "attend any classes." As a former lieutenant governor I felt for him. Behind his self-deprecating comment is a lesson for all states that rely on a lieutenant governor to become a successor in the event a governor cannot serve. Since 1900, 51 governors have died in office, and... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/saving-new-yorkers-lives/59883/ Mon, 6 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST New Yorkers are used to trekking to New Jersey to avoid high sales taxes. Now they may have to cross the Hudson to avoid deadly hospital infections too. On Thursday, August 2, the governor of New Jersey, Jon Corzine, signed a law requiring that hospital patients in intensive care, neonatal intensive care, and other units where the most vulnerable patients are treated be routinely tested for a super-bug called methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, or MRSA, a type of bacteria that causes... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/what-the-va-does-right/51962/ Fri, 6 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EST The average hospital patient is given the wrong medication or the wrong dose at least once a day, according to the Institute of Medicine, a research organization that advises Congress. The good news is that these mistakes are less likely to happen in a hospital run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Surprised? Recent news accounts might lead you to believe that VA hospitals are a national embarrassment. That may have been true at one time. Not any more. VA hospitals have undergone a... BETSY MCCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/spreading-infections/47656/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:00:00 EST SARS, four letters that filled the headlines in the spring of 2003, and then disappeared. New Yorkers who do not remember what those letters mean — severe acute respiratory syndrome — and are not worried, should consider the lessons of the newly released SARS Commission report, published by the government of Ontario. On March 7, 2003, two middle-aged men with undiagnosed cases of SARS went to the hospital in two different cities. In Toronto, Ontario, this caused an outbreak of disease that... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/why-pay-more/27337/ Thu, 9 Feb 2006 00:00:00 EST Why are New Yorkers forced to pay more for health insurance than residents of most other states? New York State's lawmakers are to blame. The good news is that the Health Care Choice Act, offered in Congress by Rep. John Shadegg, a Republican of Arizona, would allow New Yorkers to buy health insurance outside the state for as little as 10% of what they currently have to pay. The bill would free New Yorkers from the mandates and community rating laws that have made health plans sold in New York... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/misleading-scene/26400/ Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:00:00 EST News reports indicate that Democratic gubernatorial contender Eliot Spitzer will soon announce that he favors David Paterson to be his lieutenant governor. When that announcement occurs, you will see Mr. Spitzer gushing over his choice for number two. That's politics as usual, but also dangerously misleading. History suggests that neither Mr. Spitzer nor anyone else running for governor this year will work with his lieutenant governor after the election. Three times, George Pataki wooed the... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/bird-in-the-hand/21896/ Fri, 21 Oct 2005 00:00:00 EST Is there anything practical we can do to protect ourselves from bird flu? Most of the precautions being taken by the Bush administration - such as stockpiling antiviral drugs and using troops to quarantine infected people - will probably never be used. But one safeguard - improving infection control in hospitals - could save lives every day, whether the flu wings its way to America or not. Avian bird flu has reached the edges of Europe and Africa, with recent reports of thousands of dead birds... BETSY MCCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/superbugs/20634/ Tue, 27 Sep 2005 00:00:00 EST Three-year-old McKenzie Smith was taken to the hospital with a rare hereditary disease. She died, not from the disease she came in with but from an infection she got in the hospital, her distraught parents explained in the New York Post. The Post also reported that another little girl, Grace Murphy, treated on the same pediatric floor, died from the same infection a few months later. Construction in hospitals is almost always to blame for the type of infection these little girls got... BETSY McCAUGHEY http://www.nysun.com/opinion/zoo-story/19908/ Mon, 12 Sep 2005 00:00:00 EST All but three of the 1,400 animals in New Orleans's famous Audubon Zoo survived Hurricane Katrina, according to zoo officials, who said they had been planning for such a catastrophe for years. The results were grimmer at several hospitals and nursing homes. Although doctors, nurses, and rescue workers labored heroically for days, an unknown number of frail patients died in flooded, darkened buildings with no air-conditioning, no electricity to support ventilators and other life-saving... Betsy McCaughey http://www.nysun.com/opinion/medical-courts-now/11757/ Wed, 6 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST If you had chest pains, would you go to a jury of your peers for a diagnosis? Would you ask your banker whether you need angioplasty, or your car dealer how long you should stay in the hospital? Of course not. You'd go to a specialist for that advice. For the same reason, juries drawn from the general population, as wonderful as they are in most cases, lack the expertise to determine whether your doctor diagnosed and treated you properly. Juries are expected to listen to weeks of conflicting... Betsy McCaughey http://www.nysun.com/opinion/cost-of-germs/10513/ Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Too often, patients are contracting deadly infections in hospitals. The humanitarian reasons to correct this problem are obvious. But there is also a compelling economic case, and now is the time to make it, as the Medicaid budget is being discussed. Governor Pataki wants to lighten the Medicaid burden on taxpayers by cutting payments to hospitals. The Greater New York Hospital Association complains that the cuts - about $800 million - will cause staff shortages and harm patients. One of the... Betsy McCaughey http://www.nysun.com/opinion/secret-danger/2157/ Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST What do London and New York have in common? The English language, world-class museums, other good things, and a hospital infection problem. The difference is that in London, infection rates are posted conspicuously at hospital entrances and in newspapers. In New York, the public is kept in the dark. New York and some 20 other states require hospitals to report infections that are serious enough to cause permanent disability or death, but the requirement is seldom enforced and, worse still...