I’m having trouble finding evidence that an ObamaCare supporter who spoke at Barney Frank’s town hall meeting last night, identified by the Associated Press and other media outlets as a Newton, MA “physician,” actually is a medical doctor.
Here’s what the Associated Press had to say.
Others at Tuesday’s meeting were more supportive of reform.
Dr. Sheila Leavitt, a physician from Newton, said she hoped for changes that would support primary care physicians who aren’t paid as much as specialists. She said some of the rowdy critics at Tuesday’s meeting appeared to be using the same “talking points” as those who showed up at similar meetings around the country.
(This version CORRECTS Corrects spelling of ‘Leavitt’ sted “Levitt’ in last graf.)
The only references to Sheila Leavitt as a medical doctor I can find on Google (besides references to last night’s town hall) are self-references; where she identifies herself that way. I could find no listing for a medical office belonging to Sheila Leavitt. Physicians generally have offices where they practice medicine.
As far as I can tell, she is not listed as a licensed Physician at the Massachusetts State Medical Board web site. Several “Leavitt”s are doctors in Massachusetts, but none are named “Sheila.” Just for kicks I tried the Associated Press’ original misspelling of the name, “Levitt,” and also found no “Sheila” as a licensed doctor.
Note the update below, where a comment poster claiming to be Leavitt’s son claims she is a former physician.
Other references to Leavitt mention her full name and home town, but do not indicate that she is a medical doctor. For example, I do find several references to a far-left agitator named Sheila Leavitt of Newton MA who turned a “grease car” into a rolling Bush protest with signs attacking his daughters, raises chickens, and advanced the weird conspiracy theory that the 2004 election was rigged in favor of George W. Bush.
Earlier, Patterico’s Pontifications found that Roxana Mayer, another ObamaCare supporter who identified herself as a doctor at a town hall meeting, was really a graduate student.
Is the Associated Press in such financial peril that they cannot afford to have someone do the 10 minutes of research I did this morning to verify the claims published in their articles? Or are they so desperate to publish anything that can prop up the quickly flagging ObamaCare boondoggle, like words of support from a doctor, that they just don’t care whether they get their facts right?
UPDATE: A Free Republic poster searched the AMA’s site for both member and non-member physicians and found no listing in Massachusetts for a doctor named Sheila Leavitt.
UPDATE 2: Note this comment from a poster claiming to be Leavitt’s son. I cannot verify whether he is or is not, but his IP address indicates that he is located in MA.
In response to his comment, I didn’t question the “his mother’s legitimacy.” I questioned the legitimacy of the Associated Press’ reporting. Whether or not she was ever a doctor, the AP wanted to give the impression that she is a current medical doctor and health care professional rather than a home schooling, grease-car driving, Bush-protesting, chicken raising stay-at-home-mom in order to give her opinion a sense of authority that the “commoners” in the audience did not have.
Also note that it is I who removed the comment with the personal contact information, and that I will continue to do so because that is not the point of this.
UPDATE 3: Leavitt’s husband, Andrew Lichtman, appears to be the doctor of the family according to Michelle Malkin.
A NOTE ABOUT COMMENTING: A comment writer below named “TheSon” says he is Sheila Leavitt’s son. I am going based on the assumption that he is. He has commented in defense of his mother, which any son here would also do – right or wrong. As I have stated several times, Sheila Leavitt and her profession are not the root issue here. People are free to say whatever they want to say about themselves or the issues in order to further their agenda. The media taking her at her word without doing any research and using her as the voice of a physician and health care expert to give her opinion more heft is the point. Any comments attacking her personally, and especially attacking her alleged minor son (who has represented himself quite well here in my opinion) will be deleted. Attack her beliefs and public actions all you want and refute the alleged son’s points all you want. Have at it.
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Astroturfing, Healthcare, Media Bias, Obamacare29 Responses to “Another Phony Doctor? Woman At Frank Meeting Not In Database”
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[Editors Note: I removed this comment because it listed an address and telephone number for a private individual. Feel free to link to such information, but I am not comfortable posting the address and telephone numbers of private citizens here]
should read “NOTE” instead of “NOT”
(note address matches above)
Editor’s Note: Comment removed at the request of the comment author.
Note that I removed the information from Googlebuster’s post, not him. I also removed the other comment to which you objected.
Perhaps Steven Leavitt could tell us which medical school his mother attended and graduated from?
Then we could check the rolls and know that he and his mother are who “Steven” claims they are.
[...] Hoft at Gateway Pundit and Steven at Buck’s Right have [...]
Apologies for posting the personal info. Was meant only to be able to cross reference the info. (For example-the one link shows a phone number which matches another links number that adds a home address which matches another links home address that adds an email etc etc etc.-some people are claiming there are different people with the same name and i only wanted to prove they were all the same person)
Great work btw- gateway has more and credits you with the find!
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/another-phony-obamacare-dr-is-really.html
No problem. I know people are used to sites like FR where that kind of thing is cool (sometimes encouraged) but I’m not comfortable with it. This isn’t really about Leavitt, anyway. Anyone can say they are anything, and I’m cool with that. It’s about the Associated Press highlighting someone who is a doctor and in favor of ObamaCare in order to give that person’s outlook more heft than the what they see as the rest of the rabble in the crowd.
I noticed that too and also did my own research this morning on the supposed MD, Sheila Leavitt, before coming across this site. Congrats, you beat me to it.
The only other net reference I could find was an gun control rant sent as a letter to Boston Magazine. In that letter, Dr. Leavitt says she’s originally from Maine, incidentally where the real estate agent Sheila Leavitt owns property.
I am sure that the children of a doctor may be very bright, but I know few 16 year old students who can express themselves as eloquently as the above example.
Interning in Boston area hospitals isn’t very specific information, is it? There are lots of them. Did she intern in many? What university did she attend? Which medical school? And if she is a physician, why doesn’t she understand why specialists are paid more than general practitioners? Obviously, it’s because they have more training and are better qualified in certain areas. That’s why your GP refers you to a specialist, because the specialist knows more than the GP about your condition.
I noticed the polished writing of “The Son” as well. In my mind, I attributed it to the homeschooling.
Editors Note: Comment removed at the request of the comment author.
Editors Note: Comment removed at the request of the comment author.
You do speak well for your mom and family, and I’m glad to have met you.
However, I notice that neither your mom nor your dad are active practicing doctors. This is important because when you say you are a doctor, the implication is that you are practicing and you have a good feel for the changes in medical practice that ObamaCare will inevitably create. This is why people are researching your mom’s background. If your mom was a genuine, practicing physician, her views would have considerable weight. She obviously tried to make that impression when she spoke. Thus, the imbroligo.
Your mom’s husband is a NIH researcher and he will probably benefit at least somewhat from a more left-wing political environment and so overall your family will as well. A medical researcher is not a practicing physician and is not subject to the stresses and strains they suffer through.
From what I have seen, actual practicing physicians – the kind who see patients, not the kind who does research – don’t think much of medicare, let alone ObamaCare. Most of them don’t seem very happy about overall trends in medicine, and ObamaCare, with its emphasis on cost control, is likely to only accelerate them.
So, hopefully we can all agree here. Your mom: A wonderful person, a talented home schooler, a dedicated mother. But not an authority on medical care delivery systems, current insurance trends or the potential consequences of ObamaCare on practicing doctors.
D
Well said, David. Nice job.
I suppose she could be a “Witch Doctor”? would that qualify her as a Primary Care Physician?
There are no hits for doctors named Leavitt at the Rochester University Medical Center.
You said at Gateway Pundit that your father met your mother while attending medical school, yes?
Would that be “University of Rochester” as opposed to Rochester University. Surely if your mom went there you would reference the school correctly…just saying
If Dr. Leavitt stopped practicing medicine 26 some odd years ago , then how could she know how the health care system currently works? Is TheSon implying that the medical profession hasn’t changed during the past 26 years?
[...] Hoft at Gateway Pundit and Steven at Buck’s Right have [...]
Leave Sheila Leavitt’s son alone already. He might be a bit eloquent because he was homeschooled? (Assuming he was, as his mother was a homeschool advocate. )
What more can you ask for, people?
I don’t agree with Ms. Leavitt’s health care stand or comments (or Obama’s). I’m in Illinois, and I’m fully aware of what Chicago Democrats can do, and have done already to our state (and country).
But you should just let this go. It makes this homeschooler embarrassed for y’all.
Michelle Malkin has the info on Leavitt’s husband and kids, whose ages are 22, 20. 18 and 13 – no 16 yo son – yikes!!
You don’t know how old that information is. The 13 year old could be 16 by now.
[...] Another fake doctor, Sheila Leavitt, at Massachusetts town hall… MSM still snoozing Gateway Pundit has more information on this dishonest woman: ANOTHER PHONY OBAMACARE DOCTOR– Is Really a Far Left Nut …Update: She’s a Realtor- Never Practiced Medicine …Update: Realtor’s License Expired; also information available at Buck’s Right: Another Phony Doctor? Woman At Frank Meeting Not In Database. [...]
Steven: Classy comments about homeschooling and in “a note about commenting”. You’re a fair and decent moderator.
David Dennis: Great response regarding the msm and the big picture.
[...] his constituents by doing the opposite of what they want. Buck’s Right: Another Phony Doctor? Woman At Frank Meeting Not In Database Real Clear Politics: Dem Congressman: Town Hall Protesters Are “Political Terrorist[s]“ [...]
[...] she does play one at town hall meetings…When she’s not filling up her car with grease.Buck’s Right found another phony protest doctor. I’m having trouble finding evidence that an ObamaCare [...]
Andrew Lichtman, Shelia Leavitt’s husband, is an MD who feeds off the taxpayer through NIH grants.
These NIH grants (supplied by taxpayers) are persistently abused and frittered away on things like non-essential or unecessary repetitive research that just benefits the researcher’s wallet. And many more underhanded activities.
But Newton Massachusetts is a den of iniquity. Lots of high earners in the health field that spend a lot to hide assets and play games with their taxes. Excuse me, cheat on their taxes. While they tell other people they should be paying more taxes.
The state Representative of Newton is a particularly unsavory character named Kay Khan. She is a psychiatric nurse. Her husband Nasir Khan runs a psychiatric hospital. Khan does things like get laws passed making it easier for psychiatric nurses to strip people of their personal rights and freedoms and whimsically throw them in a psych hospital, where guess what, people like her husband profit. When the taxpayer has to pay for all these false psychiatric incarcerations, people like Khan and her husband will roll in the profits.
See Khan’s page? http://www.kaykhan.org/bio.php Notice the awards from things like the Mass Psychological Association and others? That’s because Khan is making it easier for her and her husband’s BUSINESS CRONIES (like the members of the Mass Psychological Association) to make more money from the taxpayer. And Khan HERSELF is profiting from her lawmaking through her husband.
A total conflict of interest!
She’s co chair of the Legislative Mental Health Caucus, changing the laws to funnel tax dollars into the pockets of people like her husband.
A COMPLETE conflict of interest.
Notice the committees and panels she gets herself on? The Female Offender Review Panel she is on? All a personal effort to direct tax dollars into the pockets of her family’s business cronies pushing “treatment” that is usually useless.
Most of Khan’s legislative work through her career has been to personally advance her own and her husband’s health business interests, as well as their associates.
This is all about the money for all these types. They will be able to feed off the taxpayer to an even greater degree with Obamacare.
Sheila Leavitt is just a stand in for this group of health industry pilferers.
All the talk about “caring about people” is just subterfuge for ripping off the taxpayer and robbing us blind.
And as for the pitiful children of people like this? The children are maintained and get their bills paid for by the parents well into adulthood.
The children feed off the taxpayer too.
All that youthful “activism” is more about supporting mommy and daddy being able to rake in other people’s tax money to buy sons and daughters condos and houses, expensive vacations, cars, and all the rest.
This is selfishness and gluttony hiding under a bunch of peacenik, pseudo progressive, “helping people” fakery.
[...] his constituents by doing the opposite of what they want. Buck’s Right: Another Phony Doctor? Woman At Frank Meeting Not In Database Real Clear Politics: Dem Congressman: Town Hall Protesters Are “Political Terrorist[s]“ [...]