President Barack Obama announced a $750 million plan to help combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but healthy policy expert Betsy McCaughey says that his plan isn't sufficient.
"What I find particularly distressing is this — the Obama administration recently pledged $750 million to help curtail the epidemic, but they're pouring it all into one country, Liberia," McCaughey told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on
NewsmaxTV Wednesday.
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"They're playing favorites," she explained. "Liberia is the president's favorite because his buddy, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is the president there."
The former lieutenant governor of New York says this is a a mistake because "the science shows that if these tax dollars were spent differently, if these tax dollars were spent preparing the surrounding countries that are on the future path of Ebola to prevent a big outbreak, the money would save many more lives."
"Ebola is going to hit those countries," McCaughey contends.
"Oxford University researchers have recently reported that the migration of fruit bats, a flying mammal indigenous to the region, will likely carry this virus to 15 more countries this year," she explained.
"So we need to be spending those dollars not simply treating the infected, but also containing future outbreaks in other countries, especially countries that have very large cities," she said.
"Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were all very hard hit," she added. "Guinea may be the hardest hit of all, but the fact is what the science shows is that just treating the people in these countries that are currently overwhelmed with the disease won't save the most lives."
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