October 13, 2009

10/13: The Empire Strikes Back

Most liberal bloggers dismissed the health insurance industry's analysis of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill, which warned that the legislation would lead to rising insurance premiums. Lefty bloggers believe that a report commissioned by an industry trade group has little legitimacy, and they're describing it as "deceptive" and "complete bullsh*t". However, rather than simply denouncing the report, the netroots are portraying it as an additional argument in favor of a public option. In their view, the insurance industry's warning about rising premiums only demonstrates the need for a strong public option to keep costs in check. digby writes:

"There has never been a better argument for the public plan than the one the insurance company just handed the Democrats in congress. They have produced a shoddy, self-serving report as a blatant threat to raise premiums higher than they already plan to raise them. If there has ever been a more obvious case of bad faith than this, I haven't seen it."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers reacted angrily yesterday when NBC's John Harwood quoted an anonymous Obama adviser who asserted that the liberal netroots "need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult." Now that the WH has disavowed the blind quote, most liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Silver, Benen, digby, Serwer) think that the comment isn't worth obsessing over. However, other bloggers (Hamsher, Aravosis, Greenwald, Bink) are accusing the Obama admin. of repeatedly ignoring the online left.
• Liberal bloggers (Lewison, Singer, Benen) are pleased that the Obama admin. is criticizing the Fox News Channel, while conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hawkins, Allahpundit) are defending Fox.
• Liberal bloggers (Marshall, publius, Kleiman, Blue Texan) are buzzing about allegations that TX Gov. Rick Perry (R) approved the execution of an innocent man and subsequently tried to cover up an investigation into the incident.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: He Who Pays The Piper Names The Tune

Most liberal bloggers dismissed the validity of the insurance industry report and criticized the media for giving it so much coverage:

• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Let me get this right. The big news tomorrow is that 'America's Health Insurance Plans' (AHIP, aka the health insurance lobby) has commissioned a study by PriceWaterHouseCoopers that comes to the conclusion that the Senate Finance Committee bill is a bad, bad thing and would lead to health care costs going up even faster than they are under the current system. This is news?"
• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "Not that it's any surprise, but the PricewaterhouseCoopers 'analysis' of the [Max] Baucus proposal, paid for by the health insurance lobby, is complete bullsh*t. Ezra Klein has details, but also the on-one-foot summary: 'the report assumes no behavioral changes in response to new policies.' Astonishing that the Washington Post gave front-page coverage to this bamboozlement. Or maybe not."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "An industry thinks a bill is going to hurt the industry. So their lobby pays some accountants to write a study portraying the bill in the worst possible light. And to Drudgico, Halperin, and Kaplan, that is big news. What a world."

On the other hand, conservative bloggers took the report seriously:

• Townhall's Jillian Bandes: "[A]n independent study has confirmed that Obamacare will indeed raise health care costs for those who already have insurance. [...T]his is what we've been saying all along."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "PWC is one of the world's most respected consulting firms. Its conclusions carry a great deal more weight than the fuzzy math and pie-in-the-sky assumptions that typically drive politicians' claims. And the logic of the PWC report is clearly correct."

HEALTH CARE REFORM II: See? This Is Why We Need A Public Option!

Many liberal bloggers are arguing that the insurance industry report demonstrates the need for a strong public option:

• digby: "There has never been a better argument for the public plan than the one the insurance company just handed the Democrats in congress. They have produced a shoddy, self-serving report as a blatant threat to raise premiums higher than they already plan to raise them. If there has ever been a more obvious case of bad faith than this, I haven't seen it. [...] If these insurance companies can't see the gift horse they've been given with this Rube Goldberg mess that's been created then they are too incompetent to stay in business."
• Open Left's Mike Lux: "The insurance industry inadvertently gave health reformers the best argument we ever could have had to pass a public option and the strongest possible regulations on insurers. Declaring that rates will go up dramatically if reform passes, insurers launched a full-scale open assault on the idea of any reform at all yesterday, except I guess a reform plan especially tailored to them and their profitability. What they left out of their little study is that they are the ones who decide when rates go up because the biggest companies have very little competition in most of the markets they are in. There is no federal rate regulation, there is no anti-trust enforcement in insurance (they are specifically exempted from it in the McCarran-Ferguson Act), and unless there is a public option, there will be little competition. They will be the ones who decide if the rates go up, and they have just guaranteed they would raise those rates if we don't stop them from doing it."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "As Rep. [Anthony] Weiner says, adequate cost containment just isn't in the Baucus bill, and while the last thing -- the very last thing AHIP wants is a public option, they make a damned good argument for it by commissioning this report. [...] They've just shown that, despite all the cozy meetings early on with White House officials and the Baucus team, that they are intrinsically opposed to reform and they'll do anything to kill it. So now that AHIP has betrayed their true selves, maybe we can get a real push from the White House and the Senate leadership for real reform, and a robust public option."
• David Dayen: "The industry appears to want it both ways: they want to force everyone to buy their insurance, while cherry-picking the healthiest members of the uninsured for themselves, and sacrificing nothing in profits -- in fact, increasing them. The Senate Finance bill doesn't give the insurance industry every single thing they want, so they've decided to go to war with it. Which gives top Democrats a choice: now that the insurance industry has revealed itself to be utterly contemptuous of any reform, does leadership really have to be solicitous toward it in any way, like by eliminating the market competition of a public option?"

In other health care news, liberal bloggers (Hunter, Benen) are criticizing Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) for saying that he prefers the public option "trigger" to the new "opt-out" compromise.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Trouble With Deeds

NRO's Jim Geraghty assesses the obstacles confronting VA GOV candidate Creigh Deeds (D):

"In retrospect, Democratic wins in 2005, 2006, and 2008 appear heavily driven by frustration and exhaustion with Pres. George W. Bush. Once he departed the stage, the Democrats were judged not by contrast, but by their own merits. Democrat Tim Kaine, the current governor, won in 2005 by running on [Mark] Warner's coattails; Kaine has generated no positive buzz to offer his potential Democratic successor. Kaine has been a bland, underachieving disappointment.

But Deeds has some pretty striking weaknesses for a candidate. Besides his bouts with inarticulateness, Deeds entered the general election with a record as a state legislator that is pretty 'meh,' a particularly weak geographic base from which to run a statewide campaign, and a pretty vague agenda. He responded to bad polls by going negative, and then by going negative again. He and his team really seemed to think spotlighting [GOP candidate] Bob McDonnell's thesis from 20 years ago was going to be sufficient.

The Virginia GOP takes my criticism well, so I'll reiterate that I think they're wrong when they try to argue that Deeds is a liberal soul behind a moderate façade. I think he's an ambitious, craven, unprincipled soul behind...well, an ambitious, craven, unprincipled façade (which doesn't really make it a façade, I guess). I think the reason Creigh Deeds is so often tripped up when trying to explain what he'll do on taxes, or transportation plans, or education, or gay rights, or so many other issues is that he doesn't really care that much about the specifics. He wants to be governor, the details can wait. In the right campaign environment, voters notice that."

LEST WE FORGET: Iran Developing Boy Band, U.N. Fears

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) -- The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session today amid fears that Iran may be close to developing a boy band.

Intelligence sources have worried for years that the Iranian government has been assembling the know-how to assemble such a singing group, but concerns spiked considerably last month when satellite photos detected a shipment of choreographers from Miami arriving in Tehran.

'The proliferation of boy bands is quickly becoming the number one global security threat,' said Professor Davis Logsdon, who has been studying the efforts of so-called rogue states to acquire homegrown boy bands."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at October 13, 2009 01:00 PM