The media is basically letting all opponents of health care say whatever the hell they want about health care reform with little pushback.

I don’t know why I continue to be surprised when this happens, but I do…

It’s always good news for Republicans. And you know what else is? The fact that in Great Britain they actually have an occasional press attempt for accountability that doesn’t end when something else shiny comes along (and also topless women, but that’s really Rupert’s fault).

Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.

And, of course, they didn’t plan alone.

But strangely, the cheerleaders for that war, like Joe Lieberman and Bill Kristol, also get to trot out lie after lie about health care, and no one in our splendid press corps seems to wonder why anyone should listen to them, let alone uncritically. We cannot possibly hold people — well, Republicans, accountable for their past actions.

Please post to your Facebook wall and RT on Twitter — this needs to go viral

Is this great or what? Thank you Rabbi Fish!

“The moral imperative for our time is clear. Anyone whose guide in public policy is conscience, anyone who argues that faith and religious traditions should direct our actions, such a person must stand for universal health care in America,” Fish concluded. “It happens we are all also citizens of Connecticut. That fact leads us to ask you Senator Lieberman, what is it that you stand for?

Lieberman with a public option supporter no doubt embarrassed to be seen with him (photo via Lieberman 2006)

A new poll by Quinnipiac University is out, and it has less-than-stellar news for Joe Lieberman (not that he cares). Check out these bottom line numbers.

1. On the question, “Do you support or oppose giving people the option of being covered by a government health insurance plan that would compete with private plans?”, 56% of Connecticut voters say “support” and only 37% “oppose.” Support for the public option is overwhelming among Democrats (76%-14%) and strong among independents (54%-41%). Only Republicans oppose the public option, by a 28%-68% margin.

2. On the question about whether Senator Lieberman’s opposition to the public option makes you “more likely” or “less likely” to vote for him, the results aren’t great for Lieberman, with 33% saying “less likely” and only 23% saying “more likely.” Again, Democrats are far less likely to vote for Lieberman based on his public option stand, while Republicans are much more likely to vote for him. In other words, Lieberman’s doing great with his base on this issue – Republicans. And maybe, in the end, that’s all he cares about.

The bottom line is this: the public option is highly popular in Connecticut, and on balance it’s a political loser for Joe Lieberman to oppose it. But, then again, Lieberman does have his “principles.” (snark) Also, unfortunately, Lieberman’s not up for reelection until 2012. Sigh…

In addition to all these public battles, Reid is waging private ones as well, according to sources on and off Capitol Hill. He has complained to colleagues that the White House has pressured him to lean on the CBO to speed its cost estimates of the measure — something that could easily be seen as exerting improper influence on the CBO’s calculations, which are supposed to be free of political pressure. And he has been pleading with liberal interest groups to ease up on Senator Joe Lieberman — an independent whom Reid counts as part of his 60-member caucus — over Lieberman’s public declaration that he will filibuster any bill that contains a public option. It was Reid who made the risky call to put a version of the public option in the bill that he will be taking to the Senate floor. “He’s telling everybody, ‘Leave Joe Lieberman alone. I’ll handle him. I know Joe,’ ” says a Democratic strategist who has been part of those conversations.

You have to be fucking kidding me. Where have I heard that one before? The classic Tim Tagaris piece about the Lamont/Lieberman race in 2006 deserves revisiting:

We had been promised by Democratic leadership they would do the right thing. We had been told that there is a way to keep Joe in the race, and a way to make him see the light and “do the right thing.” Even Sun Tzu says among the most glorious of battlefield victories is the one in which your opponent surrenders without a fight. If there was a shot to win this thing without raising a fist post-primary, we were going to rely on Democratic leaders to “talk Joe off the ledge.”

The conventional wisdom was that Joe’s defiant “concession” speech would be an opportunity for Joe to show toughness in his final hour in the public eye. After a few days, the coverage would die down and Joe would ride off into the sunset without a fight.

[]

We have no idea who, if anyone, tried to talk Joe down. Did Rahm Emmanuel [sic] say anything about potentially costing Diane Farrell, Chris Murphy, and Joe Courtney shots at pick-up opportunities? Probably not. Did Chairwoman DiNardo speak about a real opportunity to capture the governor’s seat in CT? I’d guess no. How about Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid talking to Joe about Ned traveling the country as the poster-boy speaking about accountability on Iraq? Don’t think that happened either.

Dear Harry: Football. No. Kickie.

As Joe Conason notes, Hadassah Lieberman is employed by the Susan B. Komen “Race for the Cure” organization, which needs to explain why the man blocking health care reform is repeatedly invited to their events. Ostensibly, they are calling for the changes he is trying to prevent. Are they about raising money, or are they about…you know, health care?

Ask them.

It only figures, because, last week we noticed that Joe Lieberman’s fellow anti-Public Option tools were engaging in a display that says a lot about them all:

A few steps farther was the guy holding a sign announcing “Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds” [sic], accusing Obama of being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist.

These must have been awesome when paired with these:

But the best of Bachmann’s recruits were a few rows into the crowd, holding aloft a pair of 5-by-8-foot banners proclaiming “National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945.” Both banners showed close-up photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

This whole panorama is only missing a few more hours of blaring Lee Greenwood.

Here are some snippets from the transcript of the appearance:

WALLACE: I’m going to pursue that in a second. But any evidence so far that what you or your staff have heard in briefings that he — because we know he was on some radical Islamic Web sites…

LIEBERMAN: Right, right.

WALLACE: … that he was exchanging communications either in this country or overseas with other Islamic radicals?

LIEBERMAN: Yeah. Nothing I can confirm at this point. I think it’s very important to let the Army and the FBI go forward with this investigation before we reach any conclusions.

But what we do know on the record from third parties reporting over the last two or three years — that he made a series of statements justifying suicide bombing, comparing it to the bravery of an American soldier who would throw himself on a grenade to protect his colleagues, that he said that — well, he shouted out, according to bystanders at that — while killing the other day at Fort Hood, the words Allah Akbar, an expression of faith in Islam which the Islamist extremists have corrupted.

And the fact that he did that at the moment of these murders — if that’s confirmed, of course — raises genuine concerns that this was a terrorist act.

I will add to this, Chris, this is not the first attempt by Islamist extremists to strike at American military bases. We’ve broken up plots to go after Fort Dix, Quantico Marine base in Virginia.

In fact, the one successful, if I can put it that way, terrorist act that was done in recent years was the individual in Little Rock, Arkansas who walked into an Army recruiting station and killed a recruiter.

And there is testimony that Dr. Hasan actually said that he understood that and supported that act.

/snip/

LIEBERMAN: I am intending to begin a congressional investigation of my Homeland Security Committee into what were the motives, what were the motives of Hasan in carrying out this brutal mass murder, if a terrorist attack, the worst terrorist attack since 9/11, and to ask whether the Army missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him.

Really, in the U.S. Army, this is not a matter of constitutional freedom of speech. If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone.

Of course, there are absolutely zero grounds for holding such hearings. As reported by AFP, all evidence points to Hasan working alone and having no contact with terrorists:

“All evidence at this point indicates the suspect allegedly acted alone,” said army investigation spokesman, Chris Grey, appearing to strike down any theories that Hasan was part of a radical Islamist sleeper-cell.

/snip/

An initial search of Hasan’s computer revealed no direct exchanges with known extremists, but US Army and FBI officials had yet to rule out completely possible links to terrorist groups, US media reported.

Joe LIEberman will never ask for one bit of accountability from his BFF’s in the Republican Party, but is entirely willing to LIE while convening hearings aimed at whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria. There really is no limit to how low LIEberman will go.

Remember, this is the same Senator Unprincipled Opportunist who previously told us we should not do health reform now, that we should put it off until the economy fully recovers. Now he tells us we have to do health care reform now to reduce health care costs and because we have millions of people uninsurerd. Apparently, that uninsured problem just happened.

Then Senator Unprincipled Opportunist claims that his biggest concern is the growing national debt. That’s why, he continues, if there is a public option in the reform bill that CBO has repeatedly said would save money and lower the annual deficits, and would save even more if it were strengthened, he would never allow his colleagues to vote for it, thus killing a bill that he says is essential reduce health care costs.

And Chris Wallace never blinked an eye.

Colorless, odorless, invisible, deadly. GOP senators boycott Tuesday's climate bill markup. (photo via talkradionews)

James Inhofe (R-OK) appeared briefly today at a climate bill markup in the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, simply to drop off a letter with a series of Republican demands on how to move forward on the bill. The letter basically asks the EPA for a “full assessment” of the Senate bill, including modeling that they are probably not even equipped to do. It’s just a stall tactic, and Democrats treated it as such.

Committee Democrats seemed more bemused by the Oklahoma conservative’s brief appearance.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Boxer told Inhofe.

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse put it, “The party of ‘no’ has now devolved to the party of ‘no show.’”

Seeking to jump-start the process, John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman met with reporters today to announce that they would create a “dual track” for the climate bill, to be completed after Sen. Boxer finishes her bill in the EPW Committee. There are SIX committees with jurisdiction over this bill (EPW, Foreign Relations, Finance, Agriculture, Commerce and Natural Resources), and so the protocols can get sticky. But Kerry wants to work with the White House, along with Sen. Boxer and the leadership, to fast-track a bill that tracks with the deal Kerry and Graham announced in the New York Times a few weeks ago and can get 60 votes.

According to Graham, the bill would try to solve the problem of carbon pollution (which he described as real) in a way that makes business sense; and the problem of energy independence, which Graham would attack with a host of GOP-friendly measures like offshore drilling, nuclear power and clean coal technology. “The green economy is coming, and we can either follow or lead… once you price carbon, the green economy will flourish,” said Graham. There’s a mixed blessing here: Graham did characterize the planet as “in peril,” but offered solutions like drilling and clean coal that would only further imperil it.

All three Senators responded favorably to the Chamber of Commerce seeking a deal on climate and energy, pointedly saying that the question is “not whether to do something, but how.” Sen. Kerry described himself as “pleased” with the willingness of the Chamber of Commerce to take to the bargaining table. “We welcome it,” he said. Sen. Boxer also praised the Chamber’s letter as a “game changer,” and a far cry from a couple weeks ago, when they sued the Yes Men for their spoof pretending that the Chamber supported climate legislation. The letter can be found here, and you can see that the news in it is not all good for climate bill supporters:

The Chamber will continue to oppose bad policies that resemble the failed climate proposals of the past, such as bills that jeopardize American jobs, create trade inequalities, leave open the Clean Air Act, open the door to CO2-based mass tort litigation, and further hamper the permitting process for clean energy.

Lieberman’s presence should not surprise, as the Kerry-Graham process seeks bipartisan cooperation and would achieve lots of Republican goals on energy. The process should not be seen as a rebuke to Sen. Boxer’s committee, Kerry said. “(The bill) will be determined by Harry Reid,” he maintained. “We are respecting the EPW process. After they report out a bill, we’ll be able to shape it with the Majority Leader.” Kerry claimed that he has full support from Boxer.

Graham seemed to be motivated by the fact that the EPA has been empowered to address carbon pollution in the absence of Congressional action. “If we don’t act, the EPA will… doing nothing has a consequence,” he said. He suggested that the source of voter anger with Congress is a sense that they are stalling on a variety of issues. “If you can’t solve hard problems, what are you doing here?”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the Congress to pass climate legislation in an address to Congress yesterday, drawing a mixed reaction.

Look at the Senate right now: If Democrats have 60 votes, it’s because conservative activists kept running primary challengers against Arlen Specter. If they fall short, it’s likely to be because liberal activists ran a primary challenge against Joe Lieberman.

I guess my friends and I who spent our weekends trying to help Connecticut elect a genuinely decent human being for Senator should apologize to America for turning Joe Lieberman into an unprincipled skunk. From now on, we really need to support the incumbent protection racket.

And I really need to talk to that Hamsher woman.

[Update: Video of Jane's appearance tonight on The Rachel Maddow Show above.]

There appears to be no limit to the number of lies and misrepresentations the unprincipled opportunist Joe Lieberman will embrace so the media will think Joe is “relevant.”

CBS enabled Lieberman’s relevance by allowing him to lie repeatedly on Face the Nation; the inept Bob Schieffer never bothered to challenge any of Joe’s blatant falsehoods.

Lieberman’s most egregious falseholds involved his claims about the public option and his misrepresentation of the CBO analysis of how the public option would affect health insurance premiums.

Lieberman: I think that a public option will actually hurt the economic recovery, and our long-term fiscal situation, because it will end up causing the government to raise taxes, will probably raise premiums, or it will put us further into debt.

. . .

I want to be able to say yes . . . but I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement, the government going into the health insurance business, I think it’s such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote.

. . .

Schieffer: But is what you’re also saying, nothing is better than a government health insurance, a health insurance reform that includes a public option? Nothing is better than that?

Lieberman: Well, the truth is nothing is better than that, we ought to follow, if I may, the doctors’ oath in Congress as we deal with health reform.

I’m afraid, . . .

Amazingly, no one is talking about it. The Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday, when the House Democrats put out their health care reform plan with a public option, that the public plan would end up charging higher premiums than the average premiums charged by the commercial health insurance companies. Now why would we want to do that?

Why would we . . . the Congressional Budget Office has also said, if the government creates a public plan, the public is going to be on the line, when it runs a deficit, as it surely will, the public, the taxpayer is going to have to pay for it.

Despite several efforts to explain the CBO’s analysis of the effect of the public option on premiums, it is still being misunderstood by the media and misrepresented by scoundrels like Lieberman.  The CBO said (h/t Jon Walker):

That estimate of enrollment reflects CBO’s assessment that a public plan paying negotiated rates would attract a broad network of providers but would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges. The rates the public plan pays to providers would, on average, probably be comparable to the rates paid by private insurers participating in the exchanges. The public plan would have lower administrative costs than those private plans but would probably engage in less management of utilization by its enrollees and attract a less healthy pool of enrollees. (The effects of that “adverse selection” on the public plan’s premiums would be only partially offset by the “risk adjustment” procedures that would apply to all plans operating in the exchanges.) emphasis added)

Pay attention, Media: The reason CBO claims the Public Option could have “premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges” is because the CBO believes the PO would be covering sicker people with higher costs than those covered by private plans.

It’s an apple and oranges comparison. In other words, private insurers would select and cover healthier people, and thus have lower premiums; the PO would accept and cover all comers, including sicker people, and thus have higher costs and higher premiums.

That is not a criticism of the public option; covering people who are being screwed by the private system is a powerful reason to have the PO. But why does it occur?

The CBO analysis explains (or rather obscures with technical terms) that the private insurers will discriminate against sicker people, even though the new regulations prohibit such discrimination. The embolded sentence means the PO will not attempt “management of utilitzation,” which is a euphymism for saying the public option will not behave like the private insurers who will discourage sicker people simply by providing them less responsive coverage.

The private insurers will do everything they can to discourage older, sicker people from choosing them, thus nudging these more costly patients towards the PO. As a result, the PO will tend to have older, sicker patients, with higher health care costs, and so the POs premiums will, on average be higher than the premiums private insurers charge for caring for healthier patients.

In addition, the CBO is conceding that the reform mechanism for discouraging the private insurers from such cherry picking and discrimination in violation of the regulations will not work as effectively as it should. The private insurers will cheat on the exchange rules and undermine the cost-sharing mechanism that would otherwise require private insurers to reimburse the public option for covering higher-cost patients.

Lieberman turns the CBO analysis up-side-down. He claims the PO would cost more and cause government to bail it out. But the opposite is true; what the CBO is telling us is that the PO is actually more efficient than the private insurers. While it’s premiums could be higher if it has to cover higher-cost patients, it would cover those patients with premiums less than the private insurers would charge if they were forced to cover the same patients.

Moreover, CBO is explaining that the PO’s faithful coverage of the higher-cost patients would allow the private insurers to have lower premiums for the lower-cost patients they cover. In other words, even if the PO’s premiums were higher (given the sicker patients it covers), its mere presence allows private insurers’ premiums to be lower, while providing lower cost coverage for the PO’s patients.

In sum:

1. The PO’s presence would provide lower-cost coverage for sicker Americans.

2. The PO would allow private insurers to charge lower premiums to their healthier enrollees, because higher-cost enrolless were covered by the PO.

3. The total cost of coverage for all enrollees in the exchange would be lower because of the PO’s lower costs for faithfully covering the patients with the highest costs.

4. The CBO provides powerful arguments for why a strong Public Option is vital not only to lowering premiums for everyone in the exchange but also for ensuring there is viable coverage for those Americans the private insurers will do everything they can not to cover.

5. If there is no viable PO, and the government were not able to enforce the prohibitions on discrimination that private insurers will seek to evade, then millions more people will be pushed out of the system and/or badly mistreated by the private insurers.

6. If there is no viable PO, and the government succeeded in enforcing the prohibitions on discrimination, then total private premiums would rise (to cover the sicker payments), and so would the need for government subsidies, thus adversely impacting the federal deficits.

7. If Congress wants to lower total premiums and reduce the federal budget for subsidies, while ensuring more of the uninsured are covered, then it should include a strong PO and give more people access to it. A weak PO and limited access makes everything worse.

And Joe Lieberman is an unprincipled, lying scoundrel.

________

h/t to ThinkProgess for the video and story.