Think Progress

Barrasso politicizes breast cancer: The Preventive Services Task Force would pull the plug on my wife.

Yesterday, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), a breast cancer survivor, accused Republicans of politicizing breast cancer. This afternoon, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) — a doctor who runs a private orthopedic practice and serves as Chief of Staff of the Wyoming Medical Center — proved her point. Barrasso called Fox News to register his opposition to the Senate health care bill and argue that the new mammogram guidelines would have pulled the plug on his wife:

And we just saw this past week the first step in rationing of health care in the country with this panel that they have, this preventive panel. A government panel that says women between 40 and 50 shouldn’t have mammograms. You know, my wife Bobbi is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed by a mammogram, went for an operation, the cancer had already spread. The mammogram has saved her life, but yet this preventive panel that the bill says, this health care bill says, ‘oh no, they’re the ones who get to decide what preventive measures are paid for or not.’ That panel would have not allowed her to have this care.

Watch it:

Rather than mandating “what preventive measures are paid for or not,” the task force issues recommendations that help doctors decide on a course of treatment. Providers can use the recommendations as a starting point to examine a patient’s particular needs, but the task force has no authority over coverage or treatment decisions. Barrasso’s wife Bobbi Brown would have received a mammogram regardless of any recommendation. Wyoming, along with 48 other states, requires insurers to cover mammograms and if the Senate bill were to become law all insurers would be required to pay for the procedure. The Wonk Room has more.

Tea partiers heckle woman whose daughter-in-law died because she didn’t have health insurance.

At a town hall event on health care reform hosted by Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) earlier this month, Midge Hough told the tragic story of how her daughter-in-law, Jenny, and her unborn grandchild died recently because they didn’t have health insurance. Jenny came down with “severe double pneumonia, Septic shock and Respitory failure,” Hough said, “and laid in an ICU unit for the next two months at a cost of $22,000 a day.” Her baby died in the womb and Jenny died a few weeks later. But as Hough was telling her story, tea partiers at the meeting “ridiculed” her, the South Town Star reports. “They moaned and rolled their eyes and interrupted,” laughing loudly and shouting her down at points. Watch it (beginning at 1:30):

Chicago Tea Party Patriots sent out a flyer to encourage attendance at the event, saying Lipinski had “sold us out!” by voting “to pass socialized medicine.” In defense of the heckling, an organizer for the group falsely claimed that the Houghs fabricated their story and called them operatives of President Barack Obama who “go from event to event and (cry) the same story.” At another recent event, Hough told Gov. Pat Quinn (D-IL) that she has been “personally attacked” by tea party activists at her home address. (HT: Crooks and Liars)

Lieberman refuses to debate Maddow on health care because she has a ‘point of view.’

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has repeatedly tried to get Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to come on her show and debate health care. However, he and his office have refused to even respond to her requests for statements. Last week, Mike Stark caught up with Lieberman and asked him whether he’d go on Maddow’s show. The senator declined, saying the tv host has “a point of view”:

STARK: You’ve expressed an interest to have a serious policy debate instead of all the invective and that. And I think one of the best folks from the progressive side is Rachel Maddow —

LIEBERMAN: (LAUGHTER)

STARK: — and she’s been trying to get you on her show for a really long time.

LIEBERMAN: She’s got a point of view. I think we’re going to have this debate on the floor of the Senate. And I look forward to it. In other words —

STARK: There’s no chance you’ll do her show?

LIEBERMAN: I don’t think so.

Watch Maddow’s segment on Friday:

In wake of misleading Palin footage, Fox News institutes ‘zero tolerance for on-screen errors.’

Last Thursday, Fox News issued an on-air apology after ThinkProgress reported that the network had recycled old file footage of Sarah Palin rallies to assert that she is currently getting huge turnouts on her book tour. The file-footage switch-up came a week after The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart caught Fox’s Sean Hannity using old footage to inflate the size of a tea party, forcing Hannity to admit that he had “screwed up.” Now, FishbowlDC reports that Fox’s management has issued a memo declaring that “Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors”:

Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the “mistake chain,” and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews. So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to “zero base” our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today’s meeting: “It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on.” We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough.

After the Palin footage mishap, The Swamp reported that it was “highly like[ly] that serious disciplinary action will be taken for those responsible behind the scenes in the control room.”

Fort Bragg sales of Palin’s book are ‘weak’ in advance of her visit.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is in Fort Bragg, NC today, for another stop on her “Going Rogue” book tour. Army officials initially banned the media from covering Palin’s visit, fearing the event would turn into political grandstanding “directed against the commander in chief.” But after objections from the press, the military relented. As a compromise, Palin “will not make a speech, pose for photos, or personalize notes in the books she signs.” Local WTVD-TV reports that bookstores around Fort Bragg were experiencing “slow sales” in advance of Palin’s visit, which is nevertheless supposed to attract “hundreds” of people. Watch it:

New FBI data show a sharp increase in the reported number of anti-gay hate crimes.

Today, the FBI released its latest annual statistics on U.S. hate crimes reported in 2008. Overall, “the 2008 numbers are up slightly — 7,783 incidents and 9,691 victims” were reported last year. Reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation had the largest increase — nearly 11 percent. Hate crimes based on religion rose 9 percent and the “largest category, racially-motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.” A breakdown of the 1,706 victims of sexual-orientation hate crimes:

– 57.5 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
– 27.3 percent were victims because of an anti-homosexual bias.
– 11.6 percent were victims because of an anti-female homosexual bias.
– 2.0 percent were victims because of an anti-heterosexual bias.
– 1.6 percent were victims because of an anti-bisexual bias.

The FBI notes that with the recent passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act, it will now “begin the process of adding the collection of hate crimes motivated by gender and gender identity and incorporating them into our annual report.”

Chris Wallace selectively quotes CBO analysis to suggest Senate health bill increases costs.

This morning on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace selectively quoted the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the merged Senate legislation to suggest that the Senate health legislation would increase government outlays on health care over 20 years and bend the cost-cure upward:

WALLACE: According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period and the government-run health insurance plan would typically have premiums that were somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plan. So here’s the question. The Democratic plan by the CBO’s own scoring fails to bend the famous health care cost curve at all over the course of these 10 years, and could you name a single Congress that has ever cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars as this legislation would?

Watch it:

Page 16 of the CBO report does predict that “federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period,” but the last paragraph of that same page adds that “during the decade following the 10-year budget window, the increases and decreases in the federal budgetary commitment to health care stemming for this legislation would roughly balance out, so that there would be no significant change in the commitment.” As Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) pointed out, the $848 billion bill would actually “save $130 billion in the first 10 years” and $650 billion in the next decade. Over on the Wonk Room, Igor Volsky debunks Wallace’s other claims about the bill failing to “bend the famous health care cost curve” and whether previous sessions of Congress ever cut Medicare.

Historic health care legislation moves forward for debate in the Senate.

The Senate voted along party lines tonight to avoid a GOP filibuster and move forward with debate on historic health care legislation. The final vote was 60-39, with Ohio Republican George Voinovich not voting. The AP reports that the “spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.” Full debate will begin after Thanksgiving.

Immediately after the vote, the White House put out a statement saying, “The President is gratified that the Senate has acted to begin consideration of health insurance reform legislation.” RNC Chairman Michael Steele complained that “a number of moderate Democrats sacrificed their principles to give Harry Reid a victory that brings America dangerously closer to having a government-run health care system.” Igor Volsky has been following tonight’s debate over on the Wonk Room.

PBS’s Bill Moyers to retire from weekly television in April 2010.

Veteran PBS journalist Bill Moyers has announced that he will be ending his Friday night public affairs show “Bill Moyers Journal” as well as “Now on PBS” on April 30, 2010:

Mr. Moyers said he had been planning for some time to retire the program on Dec. 25, but was asked by PBS to raise the funds to continue through April, which he did.

“I am 75 years old,” he said of the decision to end the series, which began in April 2007. The program has recently been having a “good run of it,” he added in a telephone interview on Friday, “so I feel it’s time.” He said he was not quitting television work, although he has no new projects planned.

“Bill Moyers Journal” originally aired in 1972, and after a few breaks, returned on-air in its current form in 2007, with the critically acclaimed documentary “Buying the War.” The film highlighted how, “in the rage that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the media abandoned their role as watchdog and became a lapdog instead.”