Think Progress

Sen. Lamar Alexander Repeatedly Calls Medicaid A ‘Medical Ghetto’

Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) railed against Medicaid, the health insurance program funded by both the federal and state governments for low-income Americans, by calling it a “medical ghetto” and blasting Democrats for proposing to expand the program:

– “We’ve heard eloquent statements about how moving 15 million low-income Americans into a program called Medicaid, which is a medical ghetto, is not health care reform.”

– “The governor of Tennessee, who is a Democratic governor, has estimated that the cost to our state of this bill — of moving 15 million Americans into this medical ghetto — is about $800 million over five years.”

– “Or arrogant in its dumping of 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care.”

Watch it:

Conservatives frequently rail against this program, which currently covers around 60 million Americans, including people who are often rejected by private plans. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) has suggested that people are better off uninsured than insured under Medicaid.

While Alexander may think he is too good for Medicaid coverage, a 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 74 percent of Americans consider Medicaid very important and most would oppose cuts to the program. Families USA has pointed out that, despite its flaws, Medicaid is cost-effective and provides a solid foundation on which to expand coverage:

Medicaid is cost-effective compared to private health insurance. After controlling for health status (since Medicaid enrollees tend to have greater health care needs), it costs more than 20 percent less to cover low-income people in Medicaid than it does to cover them in private health insurance.

The program protects low-income Americans from uncontrollable out-of-pocket costs charged by private insurers and also “covers services not usually covered in private health insurance.” Under the Senate health bill, “most nonelderly people with income below 133 percent of the [federal poverty line] would be made eligible for Medicaid” starting in 2014. Additionally, the legislation would “increase federal Medicaid funding for states that cover recommended preventive services and immunizations at no extra cost.”

Sarah Palin Lies To Oprah

On the afternoon of Oct. 2, 2008 — the day of the vice presidential debate last year — Politico’s Jonathan Martin broke the news that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign was “pulling out of Michigan.” The next day, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told Fox News’ Carl Cameron that she disagreed with the decision. “I fired a quick e-mail and said, oh, come on. Do we have to call it there?” said Palin. “I want to get back to Michigan and I want to try.”

But in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired yesterday, Palin claimed that she only “went rogue” on the Michigan message because she “didn’t know we pulled out of Michigan”:

WINFREY: Didn’t several times they say to you when actually you mentioned, when you were talking about pulling out of Michigan and you said I wished we’d stayed in Michigan. Weren’t you told then, Sarah just stay on script?

PALIN: Right, told after wards and that, that was always puzzling to me because if I were to respond to a reporter’s questions very candidly, honestly, for instance, they say, “what do you think about the campaign pulling out of Michigan” and I think, “darn I wish we weren’t. Every vote matters, I can’t wait to get back to Michigan” and then told afterwards that, “oh, you screwed up. You went rogue on us Sarah, you’re not supposed to be.” And my reminder to the campaign was, I didn’t know we pulled out of Michigan. My entire VP team, we didn’t know that we had pulled out. I’m sorry, I apologize, but speaking candidly to a reporter.

Watch it:

Clearly, if Palin told Cameron that she had sent an e-mail to the McCain high command disagreeing with the move, she knew that the decision had been made. Additionally, in their reported book on Sarah Palin, former Fox News embed Shushannah Walshe and CBS News digital journalist Scott Conroy reveal that Palin knew she had made a mistake in her interview with Cameron:

The e-mail that Palin sent was, in fact, essentially how she described it to Cameron. She wrote to her traveling staff and top McCain advisers, “If there’s any time, Todd and I would love a quick return to Michigan-we’d tour the plants, etc. . . . If it does McC any good. I know you have a plan, but I hate to see us leave Michigan. We’ll do whatever we had [sic] to do there to give it a 2nd effort.”

A senior aide replied, “Michigan is out of reach unless something drastic happens. We must win oh and hopefully pa.”

Palin replied that she “got it,” but her subsequent interview with Cameron had shown that she hadn’t. She acknowledged as much in a post-interview e-mail to senior staff, writing, “Oops-I mentioned something about that to Carl Cameron and it’s now recorded that I’d love to give Michigan the ol’ college try.” Later in the day, she tried once more. “It’s a cheap 4hr drive from WI. I’ll pay for the gas,” she wrote.

This isn’t the first claim that Palin has made in her book and during her promotional tour that has been contradicted by campaign e-mails. In her book, Palin wrote that “from the beginning” she liked the idea of appearing on Saturday Night Live. But in an e-mail thread from the campaign that was provided to the Huffington Post, Palin said she was “not thrilled” about the idea of going on the show because “these folks are whack.”

In an interview with Walshe and Conroy, The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder noted that their book chronicles “fairly persuasively, a large number of what seem to be fairly egregious distortions” by Palin. “Sarah Palin is quick to cast aside people who cross her in even minor ways, and her unwillingness to tolerate much dissent often leads to an infallibility syndrome,” replied the authors, who later added that she has a “tendency to wildly exaggerate the truth.”

Republicans Are Shocked The Public Is Mad At Them For Voting Against Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment

Last month, 30 Republican senators voted against Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) amendment that would punish defense contractors “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” His amendment was inspired by Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang-raped by her co-workers while working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad in 2005, and then had to fight her employer for justice.

The GOP senators who sided with defense contractors at the expense of women — such as John Thune (SD) — have been facing an intense backlash. David Vitter (LA) refused to give a rape victim a straight answer when she confronted him about his vote, claiming that he is “absolutely supportive of any [rape] case like that being prosecuted criminally to the full extent of the law.”

Politico reports that Republicans are now scratching their heads at why the public is so incensed about their “no” votes:

Privately, GOP sources acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the political consequences of a “no” vote on the amendment. And several aides said that Republicans are engaged in an internal blame game about why they agreed to a roll-call vote on the measure, rather than a simple voice vote that would have allowed the opposing senators to duck criticism.

As BarbinMD writes, “Seriously? They voted against an amendment that was prompted by the brutal gang-rape of a young woman by her co-workers while she was working for a company under contract for the United States government, after which she was locked in a shipping container without food or water, threatened if she left to seek medical treatment, and was then prevented from bringing criminal charges against her assailants. And they failed to anticipate the political consequences?”

Thune is also claiming that Franken doesn’t really care about Jones and other rape victims whose employers have blocked them from seeking justice; he and other Democrats just wanted to “create a vote which they could use to attack Republicans.”

So basically, the only lesson they learned is that next time, they have to hide their votes when they decide to screw over women’s rights. That way, they can support their allies in the contracting business and the public will never find out.

Do Anti-Choice Conservatives Like Cantor And Gingrich Provide Elective Abortion Coverage To Their Employees?

Yesterday, the Politico reported that the Republican National Committee provides a health insurance policy to its employees which covers elective abortions. The RNC’s platform considers elective abortions “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.” Reacting to the news today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele said, “Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose,” and that “it will not exist under my administration.”

Conservatives are pressing forward with an effort to use health reform as a backdoor legislative effort to ban abortion coverage in the Exchange — and limit abortion services in existing employer-sponsored plans. However, an analysis of disclosure forms of right-wing organizations and lawmakers reveals that many anti-choice conservative leaders may provide insurance plans with elective abortions to their employees.

For instance, Newt Gingrich, like the RNC, has said he would like to outlaw abortions. According to IRS disclosure forms, Gingrich’s 527 attack organization American Solutions for Winning the Future provides health coverage to its employees through CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield. According to its website, standard Carefirst Blue Cross Blue Shield policies cover elective abortions unless the employer specifically opts out.

House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), another staunch opponent of reproductive rights, also provides Carefirst Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage to his campaign employees.

Both Gingrich and Cantor’s office have not responded to calls from ThinkProgress inquiring if either employer has canceled elective abortion coverage on their insurance coverage.

Why Are Hawkish Lawmakers Willing To Pay For An Escalation Of The War But Not For Health Care?

In recent days, heated policy discussions in Washington have largely focused on two topics: a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan and health care legislation. Both a troop escalation and health care legislation carry significant price tags: roughly $100 billion and $80-$100 billion a year respectively. (It should be noted that health care reform, unlike a troop surge, would cut the deficit.)

In his New York Times column today, columnist Nicholas Kristof asks why hawks claim health reform is “fiscally irresponsible” while enthusiastically supporting a troop surge in Afghanistan, given the fact that fixing our broken health care system is, unlike a troop surge, essential to the health and well-being of Americans:

The health care legislation pays for itself, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the deployment in Afghanistan is unfinanced and will raise our budget deficits and undermine our long-term economic security.

So doesn’t it seem odd to hear hawks say that health reform is fiscally irresponsible, while in the next breath they cheer a larger deployment of troops in Afghanistan?

Meanwhile, lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans a year, according to a Harvard study released in September. So which is the greater danger to our homeland security, the Taliban or our dysfunctional insurance system?

Indeed, hawkish legislators have lined up to both demand a costly surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan while at the same time claiming that deficit-cutting health care legislation would simply be too expensive:

– Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has called for providing the “resources [needed]” for a “significant increase in U.S. forces” while warning that he is “really worried about what [health care reform] would do to the deficit.” [9/13/09, 10/26/09]

– Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has complained that passing health care legislation would “expand government spending even more,” while also boasting of his Republican caucus’s “broad support” for any troop increase in Afghanistan. [10/21/09, 10/11/09]

– Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wrote a letter to President Obama stating that we “urgently need more resources” in Afghanistan, “including more combat troops,” while at the same time claiming that passing health care legislation would be tantamount to “generational theft” that would run up “unconscionable and unsustainable deficits.” [11/10/09, 8/27/09]

Kristof’s question bears answering. Why is it that hawkish lawmakers are so willing to spend such enormous resources in both lives and treasure on a troop surge in Afghanistan that is increasingly opposed by Americans and Afghans, but are so quick to bark at the price tag of health care legislation that could save the lives of the 45,000 Americans who die every year because they don’t have access to health care? As Glenn Greenwald notes, “Urging that more Americans be sent into endless war paid for with endless debt, while yawning and lazily waving away with boredom the hordes outside dying for lack of health care coverage, is one of the most repugnant images one can imagine.”

Lieberman Pledges To Filibuster House Bill: The Public Option Is ‘Unnecessary’ »

This morning on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) about the House’s historic passage of health care legislation last night. Lieberman said that as a “matter of conscience,” he will join a Republican filibuster if a public option — which has supposedly been put forward “by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance” — is also included in the bill that goes before the Senate:

LIEBERMAN: A public option plan is unnecessary. It has been put forward, I’m convinced, by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance. They’ve got a right to do that; I think that would be wrong.

But worse than that, we have a problem even greater than the health insurance problems, and that is a debt — $12 trillion today, projected to be $21 trillion in 10 years.

WALLACE: So at this point, I take it, you’re a “no” vote in the Senate?

LIEBERMAN: If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe debt can break America and send us into a recession that’s worse than the one we’re fighting our way out of today. I don’t want to do that to our children and grandchildren.

Watch it:

Late last month, Lieberman told reporters that he was planning to filibuster a public option. But a few days later, the Hill reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office was confident Lieberman would “vote with Democrats in the necessary procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill.” Today, Lieberman made it clear where he stands.

It isn’t really Lieberman’s “conscience” that is driving him to oppose the public option — more likely it’s his ego (since he told reporters that he likes feeling “relevant“). After all, Lieberman opposed the Senate Finance Committee bill even though it didn’t have a public option, and in 1994, his “conscience” told him that the filibuster was “unfair” and shouldn’t be used to block major legislation. He has also asserted that the public option would raise premiums and increase the debt, even though the Congressional Budget Office has disputed those claims. Furthermore, 60 percent of his constituents support a public option, but Lieberman has dismissed them as just being “confused.”

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Pence: ‘We Actually Do Deal With Pre-Existing Conditions’ In The GOP Health Bill

This week, House Republicans officially released their alternative health care legislation, which the Congressional Budget Offices estimates would still leave 52 million Americans uninsured by 2019. The plan has been met with widespread criticism, focusing around the fact that the plan doesn’t bar insurers from rejecting coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Today on Fox News, however, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) tried to whitewash this point and simply insisted, “We actually do deal with pre-existing conditions in our bill”:

PENCE: You know, the Speaker has said it was scandalous — some interpretation of the Republican plan, which I am happy to talk about. We actually do deal with pre-existing conditions in our bill. But what’s scandalous is the Democrats launching a massive $1.2 trillion government takeover of health care paid for with more than $700 billion in tax increases on individuals and small businesses at a time when unemployment may well today come close to 10 percent.

Watch it:

Yesterday on MSNBC, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) similarly said that they “address the pre-existing conditions.” Both statements are misleading, and Republicans clearly recognize that they’re in an uncomfortable position because their bill doesn’t address one of the public’s top priorities in health care reform. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that the public overwhelmingly wants final legislation to require “that health insurance companies cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.” Sixty-three percent of the respondents said that it “must” be included, and another 26 percent said they would “prefer” that it were there.

As Roll Call reported, Republicans “deal” with Americans with pre-existing conditions by forcing them into expensive high-risk pools:

And states would be eligible for a total of $15 billion [in federal funds] over the next 10 years in aid for creating high-risk pools for people whom private insurance companies refuse to cover because of pre-existing health conditions.

People with pre-existing conditions would pay up to 50 percent more than average for insurance coverage under the plan. States would have to cover the rest of the tab with a “stable funding source,” although the modest federal subsidy would cover a portion of the cost.

Most states already have such plans, which typically are much more expensive than regular insurance and have not made much of a dent in the ranks of the uninsured.

Even worse, high-risk pools would be able to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions that made people eligible in the first place. So people would be forced into the pools because of their pre-existing conditions, but the pools wouldn’t pay for treatment of that condition. President Obama and the Senate Finance Committee have also supported increased funding for high-risk pools, but only as a stop gap until 2013, when insurers would be prohibited from denying people coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

The disappointing refusal to bar insurers from rejecting Americans with pre-existing conditions comes after numerous Republican officials promised to address this problem.

Gov. Charlie Crist Tries To Weasel Away From His Endorsement Of The Stimulus

Back in February, when the administration was pushing Congress to pass its Recovery Act, President Obama gained the support of a prominent Republican ally, Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Standing side-by-side with Obama, Crist explained why he was supporting the stimulus:

CRIST: We’ve had to cut about $7 billion the past two years and we haven’t raised taxes and we’re still in balance. But to be candid, it’s getting harder every day. It’s getting harder every day and we know that it’s important that we pass this stimulus package. It is important that we do so to help education, to help our infrastructure, and to help health care for those who need it the most — the most vulnerable among us.

As The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack notes, Crist explained that he was breaking from his own party to back the stimulus “because Florida needs it frankly.” In May, Crist said he would have made the “pragmatic” decision to vote for the stimulus had he been in the Senate.

But because he is currently engaged in a tight Senate campaign against fervent anti-Obama, anti-stimulus right-wing candidate Marco Rubio, Crist is conveniently forgetting his prior statements. Yesterday on CNN, Crist claimed that he never “endorsed” the stimulus package. “I didn’t endorse it, I didn’t even have a vote on the darn thing,” he said. Watch it:

The irony, of course, is that Crist is distancing himself from the Recovery Act at a time when the bill is beginning to bear fruit. Nearly $7 billion has flowed from the stimulus into the state of Florida, helping to create or save approximately 29,000 jobs. (State officials put the number closer to 47,000.)

The Crist administration has set up a website to specifically tout the benefits of the stimulus program. “I’m grateful for the federal dollars coming to our state for economic recovery,” Crist states in a video posted on that website. Some examples of its impact:

– More than 3,000 teaching jobs were saved and more than 500 coaching and support jobs created in Broward and Palm Beach County schools.

– Construction worker Leon Barron of Ft. Piece, FL, said he was “facing the prospect” of being laid off prior to the stimulus. “We appreciate the stimulus and the president,” said Barron, who works for Range Construction Industries.

– Ranger Construction Industries Vice President Bob Schafer said a stimulus contract allowed him to save the jobs of 25 to 30 people he otherwise would have laid off.

– Pasco County officials say they seriously underestimated the demand for federal stimulus money intended to prevent homelessness, and they are being overwhelmed with calls for help.

Sadly, Crist has taken to deceiving the public, rather than defending a proud record of saving and creating jobs in Florida.

CBO Says GOP Health Care ‘Alternative’ Leaves 52 Million Uninsured By 2019

Last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the House Republican alternative health care bill. While the CBO determined the GOP bill’s 10 year price tag to be $61 billion — far less that the Democrats’ proposal — the score also found that the their bill would have little effect on nearly 46 million uninsured Americans:

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share. CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the amendment’s insurance coverage provisions would increase deficits by $8 billion over the 2010–2019 period.

The CBO found that the Democrats’ bill, however, would cover 36 million more Americans and “reduce the number of nonelderly Americans without coverage to around 18 million over the next decade.” Yet, just before the CBO scored the GOP bill, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) falsely claimed their alternative “will cover millions more Americans” than the Democrats’ bill.

Last night on Fox News Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) dodged a question about how many uninsured the GOP plan would cover and instead railed at the Democrats for “trying to get at this business of universal coverage”:

PENCE: We believe you get at the coverage issue by lowering the cost of health insurance. … So Republicans by focusing on the cost of health insurance believe that we are going to take our country in a direction where we also deal with the tens of millions of people and employers that struggle with providing insurance.

Watch it:

Conservatives Mock 72-Hour Window That They Requested To Review Health Care Reform Legislation

In September, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) organized a discharge petition in order to force a vote on a resolution that would “require that legislation and conference reports be available on the Internet for 72-hours before consideration by the House.” “It’s just common sense: Americans should be allowed to read the text of major bills before Congress votes on them,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH).

The House Democratic leadership eventually agreed to post health care legislation online for 72-hours before bringing it up for a vote. But once they got what they wanted, conservatives started to complain that 72-hours wasn’t enough. “They are only giving you 72-hours to read it,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Glenn Beck’s radio show today. “So they obviously are embarrassed of their own bill.”

On WorldNetDaily’s radio show today, Rep. John Linder (R-GA) claimed that Democrats were only including the 72-hour waiting period because they needed more time to twist arms for votes:

LINDER: I would not be surprised if they sent us home Friday and bring us back a week or so later to see if they can get the votes because I do not believe they have the votes now.

HOST: What makes you think that?

LINDER: If they had the votes, they’d have voted on it already. They would not have worried about the 72-hours. That 72-hours is for them to beat up their own members, not for the public to read the bill. If they had those votes, they’d cram it down now and they clearly do not.

Listen here:

Despite their current complaints about the 72-hour time period, both Bachmann and Linder signed the discharge petition seeking the 72-hours.

Boehner Won’t Pledge To Offer GOP Health Care Plan, Refuses To Post It Online If He Does

Republicans have been insisting for months that Democrats are shoving a secret bill down the throats of the American public. The health reform legislation “should be posted online for 72 hours so members and the American people get a chance to see what’s in these bills,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told Fox News. “But it seems to me that Democrat leaders want to rush these bills through Congress before anybody has a chance to read them.”

In fact, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) “has repeatedly pledged to Republicans that the health bill and any manager’s amendment would be posted online for at least 72 hours before the House votes,” and he promised again this week.

At a press conference this morning, a reporter turned the tables on Boehner and asked whether he’d post the GOP plan for 72 hours. Boehner declined to make such a pledge:

QUESTION: Will the Republicans put their alternative online for 72 hours as well?

BOEHNER: Uh, we’ll uh, we’ll have our ideas ready. Don’t worry.

Why won’t Bohner post the GOP plan? Because he doesn’t have one. Later in the press conference, this minor detail was revealed when a reporter pressed Boehner for a GOP alternative plan:

QUESTION: Is it your plan to have one Republican alternative that you all would get behind and endorse?

BOHNER: We have a number of ideas that we would like to proffer in this process, and we’re not quite sure how the majority intends to proceed. And so until we understand how they intend to proceed, it’s pretty difficult for us to have a solid plan.

Watch it:

Earlier this month, Fox’s Greta van Susteren asked Boehner why House Republicans didn’t push for transparency when they were in power. “It was a different time,” Boehner said in response.

It’s clear why Republicans have been insisting on having as much time as possible to read the bill. As Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) explained, health insurance lobbyists need to be given “at least 72 hours” so they can try to kill the legislation.

New GOP Health Care Website Fails To Mention Seniors

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN) held a press conference today to explain why progressive health reform would hurt seniors and to highlight the GOP’s “better solutions.” In an email yesterday, Boehner instructed readers to go to the GOP healthcare website “and you can see all of our proposals.”

The website ostensibly outlines the “Republican Plan” for “common-sense health care reforms” — but seniors are not addressed in the plans presented. In fact, there are no occurrences of the words “senior,” “elderly,” or “older Americans” at all. An archived version of the website can be found here.

Think Progress asked Pence to address the notable omission. Seemingly unaware of the failure, he merely instructed us to “stay tuned.” Watch it:

The GOP has been engaged in a months-long campaign to scare seniors about health reform. In August, Michael Steele tried to prey on seniors’ fears by rolling out the “Seniors Health Care Bill of Rights.” Now, it appears Republicans have simply forgotten about them.

Lieberman Lies To Justify Health Care Filibustering: The Public Option Will Raise Premiums And Increase The Debt

This afternoon, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appeared on Fox News to defend his intention to filibuster any health care reform bill that includes a national public option. Lieberman argued that a public plan would “stifle” the economic recovery and increase “the debt.” “It’s just unnecessary,” Lieberman said. The public option is “a new entitlement program and the taxpayers and the premium-payers are going to end up paying for it, or else the debt will go higher.”

Responding to proponents of the public plan who argue that it would actually lower costs, Lieberman insisted that if the public option paid lower reimbursement rates than private insurers, medical providers would shift costs to Americans with private coverage:

LIEBERMAN: If the public option, the government run health insurance company negotiates hard to lower the reimbursement — the money it’s paying to hospitals, doctors — they’re [providers] going to have to get that money somewhere. And where they’re going to get it is from the 200 million Americans who today have private health insurance. Premiums will go up. It’s exactly what’s happened with Medicare and Medicaid. [...]

When people hear public option, I think they think it’s for free. It’s not for free. Somebody is going to have to pay for it and you can bet it’s going to be the taxpayers and the people who pay health insurance premiums now.

Watch it:

Contrary to Lieberman’s claims, the public option envisioned by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would be required to compete on a level playing field with private insurers and charge premiums “in an amount sufficient to cover expected costs.” Instead of stifling the “economic recovery” and increasing “the debt,” the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the self-sustaining public option (similar to the one envisioned by Reid) could actually save the government money and slightly lower premiums.

Like Lieberman, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — the insurance industry’s lobby — and the Business Roundtable have also argued that a public option that reimburses providers at lower rates than private payers would force providers to raise costs for Americans with private coverage in order to make-up the difference. MedPAC, the Congressional Budget Office, and numerous actuarial studies dispute the insurers’ claims.

These critics confuse cost shifts with price differentials. Economists point out that “price differentials are not necessarily the recouping of losses from one payer by overcharging another”; providers often “charge different prices to different market segments” to maximize profits, not to shift costs. MedPAC has concluded that “hospitals that are forced to run efficiently are adequately funded by Medicare payments. Therefore, increasing Medicare reimbursements to hospitals would not reduce rates providers charge to private insurers.” The research suggests that hospitals “are raising prices when they have the market power to do so,” not because they are reimbursed at Medicare rates.

FLASHBACK: Lieberman Voted Yes On Cloture For Legislation He Ultimately Opposed

Yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who caucuses with the Democrats, made headlines when he vowed to join the Republican filibuster the Senate health care bill unless the public option is removed from it.

As Rachel Maddow pointed out last night, “A member of the majority has never before crossed party lines to filibuster with the minority. And that is exactly what Joe Lieberman is threatening to do to kill health care reform.” In fact, according to research dug up by Maddow and her staff, Lieberman has voted for cloture and allowed up-or-down floor votes on a number of major bills he opposed in the past:

– Lieberman joined 55 Republicans and 13 Democrats to back cloture for a bill that made it more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy. [5/8/05] He voted with the minority in opposing final passage. [5/10/05]

– Lieberman joined 93 other senators in voting for cloture on the Secure Fence Act, which beefed up the use of technology for border security. [9/20/06] He voted with the minority in opposing final passage. [9/29/06]

– Lieberman joined 96 other senators in backing cloture for an Iraq funding bill that included a timeline for withdrawal. [3/28/07] He voted with the minority in opposing final passage. [4/26/07]

One of the most glaring examples of Lieberman’s past flexibility on filibusters was during the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Lieberman, who was part of the notorious “Gang of 14” that ended the chances of a filibuster of Alito’s nomination, explained his rationale to Fox News host Sean Hannity: “I did vote against the filibuster cause I thought that, you know, it was time to move on.”

Indeed, the same argument can now be made for health care.

House Republicans Pander To Tea Party Movement With Frivolous Resolution Inflating 9/12 Protest Numbers

Earlier today, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) released a “leader alert,” proclaiming, “Great Work, Congress: Speaker Pelosi’s House to Honor Confucius’ Birthday as Unemployment Nears 10 Percent.” “With millions of Americans looking for jobs and the nation’s unemployment rate nearing 10 percent, the U.S. House of Representatives today will take up a grand total of four non-controversial ’suspension’ bills,” said Boehner.

But Boehner’s “playing hooky” attack on Pelosi comes at an awkward moment, considering that just today, 76 House Republicans introduced a frivolous resolution aimed at playing to the conservatives’ tea party base by officially commemorating the Glenn Beck-inspired 9/12 taxpayer march on Washington. The resolution, introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), claims that “the fundamental American principles of limited government and personal liberty are under direct assault.” It also seeks to have Congress officially enshrine the inflated crowd numbers pushed by conservatives:

Whereas, on September 12, 2009, hundreds of thousands of American patriots, who refuse to sit idly by as the Federal Government advances skyrocketing deficits, taxpayer-funded bailouts, pork-barrel projects, burdensome taxes, unaccountable policy czars, command-and-control energy policy, and a government takeover of health care, came to Washington, DC, to show their disapproval;

[…]

Whereas estimates of the number of people who peacefully marched from Freedom Plaza to the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on September 12, 2009, range as high as 1,700,000 marchers;

[…]

Resolved, That the House of Representatives expresses its gratitude and appreciation to the hundreds of thousands of people who marched on Washington, DC, on September 12, 2009, to show their love of liberty and their grievance with recent government actions.

The closest thing to an official count, numbers given by the Washington DC Fire Department to ABCNews.com, placed the crowd at “approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people.”

Perino: Obama’s Criticism Of Fox Is Akin To Chavez’s Tactics, Sets A Bad Example For ‘Emerging Democracies’ »

Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace made sure to devote plenty of time to covering President Obama’s “war on Fox News”; he even played a clip of Sean Connery as Jim Malone “The Untouchables” talking about “the Chicago way” of getting things done. Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino sharply criticized the Obama administration’s tactics and expressed absolute shock at the example the United States was setting for “the free press in emerging democracies,” comparing the criticisms of Fox News to when “Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations”:

PERINO: That was a coordinated, calculated attack. It was unbecoming. And if you look at some of the coverage of what mainstream media covers when, for example, somebody like a Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations, he calls them illegitimate.

Now, I’m not suggesting that this White House believes that they are going to come over here and shut down Fox News. But they are defining a narrative in their first year, and it’s going to be very hard to recover from it. [...]

Through our State Department, we are trying to help emerging democracies get journalists and government officials to talk to one another, because freedom of the press is essential to any democracy. Believe me, they are watching this, and they have — surely are raising questions.

Watch it:

The Obama administration, according to Reporters Without Borders, is actually setting quite a strong example of press freedom for the world. In 2008, the organization found that in terms of press freedom, the U.S. ranked 36th out of 173 countries. Its report singled out “wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism” as a cause for the steep decline in press freedoms around the world. Just one year later, the United States has jumped from 36th to 20th. “Barack Obama’s election as president and the fact that he has a less hawkish approach than his predecessor have had a lot to do with this,” concluded Reporters Without Borders.

So what type of example did the Bush administration set? A few lowlights:

– The Pentagon had a secret program to use retired military analysts to “generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.” Most of these analysts had “ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.” When the “message machine” became public, Perino defended the program as “absolutely appropriate.”

– The U.S. military was “secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.” The articles contained anonymous quotes from U.S. military officials — which may or may not have been authentic — and “read more like press releases than news stories.”

– The Education Department paid conservative pundit Armstrong Williams hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. Even after the corruption was uncovered, the administration defended it as “a permissible use of taxpayer funds.”

– The Government Accountability Office found that the Bush administration violated anti-propaganda laws when it disguised two promotional ads — on federal drug policy and Medicare — as news reports. The “reports” aired on dozens of stations, and the GAO “faulted the administration for distributing seemingly independent, ready-to-air reports that did not inform viewers that they came from the government.”

Bush also called a New York Times reporter “a major league asshole” — and never apologized. In fact, Bush never gave the NYT a single interview throughout his presidency. (Update: Bush gave the New York Times interviews in 2001, 2004, and 2005.) The White House frequently went after NBC News, and Perino has admitted that they essentially froze out MSNBC “towards the end.”

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John McCain — ‘Tech Troglodyte’ And Top Recipient Of Telecom Cash — Unveils Bill To Block Net Neutrality

On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) became the Republican Party’s lead man on technology issues (and probably made Glenn Beck a happy man) by introducing the “Internet Freedom Act.” The legislation would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from making sure that Internet service providers don’t create a pay-for-play system where they could selectively block or slow content and applications. McCain called these net neutrality rules a “government takeover of the Internet.” From his press release:

This government takeover of the Internet will stifle innovation, in turn slowing our economic turnaround and further depressing an already anemic job market. Outside of health care, the technology industry is the nation’s fastest growing job market. Innovation and job growth in this sector of our economy is the key to America’s future prosperity. In 2008, while most industries were slashing jobs in the worst economy in nearly 30 years, high tech industries actually added over 77,000 good high-paying jobs. Just this month, Google and Yahoo both released positive earnings reports.

First of all, it’s ironic that McCain cites Google and Yahoo as examples of why net neutrality rules need to be blocked. In fact, both companies have said that without such measures, the “longstanding openness of the Internet” will be threatened. From a letter they wrote to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2006:

Until FCC decisions made last summer, consumers’ ability to choose the content and services they want via their broadband connections was assured by regulatory safeguards. … This “innovation without permission” has fueled phenomenal economic growth, productivity gains, and global leadership for our nation’s high tech companies.

To preserve this environment, we urge the Committee to include language that directly addresses broadband network operators’ ability to manipulate what consumers will see and do online.

However, telecoms largely support blocking net neutrality rules, and McCain is a long-time friend of these businesses. McCain was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the telecom industry, taking in $894,379 in the past two years.

Even as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005, McCain made sure to craft technology rules that benefited his campaign donors. He opposed a program designed to provide discounts to schools and libraries to connect to the Internet and supported large telecom mergers.

Of course, the GOP point man on technology issues is someone who, just last year, called himself a computer “illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get.” In July 2008, he said he has “never felt the particular need to e-mail.” As former FCC chairman Reed Hundt has explained, “Basically, John is a technological troglodyte, and proud of it” — and we’re now supposed to trust him to shape the way we use the Internet.

Rep. Alan Grayson Grills Republican Congressman On Constitutionality Of Anti-ACORN Crusade

One of the right’s loudest crusades has been their effort to undermine the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN). Following the release of a series of videos showing a handful of ACORN employees behaving inappropriately, conservatives in Congress have done everything they can to single out ACORN for being stripped of all federal funding (while engaging in apparent opposition to defunding companies that cover up rape). Many legal experts have warned that these measures may be unconstitutional because lawmakers cannot punish a group or individual without a trial.

Yesterday, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) challenged the constitutionality of one of these anti-ACORN measures being supported by Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) during a hearing of the Science and Technology committee. Grayson repeatedly questioned Broun about the constitutionality of “bills of attainder” — which are punishments that single out a group or individual without a court trial. The Georgia Republican was unable to offer a coherent rebuttal:

GRAYSON: I’d like to ask the gentleman from Georgia a few questions, and I’ll yield to him for the purpose of having answers to these questions. Does the gentleman from Georgia know what a bill of Attainder is?

BROUN: A bill of, the answer’s yes, in fact it’s been very explicitly described by the court’s.

GRAYSON: What is it?

BROUN: [long pause. Scrambling through papers.] The courts have applied a two pronged test. Number one, whether specific individuals or entities are affected by the staute, Number two, when the legislation affects a “punishment,” on those individuals, it serves no legitamate regulatory purpose.

GRAYSON: What, um, does the Constitution says about Bills of Attainder?

BROUN: Oh, I suggest that this is not a Bill of Attainder. It’s, um, certainly does focus on a specific entity, but it does not inflict punishment by any means. In fact…

GRAYSON: Will the gentleman from Georgia explain what the Constitution says about Bills of Attainder?

ANOTHER CONGRESSMAN: Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield for a second? The gentleman from Florida?

GRAYSON: No. I’d like an answer to my question. [...]

GRAYSON: The question is, will the gentleman from Georgia agree with me that the Bill of Attainder clause was intended not as a narrow or technical provision, but as an implementation of the seperation of powers, and a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or more simply, trial by legislature. Will the gentleman agree to that?

BROUN: No, sir, I will not, and I ask counsel to help us with this. I think all this is determination of the court and I’d like to appeal to Mr. Sensenberner.

GRAYSON: Well, I’m sorry, but it’s my time, not yours or Mr. Sensenberner’s, so I will reclaim my time, and I will point out that what you just you would not agree to is from a Supreme Court case called the United States v. Brown, something I would expect you might know about, given your name.

Watch it:

Grayson ended his remarks by noting that the conservative crusade against ACORN isn’t based in principle but politics: “We are trampling on people’s Constitutional rights. And I think it’s unfortunate that the mania that exists on the other side of the aisle regarding this one organization, and we know why that mania exists, it’s because they’ve registered an awful lot of Democrats, continues to distort and waste the time of this committee and many other committees here in Congress. Enough is enough.”

(HT: MinistryOfTruth at Daily Kos)

Sen. Burr Touts Funds From Stimulus Bill He Opposed

Earlier this year, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) — commonly referred to as the stimulus — with the votes of only three Republicans in the Senate. Since then, a whole host of legislators who opposed the stimulus have jumped at the opportunity to personally deliver stimulus funds to their cash-strapped districts.

Now, the Hickory Daily Record reports that the latest senator to engage in stimulus hypocrisy is Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). Last week, Burr appeared in Bethlehem, North Carolina, to deliver ARRA funds for a fire station there:

This summer, the department applied for and won a $2,008,515 federal grant that will pay for a new 19,000-square-foot fire station.

On Friday, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr was in Bethlehem to present the grant to the department.

“This is a great thing for this county,” he said. “We’re not accustomed to federal dollars in that magnitude finding their way to North Carolina.”

“This will serve a huge need for us,” said Chief Shannon Lowrance of the Bethlehem Community Volunteer Fire Department. “This is a very fast-growing community. We’re building for the next 50 years.” [...]

Having the plans ready to go helped the department win three American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Assistance to Firefighters Station Construction Grants issued this year from the Federal Emergency Management Agency / Department of Homeland Security, Lowrance said.

Last winter, Burr slammed the stimulus on Fox News, telling one of their anchors, “This isn’t a stimulus package, this is a spending package.” The senator even delivered the official Republican response to President Obama’s weekly address on the stimulus, warning ominously that “the federal government is obligating the American people to a similar fate” as that of a family choking under credit card debt. He ended up voting against the funds he is now happy to tout.

Rep. Kingston Doesn’t Mention The Stimulus When Handing Out Stimulus Funds

Earlier this year, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) — commonly referred to as the stimulus — without a single Republican vote in the House of Representatives. Since then, a whole host of legislators who opposed the stimulus have jumped at the opportunity to personally deliver stimulus funds to their cash-strapped districts.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that not a single Georgian GOP legislator who voted against ARRA has turned down stimulus funds for their district. The paper notes one congressman, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), has managed to get away with this hypocrisy by hiding the source of the funds he is doling out:

On July 28, Kingston’s office issued news releases announcing $245,187 combined in funding through the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services for the Alma and Jesup police departments. The money will pay the salary and benefits for one entry-level police officer for each department for three years, according to Kingston’s news releases, which did not mention the funding was made possible by the federal stimulus program.

“We’ve seen from experience that local initiatives go a lot further toward solving local problems than policies set in Washington,” Kingston said in his release about the funding for Jesup. “This funding will provide tax relief by saving local tax dollars.”

In February, Kingston said the recovery act is “fundamentally flawed and doesn’t represent the change we deserve or the stimulus we need.” His spokesman said Kingston, who remains opposed to the stimulus, routinely announces all types of federal funding for his district without identifying the legislation that created it.

“We are very cautious not to take credit for it in those releases,” Kingston spokesman Chris Crawford said.

Last week, ThinkProgress noted that Kingston’s colleague Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) — another ardent opponent of the stimulus — handed a giant, stimulus-funded check to the city of Cedartown, Georgia to help fund community development projects.

Gingrey — who remains opposed to the Recovery Act — was forced to release this statement explaining his hypocrisy: “If the Democrats are hellbent on spending an astronomical sum of money, it is my job as a member of Congress to see that the communities I represent receive consideration for the federal funds that the Democrats are spending, whether I agreed with its allocation or not.”