Medical Insurance

The day after Barack Obama won a major victory for his signature health care overhaul legislation -- which he and his allies insist will ultimately LOWER health care costs for Americans -- the president is threatening to veto a defense authorization bill in part because Congress is not acting to RAISE health care costs for American servicemen.

The Washington Free Beacon has the story here, and I've also excerpted it below the page break. It remains to be seen to what extent the Obama-boosting liberal media will acknowledge the president's hypocrisy:

In a pathetic act of desperation, CNN's Carol Costello whined that President Obama is not defending his own health care bill well enough and that Mitt Romney is not standing behind his own health care bill from Massachusetts. Costello's lament aired on Thursday morning's Newsroom.

"I mean, secretly, don't you wish Mitt Romney would help us understand his signature accomplishment as Massachusetts governor, health care complete with a mandate and everything?" she implored the audience. "And don't you wish President Obama would really explain the plan's impact on our economy?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Health care activist Patrick Kennedy got over four minutes on CNN prime-time to air his glee over ObamaCare being upheld on Thursday. Host Piers Morgan simply let the former Democratic congressman expound on his father Ted Kennedy's fight for health care and praise the Supreme Court decision.

CNN is no stranger to the Kennedys, having lauded Ted Kennedy as "American royalty" and given his son Patrick an exclusive one-hour special on his struggle with alcoholism and "a new beginning." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

On Friday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie touted Chief Justice John Roberts joining the Supreme Court majority in upholding ObamaCare as an "almost Nixon-to-China alignment with liberals on the Court." Special correspondent Tom Brokaw applauded the move: "I do think that it lowered the temperature about the debate about the politicalization of the Court. And that's a good thing for the country, however you feel about the decisions that they're making." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

On Thursday's CBS This Morning, Norah O'Donnell played up President Obama's experience as a lecturer in constitutional law just hours before the Supreme Court upheld his health care law. O'Donnell trumpeted how the President apparently "paid so close attention to this - not only reading the opinions, but going back and actually listening to them on tape."

The correspondent also forwarded the White House's talking points on ObamaCare before and after the Court's decision came down: "This is something the President fought hard for, to equip some 30 million more people - have them get health insurance, and provide those who already have private health insurance additional coverage."

Once a candidate to be President Obama's surgeon general – and thus the mouthpiece for ObamaCare – Dr. Sanjay Gupta touted the benefits of ObamaCare throughout the day on Thursday, after the Supreme Court upheld the law. CNN's own medical correspondent was essentially defending the law by explaining its benefits to different guests.

Two health care activists were among the guests who came to Gupta and defended the bill. CNN didn't identify them as pro-ObamaCare, however, even though their respective organizations supported the law.

During NBC's noon et hour special coverage of the ObamaCare Supreme Court ruling, Nightly News anchor Brian Williams declared that Chief Justice John Roberts sided with liberals on the Court in upholding the unpopular law in order "to be on the side of history." Legal analyst Savannah Guthrie praised Roberts for having the wisdom of King Solomon: "I guess you'd call it a Solomonic decision." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

During special coverage on ABC, correspondent Terry Moran touted the ruling as "a clever piece of lawyering by the Chief Justice," explaining: "...the government can tax you if you don't buy insurance, it can't order you to buy insurance." World News anchor Diane Sawyer chimed in: "So you pay the fine if you, in essence, don't pay that tax." Moran laughably replied: "You still have a choice."

Liberal hosts on MSNBC can’t get their talking points in order when it comes to how liberals should react to the Supreme Court.  On Tuesday’s The Cycle, co-host Steve Kornacki insisted that “if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate, that does not mean it's unconstitutional.”   To the Salon.com writer, just because the Court would have spoken thus doesn't make it final.

Such open and partisan comments are a stark contrast to those made by MSNBC weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry today. On MSNBC Live following the Supreme Court upholding ObamaCare, Harris-Perry rebuked Kentucky Republican Rand Paul for his attack on the Supreme Court, saying he should respect the Court's word as final.  [Video follows page break;  MP3 audio here.]

Meet the Press host David Gregory displayed a stunning double standard throughout NBC's Thursday morning coverage of the Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare. Prior to the decision, he warned of a "nightmare scenario" if the law was struck down. Hours later, following the Court upholding the law, Gregory cheered Chief Justice John Roberts for taking "a big step here" to keep the Court from being "too polarized." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Early the 7 a.m. et hour of Today, Gregory melodramatically fretted over the possibility of  ObamaCare being ruled unconstitutional: "What happens if it is struck down in part or in whole by a 5 to 4 decision? Would that not underscore how dysfunctional our government is, the major institutions of our government are? That is a real nightmare scenario, I think, for the political class in this country."

For-profit dental care is awful, according to a new report by PBS’s “Frontline.” The piece pushed socialized medicine and attacked dentistry companies, especially the firm Kool Smiles. But the story relied on whistleblower comments from a former Kool Smiles employee who is not only suing the firm, she may well have a felony criminal record.

The employee, Christina Bowne, was a former office manager for the company and is suing the firm for wrongful termination. However, according to a Virginia Criminal Record report, a Christina Summers Bowne, from the same area of Virginia, was convicted of “obtaining money by false pretenses.” That woman was given a five-year sentence, which was suspended. No one responded to attempts to either contact Bowne or PBS “Frontline” producer Jill Rosenbaum.

President Obama created a fictional woman "Julia" to help argue how his policies would support a person's well-being over her lifetime. Well, CNN pulled the same propaganda tactic on Wednesday to show the necessity of ObamaCare to the livelihood of various people.

Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen told the situation of three hypothetical persons in nothing less than a case for the upholding of ObamaCare. And this isn't the first time she's tried to play on the heartstrings of her audience, as she hyped the fears of an epileptic three year-old girl and her family back in March as the Court was hearing oral arguments for Obama's health care law. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, was once a serious candidate to be President Obama's surgeon general – and thus a megaphone for ObamaCare – before he turned down the offer. Now he is going on CNN and sounding the alarm that health insurance premiums will probably rise if the ObamaCare mandate is overturned by the Supreme Court.

However, CNN issued no disclosure on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday about Gupta's past relationship with the President. His report on "Obamacare: 60 years in the making" aired multiple times from Sunday through Monday, and he appeared on CNN on Tuesday to explain how health care costs could rise if the law's individual mandate is overturned.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (this was written before the decision), the Obama administration has indicated it will move forward with those parts of the unpopular law it can impose on the country.

Guidebooks are helpful when going on vacation. The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) is the best guidebook for Americans concerned where a nationalized health system might take us.

PBS will air “Dollars and Dentists,” a Soros-connected documentary advocating for socialized dental coverage, claiming that there is a lack of affordable dental care that is endangering the lives of millions of children. A press release and promo for the “Frontline” special, which debuts on Junes 26, reveals that in addition to the convenient election year timing, the documentary is hyperbolic, and made in conjunction with a group that gets funding from the the left-wing billionaire.

The narrator for the documentary is an outspoken proponent of lefty propaganda and the whole things is backed by organizations funded, in part, by George Soros. The arguments of “Dollars and Dentists” also closely parallel a CBS program that aired almost four years earlier to the day, during the last presidential election cycle.

Maybe the answer to eliminating much of the annoying bias in establishment press business reporting is to have the reporters involved eliminate the could-might-maybe statements which almost inevitably follow the initial relay of the primary news.

Take the first paragraph of Christopher Rugaber's report Tuesday on recent increases in state tax collections (bolds are mine throughout this post):

With the president's signature "achievement" on life support, The New York Times decided to bury the story in the Friday front-page article "Approval Rating for Justice Hits Just 44% in New Poll." Times reporters Adam Liptak and Allison Kopicki attacked the most prestigious institution in the country, claiming "the public is skeptical about life tenure for the justices, with 60 percent agreeing with the statement that appointing Supreme Court justices for life is a bad thing because it gives them too much power. One-third agreed with a contrary statement, that life tenure for justices “is a good thing because it helps keep them independent from political pressures.”   

While the Times seems to insist the court is losing public prestige, it doesn't want to report on how ObamaCare is still a flop with the public. They save this for paragraph 16:  "41 percent of Americans want the Supreme Court to overturn the entire health care law passed in 2010, while another 27 percent want the court to throw out the part of the law that requires most people to buy coverage. The poll, conducted by the New York Times and CBS News, reveals that more respondents disapprove of the law than approve, 48 percent to 34 percent."  

Artur who? The seems to be the question at the New York Times and the national site of the Associated Press. Searches on former Congressman Artur Davis (in quotes at the Times, not in quotes at AP) return nothing relevant and nothing, respectively, even though Davis appears to be the only African-American current or former congressman to leave the Democratic Part and become a Republican in decades. As noted yesterday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the AP treated the story as a local item yesterday, and the Washington Post carried the AP's story in its Metro local section.

It appears that the two entities might be using the old "Well, Politico covered it, so we don't have to" excuse. On Tuesday of last week, the online publication filed a story reporting rumors that Davis was changing parties. Two days ago (updated yesterday), Alex Eisenstadt made it appear as if anger and not political philosophy largely drove Davis to switch:

Appearing as a guest just past 9:30 a.m. on FNC's America's Newsroom on Monday, liberal FNC analyst Kirsten Powers, as already recounted by Mediaite, observed that "obviously, there's a bias behind" the broadcast networks giving so little attention to the lawsuit against the Obama administration that was recently filed by numerous Catholic institutions challenging the requirement that employers provide free contraception to employees.

On Friday, far-left actress Roseanne Barr went on an anti-Catholic rant on Twitter,  as she seemingly gave her take on the controversy over ObamaCare's abortifacient/contraception mandate. Barr reused some of her previous bigoted attacks: painting Catholic priests as child molesters, and calling for the registration of the Church as a PAC. She even called for the taxation of the Catholic Church.

In her first Tweet, the washed-up comedian spewed, "Catholic employers need to include psychiatric coverage for their women employees's [sic] children who might get molested by catholic priests!" This echoes an April 2010 post Barr made on her personal blog, where she blasted church-going Catholics: "I am starting to think that any parent who takes their kids to catholic churches from now on should lose custody. Taking your kid where you know sex offenders hang out is inexcusable!!!"

The Big Three networks' evening newscasts have all but punted so far on the 12 lawsuits filed on Monday against the Obama administration, challenging the abortifacient/birth control mandate which is part of ObamaCare. However, CBS actually followed up on their exclusive interview of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan on the regulation on Tuesday's CBS This Morning.

Correspondent Norah O'Donnell confronted Press Secretary Jay Carney during the Tuesday White House press briefing over Dolan's sharp critique of the mandate on the morning newscast: "He [Dolan] said that it's a 'strait-jacketing' and 'handcuffing exemption.'...Is that what the President is doing...strait-jacketing and hand-cuffing religious institutions?" O'Donnell's question didn't make it on the air on Tuesday's CBS Evening News or Wednesday's CBS This Morning, even after Carney evaded directly answering her question.

It's difficult to be a good economist and simultaneously be perceived as compassionate. To be a good economist, one has to deal with reality. To appear compassionate, often one has to avoid unpleasant questions, use "caring" terminology and view reality as optional.

Affordable housing and health care costs are terms with considerable emotional appeal that politicians exploit but have absolutely no useful meaning or analytical worth. For example, can anyone tell me in actual dollars and cents the price of an affordable car, house or myomectomy? It's probably more pleasant to pretend that there is universal agreement about what is or is not affordable.

When I saw the headline at last night dispatch from the Associated Press's Charles Babington on presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his campaign ("Romney rebuts claims that he, GOP are anti-women") I thought that the Obama administration and Babington's employer, also known as the Administration's Press, might finally be throwing the inane "war on women" meme into the dustbin. After the Hilary Rosen disaster of the past 36 hours, that would seem wise.

The headline's reference to rebuttal leads one to believe that Romney had successfully "refute(d) by evidence or argument" the utter garbage the left's "war on women" accusation against Republicans and conservatives has always been. I should have known better. The headline doesn't reflect the underlying article at all, leading one to hope that most readers stop right there. Babington's report is so disgracefully over-the-top it deserves its own wing in the Journalism Hall of Shame (bolds and numbered tags, which cover only a portion of the journalistic offenses committed in Babington's full write-up, are mine):

A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 2/3rds of Americans want at least a part of the ObamaCare overhaul tossed by the Supreme Court when it decides HHS v. Florida in June. Thirty-eight percent of respondents in the poll want the entire law thrown out while 29 percent say just a part of it being thrown out would suffice.

Yet rather than lead with these numbers in their story today, Washington Post reporters Robert Barnes and Scott Clement chose a question from the April 5-8 poll that shows 50 percent of Americans think the Court "will rule on the health-care reform case mainly on the basis... of their partisan political views."

At the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar is floating the notion (saved here at host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) that members of the Supreme Court who seem inclined to strike down ObamaCare might do so without fully understanding it. Translation: Those dummies.

The AP reporter makes a claim which reads like a desperate talking point from Team Obama (and maybe it is). The essence of the "argument" is that if you have a required minimum plan design which includes many items individuals and families would never use and would never buy if left to their own devices, and you force them to purchase a health insurance policy with that design (or possibly better), it really isn't a bad thing any more if you allow some choice in copays and deductibles. 

Catching up with what The Weekly Standard dubbed “the prize for unhinged emotionalism” in reaction from within the liberal bubble to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on ObamaCare,  back on Friday, March 30, Andrew Cohen, the “chief analyst and legal editor for CBS Radio News,” wrote on The Atlantic’s Web site:

“The arguments in the Care Act cases may be funny to Justice Antonin Scalia, the bully that he is, but they aren’t funny to the single father who will avoid bankruptcy because of the law.”

The reason tea partiers carried signs saying "Read the Constitution!" was that we were hoping people would read the Constitution.

Alas, we still have Rick Santorum saying Obamacare is the same as what he calls "Romneycare"; the otherwise brilliant Mickey Kaus sniffing that if states can mandate insurance purchases, then we're "not talking about some basic individual liberty to not purchase stuff" (no, just the nation's founding document, which protects "basic individual liberties" by putting constraints on Congress); and the former law professor, Barack Obama, alleging that a "good example" of judicial activism would be the Supreme Court (in his words, "a group of people") overturning "a duly constituted and passed law."

On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose rolled over and deferred to chief Obama flack David Axelrod and his talking points defending the President's Monday rant against the Supreme Court and its deliberation on his health care law, along with its attacks on Mitt Romney. Rose tossed softball questions at Axelrod, such as, "Tell me what he [Obama] is saying when he talks about judicial activism."

The anchor even boosted Hillary Clinton as a possible 2016 presidential candidate for Democrats during his interview with the Obama aide: "[Nancy Pelosi] said her candidate is Hillary Clinton. She hopes Hillary Clinton will run....Do you expect that she'll be a nominee in- will be a candidate for president in 2016?" [audio available here; video clips below the jump]

"President Obama used conservative arguments against judicial activism to urge justices to uphold the law," a teaser headline on the bottom of today's Washington Post front page notes, directing readers to page A4 for the story by staffer David Nakamura.

Nakamura dutifully opened his story noting that Obama said in a Rose Garden press conference yesterday that if the Court overturns ObamaCare in the HHS v. Florida case, that it would "amount to an 'unprecedented, extraordinary step' of judicial activism." Yet nowhere in the 18-paragraph story did Nakamura lay out exactly how Obama's argument was conservative in nature nor did he cite a single conservative constitutional or legal expert to agree with Obama.

On Monday's Piers Morgan Tonight, as he interviewed Rick Santorum, CNN host Morgan suggested that America needs more gun control, and pressed the GOP candidate on whether it is "caring" for him, "as a Christian," to undo ObamaCare if elected President. (Video below)

New York Times reporters Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas feared for the consequences of a world without Obama-care on Saturday's front page: "A Health Law At Risk Gives Insurers Pause." The Times quoted nine people, from insurance executives to liberal activists, who suggested that a defeat for Obama-care at the Supreme Court would be harmful for U.S. health care, compared to only one who welcomed the prospect, treating that side as a vast minority, even though 26 states have sued to challenge the constitutionality of the legislation. (Another quote was deemed neutral.)