Pay2Play Connolly’s Sources Are “Mystified”

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Before I get into the jist of this story, note two things.

First, Ceci Connolly, the reporter the WaPo was selling in their Pay2Play salons, is one of the bylined authors. (In fact, Connolly was the one recruited to convince Nancy Ann DeParle–Obama’s health care czar and the recipient of millions for serving on the board of corrupt health care companies–to attend, which sort of makes Connolly a broker rather than a reporter.)

And second, Connolly and her co-author egregiously break the WaPo’s rules on anonymity, which Ombud Andy Alexander reviewed just a few days ago.

Those are the two details I’d use to answer Aravosis’ puzzle–are these guys lying or idiots?

Neither. They’re trying to pivot their failure back onto progressives.

Here are the anonymous quotes that, for some reason, Ceci and friend couldn’t see fit to present in a way that accorded with the WaPo’s anonymity rules.

President Obama’s advisers acknowledged Tuesday that they were unprepared for the intraparty rift that occurred over the fate of a proposed public health insurance program, a firestorm that has left the White House searching for a way to reclaim the initiative on the president’s top legislative priority.

Administration officials insisted that they have not shied away from their support for a public option to compete with private insurance companies, an idea they said Obama still prefers to see in a final bill.

But at a time when the president had hoped to be selling middle-class voters on how insurance reforms would benefit them, the White House instead finds itself mired in a Democratic Party feud over an issue it never intended to spotlight.

"I don’t understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo," said a senior White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We’ve gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don’t understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform."

"It’s a mystifying thing," he added. "We’re forgetting why we are in this."

Another top aide expressed chagrin that a single element in the president’s sprawling health-care initiative has become a litmus test for whether the administration is serious about the issue.

"It took on a life of its own," he said. [my emphasis]

Remember how we got to the stupid co-ops. Read more →

Jane Rebuts Mrs. Greenspan’s CW with Mr. Bayh’s Conflict

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Jane’s appearance on MSNBC today was pitch perfect punditry.

Not only was Jane beautiful, in control of the facts, and poised, but I especially love the way Jane smacked down Andrea Mitchell’s beltway Conventional Wisdom. When Mitchell started suggesting that the co-ops were the middle ground, Jane turned this onto supporters of the co-ops.

Mitchell: Kent Conrad and other more conservative Democrats who have been negotiating these compromises in Senate Finance say that there will be no bill if there’s a public option.

Hamsher: Well, with 76% of the country in favor of it, you’ve got Democrats like Joe Crowley, like Charlie Rangel, like Ed Markey who are going to have trouble going back to their districts that have 22% Democratic advantage and saying "I gave the farm away to the insurance companies."

Mitchell: So you’ve got the House that’s committed to this, that say they won’t do anything if it doesn’t have a public option, and you’ve got the Senate saying they won’t do it if there is a public option. Is there a compromise there that does involve those co-ops, or is it better to have nothing?

Hamsher: Well, the compromise is the public plan–that’s the compromise down from single payer. So that is the middle ground. And frankly I would like to see Democrats like Evan Bayh and like Max Baucus stand on the floor of the Senate and filibuster the Democratic program that 76% of the country …

Mitchell: But Jane that’s not gonna happen. It’s not where they are.

Hamsher: Uh, why not?

Mitchell: Because that’s not where they see their constituency. That’s not where Evan Bayh sees more conservative Democrats in his state of Indiana.

Hamsher: Evan Bayh’s wife is on the Board of Wellpoint. So I think that he’s going to have a problem doing something that tanks the Democratic plan that strongly favors something that he has a financial interest in. There’s a whole lot of insurance money going to these Senators and that’s going to be something that people are going to be looking into if that’s how this winds up.

Mitchell: Civil war?

Hamsher: I think that there’s going to be a problem. Read more →

Hey Specter, How’s Your Persuasion of Grassley Coming Along?

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photo.thumbnail.jpgIn my recap of Netroots Nation, I forgot to mention that I was the asshole first swinging a cell phone around, asking Arlen "Scrapple" Specter to call Chuck Grassley from the stage to try to convince him to stop claiming the death panels he once voted for are death panels.

Specter did try Grassley backstage, but didn’t get him. And then he and Grassley had a twitter exchange, one on which Grassley has followed up on twice now. 

Distortion of end-of-life debate is atempt 2avoid debate:govt takovr,xplodin deficit,cost of Pelosi bill Focus shld b viabl nonGovt plan

Sounds like Grassley doesn’t want to talk about his fear-mongering on death panels, now that he has been outed as supporting it in the past. And of course, Grassley wants to find a way to oppose a real bill even if he supports it. His job is about obstruction, and nothing but obstruction, at this point.

Meanwhile, Specter hasn’t provided an update on his promises to persuade Grassley to be less obstructionist since Friday at 5:01 PM.

I will try to persuade Senator Grassley that the availability of counseling is appropriate and should be included in health care reform.

So, how about it, Specter? You told us that one of the reasons we should support you to be elected a Democratic Senator from PA was because you would be able to persuade your Republican colleagues.

Are you conceding defeat?

Chuck Schumer for Majority Leader

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Update: I’ve been reliably informed that Schumer made the comments to the NYT on Thursday, before his Friday meeting with POTUS.

Since I’ve been obsessing about all the excess brush in TX now that we have a President who insists on working in August, I’ve been tracking Obama’s schedule very closely. And so I noticed on Friday that Chuck Schumer had a late afternoon meeting in the Oval Office that was closed to the Press.

Just Chuck Schumer.

I found that rather odd, since Schumer’s Chairmanship–of Rules–isn’t necessarily one that would be of interest to the President. Unlike the House, for example, the Senate Rules Committee isn’t going to have significant say over how a bill–health care, for example–comes up for a vote. [Update: I’m increasingly convinced this is wrong: Rules might be critical if they tried to do health care in reconciliation.]

And while there are a number of things buzzing in NY–notably, the confirmation of NY’s Sonia Sotomayor and US Attorney and former Schumer aide Preet Bharara–that might concern both the White House and NY’s senior Senator. But on a lot of those issues, some other Committee Chair would be involved (such as Pat Leahy for judiciary issues), which make it less likely that’s what the White House wanted to chat to Schumer and just Schumer about. Furthermore, some issues (such as Carolyn Maloney’s decision not to challenge Kristen Gillibrand) would be more appropriate in a non-official venue.

So I’ve been assuming that Schumer got called to the White House because he has a unique ability to get things done in the Senate. That’s partly by virtue of his past tenure as DSCC Chair; thirteen Senators owe their position to Schumer, including a number of moderates (Sheehan, Warner, Hagen, Franken, Udall, Udall, Merkley, Begich, McCaskill, Webb, Tester, Brown, Casey, and Whitehouse). He’s the kind of guy who, if he were majority leader, would be tremendously effective and would have a lot of chits to call in on key legistlative battles. Oh, and he’s also on the Finance Committee–the committee on which six totally unrepresentative Senators are holding healthcare hostage.

Which is why I’m curious to see these comments from Schumer. (h/t Americablog)

“If they can’t do it by Sept. 15th, I think the overwhelming view on the Democratic side is going to be, then, they’re never going to get it done,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, observed in a separate interview. “And there’s always a worry that, you know, delay, delay, delay, you lose any momentum whatsoever.”

Read more →

Why Isn’t Billy Tauzin at a Town Hall Meeting?

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Digby and mcjoan both have good posts on the question of whether or not Obama made a deal with PhRMA for $80 billion in concessions for an agreement that negotiating on drug prices won’t be a part of health care reform. A short recap:

August 5: Deputy Chief of Staff and former Max Baucus Chief of Staff Jim Messina says there is a deal

August 6: Messina and David Axelrod tell Sherrod Brown there is no deal

August 6: White House spokesperson Dan Pfeiffer says there is too a deal

Pfeiffer, incidentally, suggests Brown may have misunderstood what he was told–which (according to Pfeiffer) is that Dems can negotiate price caps outside of health care reform.

Me, I suspect the real misunderstanding is that Pelosi and Brown and everyone else trying to do this right misunderstand that the White House has already decided that the Senate Finance Committee bill will be the bill, and the hard work they’ve been doing to come up with better bills has just been smoke and mirrors to make the progressives think they had some role in this process.

But aside from the question, Deal or No Deal, I’ve got another question.

Why the fuck isn’t Billy Tauzin, the head of PhRMA, sending out representatives to every town hall across the country to pitch the value of health care reform? Why hasn’t Bristol-Myers Squibb gotten Dick Armey to call off the violent hordes at the town halls?

If Billy Tauzin has really exacted the deal it appears he has, it means the pharmaceutical industry has turned health care reform into a giant government subsidy for their industry. Well, then, why aren’t they leading the way in supporting this crappy bill?

Mark Ambinder Thinks Granny “Really” Is a Clunker

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Mark Ambinder wrote a controversial post in which he compared efforts to protect social security in 2005 with the GOP’s Rent-a-Mobs now. His argument, basically, is that just because the Rent-a-Mobs were organized by the corporations trying to doom healthcare reform doesn’t mean we can assume the anxiety expressed by people at Town Halls isn’t "real" justifiable anxiety. And if that anxiety is "real," we need to deal with it.

When you find Astroturfing, the next question ought to be: but does it reflect anything real? If it does, then you’ve got work to do.

Now, Ezra has the best rebuttal to claims that the press should treat the Rent-a-Mobs as reflecting "real" anxiety. If it’s so important to report what goes on at these town halls, then why hasn’t the press reported the consistent call for single payer at town halls–sustained over a much longer period of time?

I’ve been attending health-care panels and events on a pretty regular basis for four or five years now. Each event, of course, is its own precious snowflake, with its own set of graphs and bullet points and dweebish jokes. But one thing is perfectly predictable: The Q&A session will be dominated by single-payer activists asking about HR 676.

[snip]

The media hasn’t shown the slightest inclination to cover their presence at event after event after event.

That’s worth keeping in mind as people begin to focus on the anti-health-care tea parties. The political system does not have some sort of consistent reaction to grassroots pressure. Rather, it picks and chooses when it wants to listen to the views of the very, very non-representative groups of people who sit through at town halls and panel discussions.[my emphasis]

Aside from Ambinder’s seeming fascination with Rent-a-Mobs to the detriment of single payer activists, there’s another problem with his argument. He argues that we can’t assume that the concerns expressed by the Rent-a-Mobs aren’t "real" concerns because there is "real" uncertainty about how health care reform will turn out. Fair enough. But to make his case, he chooses a wonky issue not really raised by the Rent-a-Mobs. He suggests the anxiety of those at the Rent-a-Mobs stems from their understanding of how iMAC will work (or, more specifically, whether it’ll even be passed by the Senate).

Take, for example, the question of whether people would have to change their policies or their doctors as the result of a robust public plan. Read more →

No, DiFi, the Competition Is with Canada (and Mexico)

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I’ve been meaning to cover the likely closure of the joint Toyota-GM plant in Fremont, CA for some time. But this comment from DiFi is worth a post in itself.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., led a delegation of state lawmakers who said Thursday that they were exploring the use of stimulus funds among other moves to keep Toyota in California.

"But one of the things California has to come to grips with is that the competition here is Kentucky and Mississippi, and you have this high cost-of-doing-business problem," said Feinstein, who phoned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to talk about Nummi.

The NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc) plant was opened as a joint venture between Toyota and GM in 1984. Back then it was a shiny new-fangled plant–the future of auto assembly in the United States. It’s also, notably, Toyota’s only unionized American plant. GM has pulled out of the partnership as part of its bankruptcy which has led Toyota to consider closing the plant altogether. DiFi and the rest of CA’s politicos are scrambling to save the 4700 high-paid union jobs.

And, apparently, DiFi has created a myth for herself that she is competing with (just) Kentucky and Mississippi for these jobs.

To the extent that CA is now putting together a set of incentives to convince Toyota to stay–a model pioneered by southern states–she is correct. And to the extent that Toyota might move the Corolla and Tacoma production to their currently vacant MS plant (which was originally slated to assemble the Prius), she is correct that she’s competing against MS.

But the more likely location for the production currently done in Fremont, CA is–for the Tacoma–Mexico and–for the Corolla–Canada, where factories that already produce those models are currently running below capacity.

In addition, Toyota has plenty of unused production capacity in North America — including factories in Mexico and Canada that make the Tacoma and the Corolla, said George Peterson, president of Tustin consulting firm AutoPacific.

[snip]

Toyota’s sales in the U.S. are down almost 38% this year as the auto industry suffers its worst slump in decades. As a result, the automaker has excess production capacity at its North American auto plants, which can produce more than 400,000 vehicles a year.

Read more →

Megan McArdle Thinks I Should Pay $72,000 More for Breast Cancer

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Usually, Jane’s slap-down of concern trolls talking about breast cancer stands by itself. But in this case, I’m going to pile on Megan McArdle’s attack on a public option in the name of breast cancer survivors, because McArdle’s basically arguing that I should be thankful my insurance company had to pay $72,000 more for my breast cancer treatment.

Basically, for me, it all boils down to public choice theory.  Once we’ve got a comprehensive national health care plan, what are the government’s incentives?  I think they’re bad, for the same reason the TSA is bad.  I’m afraid that instead of Security Theater, we’ll get Health Care Theater, where the government goes to elaborate lengths to convince us that we’re getting the best possible health care, without actually providing it.

That’s not just verbal theatrics.  Agencies like Britain’s NICE are a case in point.  As long as people don’t know that there are cancer treatments they’re not getting, they’re happy.  Once they find out, satisfaction plunges.  But the reason that people in Britain know about things like herceptin for early stage breast cancer is a robust private market in the US that experiments with this sort of thing.

You see, I’m no doctor. But based on my fairly sophisticated understanding of the breast cancer diagnosis I had, I understand that instead of the treatment I had here in the US–6 rounds of chemo plus Neulasta, surgery, radiation, then five years of Tamoxifen–the standard of care in Europe would have been just the Tamoxifen. Or, by my rough calculations, well over $72,000 more in costs.

And, at least according to the limited studies they’ve done on women with breast cancer at my age, the outcomes are exactly the same.

Now, when I went through breast cancer treatment I had absolutely superb insurance. For example, when I had $2,800 shots of Neulasta after each session of chemo, my insurance treated it as a prescription, so I paid just $10 of that. Each session of chemo was a doctor’s visit: $15 for me. I’m not even sure what I paid for 30 days of radiation.

I’m complaining not because of the money out of my own pocket–though I am offended that that much money was spent. The care was paid for by my husband’s company, which I’m sure could have productively spent the money on innovations in the auto industry rather than innovations in medicine that had no net positive on their bottom line. 

Read more →

A New Mission for the WH Press Corps

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picture-118.thumbnail.png

Update: Politico reports that Obama has released the records, considering releasing all their visitor logs.

Remember when NPR posted a picture of all the lobbyists attending a health care committee meeting and asked its readers to crowd source those lobbyists identities?

Well, given the news that the Obama White House is treating the health industry executives who have visited with the same secrecy that Dick Cheney accorded his oil buddies, perhaps it’s time the White House press corps did something similar?

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.

The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the "presidential communications privilege."

Think about it. The White House press corps has ready access to the outsides of the White House. A significant number of them hang around in their virtual office for hours on end. Wouldn’t they be much more productive if they started–collectively–documenting who was coming and going at the White House? Wouldn’t creating a record of who had the access at the White House be a better use of their time than serving as props in the next stage managed press conference?

I know this is a tall order, given that most of the outlets covering the White House full time would rather charge those White House visitors than expose them. But it might make these journalists’ efforts worthwhile. 

C Street’s Waterloo

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If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him. And we will show that we can–along with the American people–begin to push those freedom solutions at work in every area of our society.

About a million people have commented on Jim DeMint’s prayer to "break" our first African-American President by thwarting his attempts to reform and extend health care. But few–at least that I’ve seen–have connected it with another lingering news story: the role of C Street in pushing hyper-capitalist policies.

DeMint is the most senior C Street resident not currently embroiled in a sex scandal (or the cover-up of it, in Tom Coburn’s case).  And while his roomies all scramble to keep their jobs in the aftermath of being proven utter hypocrites, DeMint has taken the lead attacking health care and–significantly–counterposing it to "freedom solutions."

This is what C Street is really about–fighting back any check on hyper-capitalism. As Jeff Sharlet explained in a recent interview,

Sharlet: Exactly. However you look at it, The Family is effectively a union busting organization. They’re particularly concerned about the Teamsters and the Longshoremen. They thought they were run by some sort of devils. The Family was instrumental in the breaking of the spine of organized labor.

One of the things that makes them different from other Christian conservative organizations, and I think even upset some Christian conservative organizations, is that the issues for them are not abortion or morality or same-sex marriage. The important issue to them is what they call Biblical capitalism, and I think what even some conservative observers looking at them call crony capitalism.

That needs to the be the story here: the loudest opponent to health care reform is advocating the position of a morally discredited fascistic cult, that he’s interested in defeating a wildly popular policy so as to replace it with Orwellian "freedom solutions."

Sure, the opponents of health care reform are partly people–like Ben Nelson–being spoonfed honey by the insurance industry’s bean counters. But there are others–notably this loudmouthed and unrepentant member of the Family–who are opposing it as a rallying cry to some fundamentally authoritarian whack-jobs.

DeMint is going to continue to get face time for his outrageous comments.  We would do well to emphasize that he’s a morally hypocritical cult member just like Ensign and Sanford.