America's Next Great Dissembler

Bobby Jindal has an interesting op-ed today in the Washington Post - I guess he won that "America's Next Great Pundit" contest - claiming that nobody wants the Democratic plans for health care reform.

But memo to Washington: The debate on health care has moved on. Democratic plans for a government takeover are passé. The people don't want it. Believe the polls, the town halls, the voters. Only Democrats in Washington would propose new taxes on businesses and families in the middle of a recession, $900 billion in new spending at a time of record deficits, and increased taxes on health insurance and products to reduce health-care costs.

You'll notice that Jindal offers no numbers as proof that "the people don't want it," no actual polls to back up his claim. Chris Good has those numbers, and Jindal is wrong. In fact, more recent polls show that reform has grown stronger in September after bottoming out in August. The fact that Jindal doesn't give any proof for his assertion is what you would call a "tell".

Jindal then goes on to outline some Republican ideas for health care, but of course none of these are in any Republican bills for health care reform, because there is no such document. These are the Bobby Jindal ideas for health care, and half of them are already embedded in the Democratic effort - guaranteed issue for pre-existing conditions, aiding small businesses to buy insurance, portability through the exchanges, transparency in billing, delivery system reform, health IT, covering children up to age 25, rewarding healthy lifestyles and prevention.

The Washington Post has written enough about the health care debate to know that support is strengthening for reform, and that lots of Jindal's ideas have been adopted in the overall legislation. But their op-ed page allows anyone to print whatever lies they decide to forward that day, so they say nothing about the facts of Jindal's piece. They are intentionally misleading their readers, and they don't seem to care.