The training wheels off, Iraq will have to succeed or fail without American troops on the ground to guide the way.

That's quite a metaphor--invading and occupying a country for eight years as "training wheels."

Engel's report includes this reference to the death toll:

Iraqi deaths, almost 150,000, but many Iraqis believe it's a million.

Of course it's not just Iraqis who believe this--the British polling firm Opinion Research Business (ORB), which has worked for the BBC, the British Conservative Party and the International Republican Institute, conducted a survey that arrived at the 1 million estimate.  A survey published in the Lancet medical journal  (10/11/06) estimated that the war caused 600,000 violent deaths between March 2003 and June 2006.

The "almost 150,000" number that Engel puts forward as reality appears to be based on the Iraq Family Health Survey, a joint effort by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government, which actually estimated that there were 151,000 violent deaths (and some 400,000 total excess deaths--MedPage Today, 7/23/08) as a result of the war--between March 2003 and June 2006.

Apparently some Americans believe the war hasn't killed anyone in the last five years.

Then NBC introduced an expert, who had this somewhat curious take:

VIQUEIRA: With Congress returning Monday from a two-week break, experts say there is little that Washington can do to lower the short-term price per gallon. In the end, what may bring down the high prices of gas is the high price of gas itself.

AMY JAFFE (Baker Institute Energy Forum Director): Consumers don't realize it, but we have a lot of power. When--last time when Americans stopped driving because they didn't like the high price, that actually did bring down the price of oil over time. And we probably will see that again.

Oil companies? Come on, the people have the real power!

So what's the Baker Energy Forum?  That would James Baker's institute at Rice University. And on the group's advisory board:

Shell
Chevron
ConocoPhilips
ExxonMobil
EnergyFutures Holding Corporation
Marathon Oil Corporation

The "Patrons" list includes Hess and GenOn Energy. The "Members" list includes the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

Next time NBC might want to mention who they're using for expert analysis--or better yet, find someone else to talk to about gas prices.

Correspondent Robert Bazell explained: "Many experts agree that whatever happens in the health reform debate, a good model is Kaiser Permanente." Bazell went on to describe how Kaiser's salaried doctors "have no incentive to order unnecessary tests or office visits." He also pointed to cost savings from use of electronic medical records.

"To be sure, patients sometimes complain about Kaiser," Bazell concluded, "but it gets decent ratings in consumer surveys and tends to be one of the less expensive options when people get to chose health plans."

As NBC itself has documented (Dateline, 6/17/07), one of those complaints is patient-dumping; in 2007 Kaiser accepted a settlement after prosecutors charged it with sending a mentally ill homeless woman away from its emergency room in a cab. The woman was caught on camera being dumped by the cab on Skid Row, where she wandered in her hospital gown and slippers until a shelter worker found her. The shelter soon learned she was suffering from high blood pressure, anemia and pneumonia, and she had to be readmitted to a hospital.

The video aired many times on television and was featured prominently in Michael Moore's documentary Sicko--which also pointed out that it was Kaiser that helped convince Nixon HMO's were a good idea. Edgar Kaiser, son of Kaiser Permanente's founder, lobbied Nixon aide John Erlichman in 1971 for the HMO Act, who then successfully lobbied Nixon:

Ehrlichman: "Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can ... the reason he can do it .... I had Edgar Kaiser come in...talk to me about this, and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make."

President Nixon: "Fine." [Unclear]

Ehrlichman: [Unclear] "… and the incentives run the right way."

President Nixon: “Not bad.”

Kaiser's also the place the L.A. Times found (5/17/02) "awarded financial bonuses to call center clerks who spent the least amount of time on the phone with each patient and limited the number of doctors' appointments." And the Sacramento Bee recently reported (2/15/09) on lawsuits against Kaiser for "[trying] to bully outside doctors into transferring patients before it is safe, threatening to withhold payment otherwise" and for its "special, doctor-to-doctor call operation that has become a target of legal actions alleging malpractice and failure to pay claims."

All in all, sounds like a great model. Thanks for the suggestion, NBC!

For another healthcare model that you won't likely find NBC News personnel endorsing, see the new FAIR study, "Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare" (3/6/09).

CHUCK TODD: And finally, let's close with Michelle Obama. Amazing numbers for a new first lady. Sixty-three percent positive rating. What makes it more remarkable, six months ago you and I were talking about at the Democratic Convention, she might be a liability if he's not careful. She's no liability.

Wait a second--you mean that some of the inane chatter heard in corporate media has no relationship to reality?!?! That is "remarkable."