What’s this? He actually thinks it’s a real story, explains why effectively, doesn’t pull any punches — yet is not a GOP shill? Just an honest reporter?

What??

Jake Tapper deserves our thanks.

@Patterico thanks

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 20, 2014

UPDATE: Interesting that Tapper uses the term “ObamaCare” in the video (three times, by my count). Remember when he banned the term from his blog?

Open thread because I really haven’t followed this story, being too busy at work — but I sense it’s a Big Deal and that people may want to talk about it.

That said, the whole thing makes me sad. It certainly does not sound good at all. Sometimes you have a mental picture of who a person is, and then you find out they aren’t that person. That is often a sad experience. But I don’t want to make assumptions.

The L.A. Times recently ran a Page One above-the-fold piece that claimed:

In California’s marketplace, rates have remained fairly stable for the second year. The average rate increase statewide is 4.2%, according to the exchange. Some people will pay more — 13% of exchange customers face an increase of 8% or more.

The notion that health care rates have “remained fairly stable” for the last two years would probably come as a surprise to the people at the L.A. Times who published this story on July 29: Health premiums soared, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones says.

The cost of health insurance for individuals skyrocketed this year in California, with some paying almost twice what they did last year, the state’s insurance commissioner said.

Mmmm . . . skyrocketing costs? Almost double for some? Can’t you just smell the stability?

At a news conference Tuesday, Jones said individuals this year paid between 22% and 88% more for individual health insurance policies than they did last year, depending on age, gender, type of policy and where they lived.

The increases did not affect poor people, whose policies are heavily subsidized, Jones said. The study results released Tuesday did not include group policies such as those offered by employers.

Nothing says “stable prices” like a one-year increase of 22% to 88%.

Do these people even read their own newspaper?

Thanks to Gary H.