Ceci Connolly just can’t bring herself to call the opposition for a quote. That or they won’t return her phone calls.

We reported before on how she would repeatedly add canned statements from the national Republican Party and several GOP or anti-reform factions. Today’s front page Washington Post article New Bill Would Raise Rates, Says Insurance Group reinforces two assertions:

• Ceci Connolly should never be allowed to play by herself on the front page of any newspaper.
• Ceci Connolly only calls people if she agrees with them beforehand.

Reporting on an insurance industry report that reform will drive premiums up, Connolly fails to get a single live quote from America’s Health Insurance Plans - who funded the report.

There’s the White House insider’s view, quoted live:

“Those guys specialize in tax shelters,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform. “Clearly this is not their area of expertise.”

President Barack Obama, quoted from his weekly address.

Lots and lots of background, then:

“The report makes clear that several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system,” Karen Ignagni, AHIP’s president and chief executive, wrote to board members Sunday. “Between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family policy under this reform proposal will be approximately $20,700 more than it would be under the current system.”

Ignagni doesn’t appear to make herself inaccessible to the press and has been contacted in the past by many reporters on this issue.

She quotes the report, prepared by PriceWaterhouse Coopers, estimating an additional $20,700 per year tacked onto the cost for the average family insurance plan by 2019 under reform plans. But doesn’t contact them to speak with an analyst either.

Further, Connolly fails to get a single reform opponent on the record in her nearly 1,000-word article.

The Senate Finance Committee plans to pass their version of health care reform tomorrow, and the Post editors felt it was important enough to merit front page play, but punted to Connolly, practically insuring a mediocre job on news that could be detrimental to the reform cause.

Connolly, who has been called a “ridiculous reporter” even by left-wing bloggers, has multiple Web sites dedicated to her shallow brand of character assassination and sloppy reporting.

“It’s always fund talking to a reporter who has no idea what they are talking about,” OpenLeft’s Adam Green wrote in June.

Other outlets managed to find some conservative or health care opposition voice to temper their coverage of the PWC/AHIP report.

The Wall Street Journals Janet Adamy managed to get Republican Orrin Hatch on the record.

Even USA Today managed to get “Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and other Republicans” in a generalized summary of the opposition in their “Staff report.”

Fox News got a live quote from AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach, and wen on to get Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming before letting the Dems dismiss the report as a “hatchet job.”