Apparently inspired by his own $2,100 rate hike, Bill O'Reilly opened his Fox News show tonight laudably decrying how health insurance companies are jacking up premiums while paying their CEOs huge salaries, going so far as to call it “the biggest financial con in U.S. history.”

But then, instead of apologizing for his active and falsehood-laden opposition to health insurance reform, O'Reilly decided that Obama was to blame for the rate increases, claiming that “American health insurance companies are building in the anticipated costs of Obama-care”:

But O'Reilly's evidence -- WellPoint's proposed 39 percent rate increase for its California policy holders -- doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

As O'Reilly referenced, WellPoint subsidiary Anthem Blue Cross announced in early February that they were raising rates on many of their policy holders by as much as 39 percent. However, the insurer reportedly blamed rising health care costs (which, it should be noted was one of the reasons for reform) and the recession for the rate hikes, and not impending reform.

In fact, it would have been pretty strange if Anthem had listed impending reform as the reason for the increase, since at that time, pretty much everyone thought health care reform had failed.

The really kicker, though, is that Anthem reportedly raised premiums by at least as much as 41 percent on some customers the previous year, pretty much eliminating the possibility the increases were in reaction to the bill that passed in late March 2010.

Unfortunately, given his history of ignoring reality, rather than admit he was wrong, I wouldn't expect a correction any time soon.