Baucus Acting Like Thug Dictator!
September 22, 2009
Way to go, Max. If you don’t like what they are saying, don’t debate… muzzle! It’s okay when congress misleads people with lies like no illegal aliens will be covered in the bill (then why vote down provisions ensuring this?) or that fining people who don’t participate in the program isn’t a tax. The insurance company is telling the truth. Baucus doesn’t like it. People of Montana, you need a RECALL! – FedUpEditor
Huffington Post – As Republicans in the Senate steadily drift away from Max [clueless] Baucus (D-Mont.), the finance committee chairman is beginning to move the opposite direction. After getting pounded by progressives for a bill that required middle-class Americans to purchase unaffordable health care from private insurance companies (as no public option would be available), Baucus revised the proposal to make the mandated coverage more affordable and reduced the cost of the penalty for not buying it.
At the same time, Baucus fired a shot across the bow of the insurance industry, urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to go after insurance companies who are sending letters to seniors with frightening warnings about supposed Democratic attempts to cut their benefits. (See Dawn Teo’s reporting on this here.)
CMS responded by muzzling the insurance companies and threatening legal action, writing that “we are instructing you to immediately discontinue all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your websites.”
They made clear they weren’t playing around: “Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions.”
The Wall Street Journal op-ed page hit the roof, complaining that Bacucus’ “latest bullying tactics are hard to believe.” And the insurance industry trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, denounced the “gag order.”
“Seniors have a right to know how the current reform proposals will affect the coverage they currently like and rely on,” said AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took the Senate floor Tuesday to decry the CMS move. “‘Shut up,’ this gag order says,” McConnell said. “‘Be quiet and get in line.’” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) followed him and read the First Amendment on the Senate floor.
Baucus insists that the insurers have no right to mislead seniors into believing that Medicare benefits would be cut. And CMS has a say over the companies’ communication with seniors, because it foots the bill.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/baucus-muzzles-misleading_n_294782.html
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