Something quite disturbing is happening in the nation’s capital. Bureaucrats in one of the federal government’s biggest departments have issued a gag order against what they deem to be unfair criticism of President Obama’s health care reform proposals. Not only are these bureaucrats making a mockery of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, they are also denying information that millions of elderly Americans have a right to receive.
Here’s the situation: Earlier this month, officials with the Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Corp. sent a one-page letter to all of its policyholders who participate in the Medicare Advantage program. The letter was entirely factual and pointed out, among other things, that because of cuts proposed under Obamacare, “millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable.”
The Humana letter angered Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is the principal author of the Senate version of Obamacare, which indeed includes hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of “savings” that are supposed to be achieved by eliminating waste and fraud in the Medicare Advantage program. When Washington politicians talk about saving money by cutting waste and fraud, hang on to your wallets. It’s their way of saying higher taxes are coming.
To make sure Americans don’t see through this smoke-and-mirror act, and to stay in the good graces of Baucus, the bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which manages Medicare, ordered Humana and all other private companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program to “to end immediately all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website.” They also added this blunt warning: “Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions. …”
There is no doubt that any speech about Obamacare by private citizens or companies — including false speech, according to federal courts — is protected under the First Amendment. Yet here we see the full power of the federal government being used to crush what some bureaucrats and an angry senator deem as “bad” speech. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “This episode should be of serious concern to millions of seniors on Medicare who deserve to know what the government has in mind for their health care. But it should also frighten anyone who cherishes their First Amendment right to free speech — whether in Louisville, Helena, San Francisco or anywhere else.”
Senate Republicans say no Obama appointees with pending confirmations will go forward until the gag order is reversed. Finally, some backbone on the right side of “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”
UPDATE: Baucus title corrected
This editorial originally incorrectly identified Sen. Baucus as chairman of the Senate HELP committee. The Examiner regrets the error.
