Conservatives have been warning for ages that economic rights are human rights. A government that will take away an individual’s property rights sooner or later will also take his freedom of speech. As British poet and essayist Hilaire Belloc noted, “the control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.” President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, proved the point by threatening health insurers who dare to blame Obamacare for “unreasonable” rate increases. She will blacklist violators from participating in future government-run health insurance exchanges, thus putting many of them out of business. Since Medicare’s chief actuary predicts that “essentially all” Americans will be insured through these exchanges, Sebelius is telling private firms: “Shut up or we will destroy you!”
In a chilling letter, Sebelius warned members of the insurance industry’s national association that there will be “zero tolerance” for companies “using scare tactics and misinformation to falsely blame premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act.” Of course, what a political hack considers “misinformation” too often is an unpleasant reality that taxpayers have a right to know. The reality is that “patient protections” cost money. They include mandated removal of lifetime caps and exemptions for pre-existing conditions, keeping young adults on their parents’ policy up to age 26, and insuring 31 million extra people. That is why insurers are now seeking rate increases between 1 and 9 percent to cover these expanded benefits.
Sebelius cites estimates by “industry and academic experts” that the increased costs will be “minimal” — no more than 1 or 2 percent — and automatically defines any higher estimates as “unreasonable” even though nobody, including the HHS secretary herself, knows what the real costs will eventually be.
This is Sebelius’ second attempt to prevent private insurers from exercising their First Amendment right to communicate with their own customers. As the Wall Street Journal noted, what’s she’s really telling them is to accept price controls now in exchange for being allowed to stay in business four years hence — and keep quiet about her undisguised bullying tactics in the meantime.
The kicker is that Sebelius should be the last person to complain about misleading the public. As Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey points out, a brochure put out four months ago by her own department claimed that Medicare Advantage patients would “still receive guaranteed Medicare benefits” — without mentioning that Obamacare essentially guts the Medicare Advantage program. There should be zero tolerance all right — for Sebelius’ odious bullying.
