DMV HEALTH CARE
“The most revelatory passage in the so-called ’plain English’ version of the health care bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved on Tuesday (without ever drafting the actual legislative language) says that in the future, Americans will be offered the convenience of getting their health insurance at the Department of Motor Vehicles,” Terence P. Jeffrey writes at www.cnsnews.com.
“This is no joke. If this bill becomes law, it will be the duty of the U.S. secretary of health and human services or the state governments overseeing federally mandated health insurance exchanges to ensure that you can get your health insurance at the DMV,” Mr. Jeffrey said.
“You also will be able to get it at Social Security offices, hospitals, schools and ’other offices’ the government will name later.
“Page 19 of the committees ’plain English’ text says: ’The Secretary and/or states would do the following: … Enable customers to enroll in health care plans in local hospitals, schools, Departments of Motor Vehicles, local Social Security offices, and other offices designated by the state.’
“This is the bills most revelatory passage because it sublimely symbolizes the bills true aim: a government takeover of the health care system.”
FREE SPEECH
“I was at a conference on free speech this weekend, and thus missed the excitement of balloon boy and other assorted tempests in a teapot,” Megan McArdle writes at the atlantic.com.
“I did, however, catch bits of Obama’s speech, in which he joins Congress in threatening to remove the insurance [companies’] antitrust exemption, as a not-so-hidden payback for their report on insurance premiums,” the writer said.
“Why should I worry about this so much? Isn’t this just libertarian hysteria?
“I don’t think it is. I think this is fundamentally about freedom of the press.
“I know, I know - it’s just an industry-funded study! How can I elevate that to ’the press’?
“Because the idea we have about journalists being some sacred, special group that has ’freedom of the press’ is, like the idea that militias = national guard, pretty ahistorical.
“Freedom of the press was not a right accorded to the profession of journalism, on the grounds of their sacred and responsible conduct, because there was no profession of journalism. Presses were owned by individuals, who engaged in all manner of speech, commercial and non. Freedom of the press was not the freedom to own a newspaper or magazine, and say what you wanted therein. It was the freedom to disseminate written speech.
“I know that at least some of my readers are gearing up to point out that we do regulate commercial speech. But this wasn’t commercial speech. It wasn’t even speech by a corporation. AHIP is a legal trade association.
“Threatening to strip their antitrust exemption as a quid-pro-quo is the kind of thing that sounds cute until someone thinks up a way to do it to people on your side. Would it be OK for a Republican administration to threaten Democratic groups that say unpleasing things by promising to pass laws - however sound - that would decimate the fortunes of George Soros and other big backers? Or openly declare that if unions didn’t stop issuing reports in favor of a higher minimum wage, the administration would have to revisit Taft-Hartley?”
POLITICAL COERCION
“There’s nothing like a Friday evening news release to hide a Washington embarrassment,” the Wall Street Journal said Monday in an editorial.
“In last week’s episode, President Obama’s health appointees lifted their outrageous gag order against health insurers for the sin of informing their customers about how ObamaCare would affect their insurance,” the newspaper said.
“In September, Humana Inc. sent a mailer to some 900,000 enrollees in its Medicare Advantage plans, the program that gives seniors a choice of private insurance options, warning that spending cuts would result in reduced benefits and some people losing their coverage.
“The Congressional Budget Office has said the same thing, but the Obama apparat went nuclear. At the behest of Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, Medicare’s administrators menaced Humana with fines and regulatory punishments, and even told all insurers participating in Advantage to shut up, too - or else.
“In its Friday ruling, Medicare slapped Humana on the wrist for disseminating information that it claimed was ’misleading to beneficiaries’ - even though it was perfectly true - but also lifted the gag order. Insurers will be allowed to communicate with enrollees, provided they get permission. This is basically a concession that the critics are right, especially considering that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius defended the policy as recently as two weeks ago while refusing to answer questions about this raw political coercion from a supposedly impartial federal bureaucracy.
“Meanwhile, the administration is now threatening to strip the insurance industry of its decades-long exemption from antitrust law. This would blow a hole in the industry’s profitability, as would ObamaCare for different reasons. The industry now faces a choice of playing ball with Democrats and getting punished, or trying to defeat the bill and being brutalized as an act of political revenge. This is the industry’s reward for spending millions to promote ’reform’ in the hopes of not becoming a political target. It’s still a target, and now it’s poised to lose the policy fight, too.”
PAY UP
“Last January, as I understand it, the White House promised Big Pharma, big insurance, and the American Medical Association the moral equivalent of what Joel Halderman allegedly demanded of David Letterman: hush money,” Robert B. Reich writes at www.huffingtonpost.com.
“The groups agreed to stay silent or even be supportive of health care reform, as long as they were paid off,” said Mr. Reich, who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration.
“But now that it’s time to collect, the bill is larger than the White House expected, and it’s going to fall like an avalanche on middle-class Americans in coming years. That could mean an ugly 2012 election (read Sarah Palin).
“So the president has to do what Letterman did: Refuse to pay.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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