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Baucus Mafia Stifles Dissent

By: Brian Faughnan (Diary)  |  September 23rd, 2009 at 03:00 PM  | 

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I wrote earlier today about the thuggish tactics employed by Washington Democrats to get their health rationing plan passed. Astute readers will note that the name ‘Max Baucus’ seems to pop up over and over – lecturing the Congressional Budget Office on how much the health care bill should ‘cost,’ telling unions what ads they can and cannot air, and warning lobbyists that they need to make sure they’re on ‘the right team.’

Had I written that post a few hours later, I would have included Baucus’ push to hide the actual language of his health care bill until after the Finance Committee had approved it, and his use of a former staffer to muzzle those who disagree with him:

Jonathan Blum, the administration official at the center of a growing flap over alleged efforts to “muzzle” insurance companies critical of Democratic health care reform efforts, is a former senior aide to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — who originally asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to investigate the companies critical of his bill.

Blum, who worked on the Finance Committee on Medicare and Medicaid issues, was appointed by President Barack Obama as acting director of CMS’ Center for Drug and Health Plan Choices this spring. Prior to taking the directorship, he also acted as a health care policy adviser on Obama’s transition team…

At Blum’s direction, the CMS launched an investigation and sent Humana a letter warning the company to halt further mailings.

Barack Obama has not even nominated a head for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. As Acting Director of CMS, it would have been easy for Baucus and his staff to reach out to a former employee, so that he could act to quiet the complaints of the companies that he oversees.

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  • janis

    be re-elected the next time he’s up in Montana. Those folks don’t strike me as the kind who approve of this kind of bill, nor of Baucus’ thuggish tactics in this episode. I hope he’s enjoying the influence he has right now, because it ain’t gonna last.

    • Finrod

      His fellow senator, Dem Jon Tester, isn’t up for re-election until 2012 either.

    • farstar99

      If people in Missoula start talking about recalling a Democrat, that Democrat is in BIIIIIG trouble.

      • farstar99

        Recall, impeach, there’s no legal way to get him out of there really, until his term is up.

        Now, putting him in prison for RICO violations, maybe.

  • diakrioi

    I just took a few minutes to read over the pertinent sections of Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Manual System Publication number 100-16 which gives “sponsors” (the CMS term for Medicare Advantage insurance providers) guidance on communication with the people they cover. The document very clearly allows direct mailings and outlines how they should be used. The document also is very clearly intended to restrict overzealous marketing by sponsors who may want to use their Medicare customer lists to sell other products.

    The flier that was distributed by Humana made no attempt to sell or describe a particular plan and so therefore would not fall under the rules for marketing literature as defined by CMS. If there is a section in the guidelines that covers the type of document that was distributed by Humana it would be the section on educational materials. That section has practically no restrictions.

    Humana?s point of view is that Medicare Advantage is a good program for the millions of people who are covered by it. That is why the Humana customers enroll in it. It seems reasonable to me that if the Medicare Advantage program is going to be cut by over $100 billion that those cuts just might affect those member?s benefits. I don’t see a problem with Humana pointing out this possibility but Senator Baucus does. At the Senator’s request, the Federal Government has threatened to bring legal action against Humana for informing their customers about the very possible loss of benefits. I think that is a chilling response.

    Don’t you think we should give seniors a little credit for having the smarts to decide for themselves? Do MA customers need the Federal Government to protect them from the heinous act of receiving an informational flier? Aren’t these the same people who defeated the Nazi’s and fought back from a sneak attack to break the Japanese Empire? Somehow I don’t think a little flier is going to scare them into doing anything.

    Humana is not a citizen and I’m no lawyer but it makes sense to me that it?s just plain easier to allow free speech.

    • janis

      As long as it doesn’ t threaten the Won’s agenda. And informing senior citizens, such as my parents in their 80′s, that they may be losing their decent benefits definitely threatens his agenda. Because that may be the only source they hear that particular item from if, like my parents, you don’t have cable TV, only watch network news, don’t get your news off the net and don’t listen to talk radio.

      Fortunately, they have me to tell them the “rest of the story.”

    • penguin2

      What’s going on is the suppression of information that may be useful to people. But it is not the information that the Obama administration wants out there. If people get the facts, then maybe they would not follow blindly down the leftist path. This is also the reason why the Obama admin requests the CBO to hold back releasing their reports or to take another look at the data and come up with a different answer.

      Include the MSM in being complicit in the cover-up or minimizing of the facts or what is really in any of the bills the Dems are trying to pass. It is also the reason why the admin keeps blaming everyone else for “disinformation” getting out there. It is also the reason why they created a web site so all of the people who were giving out this “disinformation” could be reported.

      The last thing in the world the Dems want is for freedom of speech. It interferes with their propaganda.

      • janis

        has made has been their failure to institute the Fairness Doctrine first, before the porkulus bill, before cap and tax, before healthcare boondoggles. We are entirely too capable of finding out more than the average congressperson and that is what has so bedeviled the Dems–and many on our own side as well.

        Had he successfully managed to shut us down on talk radio and the ‘net, we’d be living like mushrooms.

  • azred

    Then they will get the nuclear response. They will officially declare war on all those that are not in the governing elite, an d those who don’t support them.

    They will declare war on the American people.
    They will declare war on the Constitution.

    And if it’s war they want, we need to defend our country with everything we have. The tyranny will be stopped. A war they will get!

    This is a call to arms to defend this country from an enemy of the state.

    Justice cannot be corrupted indefinitely!