Thread: Obama gags Humana

While Obama ally ACORN attempts to gag whistleblowers who exposed its role in a recent scandal, the Obama administration is trying to gag critics of its health-care plan, which the Congressional Budget Office says could wipe out many Medicare Advantage programs relied on by the elderly. (”The Obama Administration wants to seriously curtail or end Medicare Advantage.”)


It has issued a gag order to Humana, a health insurer that provides Medicare Advantage services, ordering it not to tell customers about how Obamacare could reduce the availability of such services. The gag order clearly violates the First Amendment, according to law professor Eugene Volokh, the author of a leading treatise on First Amendment law, and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. The gag order has also been criticized by the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Examiner, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, yet the administration obstinately insists on enforcing it.


The Supreme Court has said the First Amendment protects the free speech rights of businesses like Humana even when they are government contractors, in cases like Board of County Commissioners v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668 (1996).


Liberal Obama supporters hypocritically claim Humana should shut up because it’s receiving federal funds (an argument they would never make regarding artists funded by the National Endowment for the Arts), and because its claims are supposedly false (never mind that its truthful claims are echoed by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which is headed by Democrat Douglas Elmendorf).


But as Professor Volokh and the Washington Supreme Court have recently noted, “false statements of fact about the government are generally protected” by the First Amendment.


Humana’s statements are predictions about the future, and thus by definition not provably false. Moreover, they are chillingly accurate predictions, which is why Obama ally Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is drafting Obama’s health-care plan, asked Obama to ban them:


“On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office director told Mr. Baucus’s committee that its plan to cut $123 billion from Medicare Advantage—the program that gives almost one-fourth of seniors private health-insurance options—will result in lower benefits and some 2.7 million people losing this coverage. Imagine that. Last week Mr. Baucus ordered Medicare regulators to investigate and likely punish Humana Inc. for trying to educate enrollees in its Advantage plans about precisely this fact.”


The fact that Humana is a government contractor doesn’t make this censorship any more acceptable, since the government simply has no business policing criticism of itself as “false”: federal courts have ruled that even false speech by government contractors and employees on matters of public concern can be protected, as cases like Johnson v. Multnomah County, 48 F.3d 420 (9th Cir. 1995) show.


Nor is there any evidence that Humana is using federal money to disseminate its message. And any subsidies Humana might be receiving would not justify the Obama administration’s blatant viewpoint discrimination against it, since Obama allies that receive lots of federal subsidies are being allowed to trumpet their support for Obamacare freely. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rosenberger v. Rector of the University of Virginia, viewpoint discrimination is a forbidden, “egregious” form of discrimination even when the government is subsidizing a speaker; here, the federal government is plainly engaging in viewpoint discrimination, since it is letting AARP make blatantly false claims in favor of Obamacare that contradict CBO finds and basic budget math, while blocking Humana from criticizing Obamacare based on reasonable arguments echoed by the Congressional Budget Office).
The Obama administration’s position contradicts the position of the Clinton administration, which admitted that Medicare contractors have free speech rights. (But then, Obama is well to the left of Bill Clinton and past presidents).


Obama Slaps Unconstitutional Gag Order on Critic of His Health Care Plan|OpenMarket.org

MEDICARE ISSUES NEW GUIDANCE TO INSURANCE COMPANIES ON MEDICARE MAILINGS

GUIDANCE COMES AFTER HUMANA DISTRIBUTED POTENTIALLY MISLEADING MATERIALS

Medicare today called on Medicare-contracted health insurance and prescription drug plans to suspend potentially misleading mailings to beneficiaries about health care and insurance reform. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently asked Humana, Inc. to end similar mailings. Humana has agreed to do so.


"We are concerned that the materials Humana sent to our beneficiaries may violate Medicare rules by appearing to contain Medicare Advantage and prescription drug benefit information, which must be submitted to CMS for review" said Jonathan Blum, acting director of CMS’ Center for Drug and Health Plan Choices. "We also are asking that no other plan sponsors are mailing similar materials while we investigate whether a potential violation has occurred."


Humana is one of a number of private health plans that contracts with CMS to offer health care services and drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries as part of the Medicare Advantage and Part D programs. CMS learned that Humana had been contacting enrollees in one or more of its plans and, in mailings that CMS obtained, made claims that current health care reform legislation affecting Medicare could hurt Medicare beneficiaries. The message from Humana urges enrollees to contact their congressional representatives to protest the actions referenced in the letter.


"We are concerned that, among other things, the information in the letter is misleading and confusing to beneficiaries, who may believe that it represents official communication about the Medicare Advantage program," said Blum


Specifically, CMS is investigating whether Humana inappropriately used the lists of Medicare enrollees for unauthorized purposes.


Based on the findings of the investigation, CMS will pursue appropriate compliance and enforcement actions.

MEDICARE ISSUES NEW GUIDANCE TO INSURANCE COMPANIES ON MEDICARE MAILINGS

Seems like Obama is getting desperate. He is trying to silence everyone who opposes him. No wonder he is trying to budy up with all these petty third world dictators...maybe he wants to learn their secrets.

Originally Posted by Farangrakthai

golani is a pretty good debater

He's better than pretty good. Hell, he's a masterbater.

Originally Posted by kingdomcome

He's better than pretty good. Hell, he's a masterbater.

Originally Posted by Lotuslevi

and will never give an inch even once proven wrong.

yep, that's my only criticism of xtrafresh as he can be intellectually dishonest on occasion rather than conceding a point and moving on to the next point.

Originally Posted by Lotuslevi

slanted though they may be.

That's for damn sure . . and only describing it as "slanted" is being generous

Originally Posted by Golani

Everything that I post I truely believe in and have painstakingly researched. Being "dishonest" is an attempt to deceive someone and I try my best to stay factual.

am referring to our debate when you were posting as xtrafresh over a year ago. we were debating u.n. resolutions against israel and you at first said that were not chapter 5 resolution, then they are not chapter 7 resolutions, etc. not passed by the security council and therefore meant nothing.

when i posted info that they were security council resolutions, then you said that israel doesn't even recognize the u.n.security council resolutions as being legit because the u.n. is violating its own charter by not recognizing the league of nations treaty on palestine.

so, rather than acknowledging that even the security council has passed resolutions against the israeli occupation of the west bank, you then say the whole u.n. including the security council, the u.s. is wrong and they don't understand the international law of this issue. though, you do.

that is intellectually dishonest, xtrafresh and you can start a new thread about it, if you'd like to continue this debate.