Obama administration issues 'gag order' on Humana
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 9/25/2009 7:40:00 AM
In a letter last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) informed Humana that it had launched an investigation of the health insurance company's marketing practices. CMS has also ordered Humana to stop telling its enrollees that President Obama's proposed healthcare plan could lower their Medicare Advantage benefits. Medicare Advantage plans are private plans purchased by Medicare patients to extend Medicare. (See related article from Associated Press)
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Congressman Dave Camp (R-Michigan), the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, has written a letter to CMS, asking the agency to explain why it issued the "gag order" -- and why the order only applies to opponents of President Obama's healthcare plan.
"It really is unprecedented that you would say seniors don't have a right to know, that you would prevent them from getting the kind of information they need to be informed about what's going to happen to their benefits. And according to the Congressional Budget Office, their benefits are going to be reduced, or they're going to have higher co-pays if in fact either the House or Senate healthcare bill pass[es]," he contends.
"So, I think it's really important that we give people a chance to understand what's in these bills, [and] not try to rush them through or to hide what the policy changes are going to mean to individual seniors."
Camp says the federal gag order on Humana reverses a longstanding Clinton administration policy that recognized the constitutional right of people to know how they are going to be affected by government policies.
