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Drop the gag order, Sebelius.
Written By : Tabitha Hale

Who knew they still had a spine?

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — Senate Republicans vowed to block President Barack Obama’s nominee for surgeon general and other health officials unless the government drops what they said is a “gag order” barring insurers from lobbying their Medicare policyholders on the health-insurance overhaul.

The move by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and seven other Republicans would delay confirmation of almost a dozen nominees for Health and Human Services positions, including Dr. Regina Benjamin to become surgeon general.

“Until your department rescinds its gag order and allows seniors to receive information about matters before Congress, we will not consent” to move forward with the confirmations, the eight Republicans said in a letter today to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

How’s that whole transparency thing working out, huh? I’m actually kind of shocked that they called it what it is – a gag order. What else can you really call legally silencing a private company? Humana has every right in the world to disseminate information to their insured. In fact, they have an OBLIGATION to do so! There are Clintonian rules still in place that allow insurers keep their insured informed about legislative changes.

But why on earth would the one calling for dialogue and action work so hard to shut down opposing voices? Easy: the facts are inconvenient. The “solution” driven left seems to ignore the fact that there are ethics involved. That maybe companies have a reponsibility to let the people that rely on them for their health care know that their coverage may be affected.

“Republicans jeopardize their own credibility when they choose to defend big insurance companies trying to make false claims about senior citizens,” Schultz said.

Except… they may not actually be false. No one can seem to prove otherwise. Instead of doing so, they issue nothing short of a gag order to keep the whole thing under wraps, and hope it goes away.

Read the letter to Sebelius here. Yes, that’s Grassley’s signature… I was surprised too.

My bet? They’re hanging on by a thread, desperately trying to sell this false ideological argument, and praying that the short attention span of the general public allows this to slip through.

Don’t let it happen.

0
  • CoolCzech

    Gag orders? Assaults on freedom of speech?

    Why, which totalitarian-leaning party could we possibly be speaking of?

  • rmiller

    hy, which totalitarian-leaning party could we possibly be speaking of?

    Posted by CoolCzech

    2009-09-25 21:30:06

    LOL….yeah… good question.

  • jasamc

    I say bravo

    Posted by snohomish

    2009-09-26 00:01:47

    You know who else said bravo to a government banning free speech? I'll bet you both will say bravo to a good old book burning, too.

  • GDR

    very much appreciate all Conservative’s and other dedicated American’s continued focus and analysis on what is happening in the so-called Health Care reform debate.

    Unfortunately, all of us who oppose Obamacare may be too late politically to stop this from happen unless the public can be alerted to what is going on right now.

    A big event took place yesterday that went just about unnoticed by the all in the media save for the alarm over jail time brought out by Senator Ensign (good catch by him!)…..

    The Individual Mandate provisions were kept in the Bacus Bill by the Senate Finance Committee on a near party line vote which makes some form of Obamacare phoney “compromise” highly likely now…

    And unfortunately, it was a R who broke ranks with her party….guess who?

    Well, the cat is out of the bag – Senator Snowe voted to keep the individual mandate so its very likely that she and the blue dogs will sell us out on the Bacus bill or Wyden-Bennett fake compromises…..

    Contrary to popular opinion in the media, the Individual Mandate, not the so-called public option is the key to stopping Obamcare in its tracks. Stop the Individual Mandate and the whole bill will unravel for lack of funding and mandatory participation in the scheme!

    Her is what happened yesterday….

    Senator Bunning offered an Amendment in the Finance committee today to kill the Individual Mandate in the Bacus bill – it failed by 14-9 vote – a bad result for stopping Obamacare…..

    All R’s except Snowe voted Against the Individual Mandate…..

    All D’s voted for it….of course…..

    This is NOT a good result……If Snowe voted for it, then she is likely to vote for a Fake "compromise" bill with mandates…..and will vote for closure with D…..

    Well, the true supporters of some version of Obamacare cant hide now – they will push the defacto takeover with the Individual Mandate!

    This is a very dangerous period because Nationalization will still occur even without an overt government run insurance plan like this "public option" provision everyone keeps fixating on – Wyden/Bennett and the Bacus bill are prime examples of this.

    Here are the core elements what will be contained in the “health care reform compromise” after the so-called “public option” is in all likelihood dropped:

    (a) Federal Regulation aka HEALTH CZAR/DEATH PANELS

    (b) Employer/Individual Mandates aka NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE

    (c) Government Subsidies aka MIDDLE CLASS MEDICAL WELFARE

    With the Federal Government setting the rules, forcing everyone to participate, and is paying the bills for most of the middle class through subsidies how is this anything other than Nationalization?

    (There is a great CATO study about how the takeover will work without a public option or COOP)

    People need to be up in arms about this – they need to Flood Senator Snowe's email, etc to get her to change this vote NOW!

    Also, the so-called "blue dogs" need to be targeted too – they need to know we are on to their support for a de facto takeover…..

    We are in bad shape I fear now – Rahm E is likely right and we are on track to pass this so-called "bi-partisan compromise" – but at least we know what is going on now and can mount a reaction….

    The conservative print media has had several great features and is leading the charge against the Obamacare bill but he has spoken out directly against these Individual Mandates – I just wish the rest of the conservative media would get a clue and catch on soon before its too late….

    We should be attacking these Individual Mandates daily on radio and TV TOO! Conservatives – please continue to do your utmost to alert the conservative media and the GOP Senators and Representatives about what is going on here with Obamacare!

    This is the "bridge over" or foot in the water they need to get to fully socialized medicine!

    And the Individual Mandate should be an easy target for conservatives and the GOP to attack since Obama has done a huge 180 from his campaign promises!

    From the mouth of then Candidate Obama:

    “If you look at auto insurance, in California there’s mandatory auto insurance,” Obama explained. “Twenty-five percent of the folks don’t have it. The reason is because they can’t afford it. So John and I, we’re not that different in this sense; that I’m committed to starting the process. Everybody who wants it can buy it and it’s affordable. If we have some gaps remaining, we will work on that. You take it from the opposite direction, but you’re still going to have some folks who aren’t insured under your plan, John, because some of them will simply not be able to afford to buy the coverage they’re offered.”

    Can we see some flip-flop or liar adds please?

    Why are we blowing this golden opportunity to stop Obamacare in its tracks?

    Someone in the GOP Senate caucus also needs to talk some sense into Senator Snowe immediately too!

    I hope we can pick up the pace here – a 100 year reign of socialized medicine would not be good for anyone's health.

  • jasamc

    Posted by snohomish

    2009-09-26 19:31:52

    Let's see, what did Joe Wilson say? Oh, yeah, "You lie". Not "you can't do it because I didn't".

    To recap: Did Obama lie? Yes. Did Joe Wilson call him on it? Yes.

    Oh, and Section 1011 was a reimbursement program to help hospitals that provided emergency care for illegals – a far cry from your "provide free health care for illegal aliens" lie you tried to foist on this thread. Don't believe me? Here's the actual text of Section 1011 of HR 1:

    (Sec. 1011) Appropriates for FY 2005 through 2008 specified funding out of any funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated to the Secretary for the purpose of making allotments to States for payments to eligible providers for unreimbursable costs incurred by providing emergency health care services to: (1) undocumented aliens; (2) aliens who have been parolded into the United States at a United States port of entry for the purpose of receiving eligible services; and (3) Mexican citizens permitted to enter the United States for not more than 72 hours under the authority of a biometric machine readable border crossing identification card.

    Next time:

    1) Don't try your weak shit here – you'll just end up curb stomped

    2) Don't believe everything Kos tells you

    3) Don't believe everything that you read on HuffPo

  • cabby

    Hey snohomish, trying to use the past as an excuse for not doing something now is not an argument. I don't give a rats A@@ what Wilson or any of the sell out Republicans did in 2003 with their liberal spending spree. What I care about is stopping the far left agenda from taking our country down the drain and if a few hypocrites want to join in the fight I welcome them on board. I don't care if their lying blue dog democrats (they had to lie about their true beliefs to get elected)or former big spending lefty Republicans. Anyone willing to stand up against Obama and this ruthless Congress now, in present time,needs to do so. By the way you forgot to say it's all Bush's fault.

  • jasamc

    Nice try at sugar coating, but a failure. If the hospitals get reimbursed by the federal government for the costs of providing emergency care to illegal aliens, then that is taking money out of the pockets of taxpayers to provide free free medical care to illegal aliens. Joe Wilson voted to implement that program which takes money out of the pockets of tax payers which is then used to provide free medical care toillegal aliens.

    Posted by snohomish

    2009-09-27 00:58:48

    Y'know, I was wondering if you would bother to actually read what I posted. From the answer above, it's obviously no. Because no sane, thinking person could equate creating a system where illegals get preventative and restorative care, free of charge with reimbursing hospitals that lost money due to illegals stealing it from them.

    Oh, wait, sorry, I did specify sane and thinking – that leaves out liberals…

  • jasamc

    Hoggo,

    Seriously, son, if you can't tell the difference between:

    "Hey, my arm was gnawed off by angry liberals!"

    and

    "I'm here to get school physicals for my 6 kids."

    there is no explaining it to you. You are either deliberately obtuse (distinct possibility) or pretty freaking stupid (also a distinct possibility). Please feel free to post again to clear up my confusion.

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