Humana's Flyer Was Perfectly Legal

According to this article, the flyer that Humana sent out about the impact of the Baucus health care bill on seniors was perfectly legal.

In its original mailer, Humana expressed concern about proposals to cut Medicare and Medicaid spending by about $500 billion over 10 years, including payments to Medicare Advantage plans worth about $125 billion.

"While these programs need to be made more efficient, if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable," the mailer reads.

Humana, one of the largest private carriers serving seniors under the Medicare Advantage program, focused its mailer on the potential for cuts to service. Where Humana makes a criticism of the legislation and gets censored by the government, the AARP praises it and gets...nothing. You can find coverage of that here.

Senate Republicans on Thursday threatened to block Obama's health care-related appointments if the decision is not reversed, and House Republicans called for a hearing on what they described as a politically motivated "gag order."

"It's an astonishing overreach," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told FOX News on Thursday.

Republicans held up a Clinton-era letter from the Department of Health and Human Services offering guidance on mailers sent by insurers to customers.

The 1997 letter, written by Center for Health Plans and Providers Director Bruce Fried to a law firm, addressed the question of whether HMOs could tell members about proposed legislation and urge them to express their opinions. The letter concluded that restrictions could violate free speech laws.

This, folks, is just another example of intellectual dishonesty from liberals in government. You know, the kind that Paul Krugman thinks only comes from conservatives.

You can find the Clinton-era correspondence discussed here as a PDF.