GOP raps Dems for hushing insurers on Medicare

WASHINGTON -- Republican lawmakers rebuked the Obama administration Tuesday for telling health insurance companies to stop warning elderly customers they'll lose benefits in health care legislation, which some equated to a gag order.

At least one prominent insurer has misrepresented the pending bills to frighten older Americans, the administration says. But GOP leaders said the companies, whose income could be reduced by the legislation, are entitled to free speech and political debate.

Tuesday's exchanges came as a Senate committee began debating a health care bill most Republicans oppose. President Barack Obama supports the bill's main provisions, and the flap over insurance companies' mailers is the latest front in a long-running dispute.

"It is outrageous that the Obama administration is trying to keep seniors in the dark about the consequences of congressional Democrats' costly government-run health care bills," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said.

The Senate's GOP leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said citizens and companies "have a fundamental right to talk about legislation they favor or oppose."

McConnell called the notice to insurance companies a "gag order, enforced through an agency of the federal government."

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid on Monday sent a notice to all companies that sell private Medicare coverage and stand-alone drug plans to seniors. Saying at least one insurer was misleading those customers about the proposed legislation, it told the companies "to immediately discontinue all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your Web sites."

The warning came after Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., launched an investigation of Humana Inc. Humana is one of the largest private insurers participating in a program called Medicare Advantage.

Federal subsidies to private Medicare plans average about 14 percent higher than those involved in traditional fee-for-service Medicare coverage. The health care bills pending in Congress would reduce or eliminate the difference.

A Humana mailer, now discontinued, told customers, "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." It encouraged customers to contact their members of Congress.

Peter Ashkenzaz, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, defended the agency's notice to insurers.

"Because these are Medicare contractors," he said, "we want to make sure that the health plans' communications to beneficiaries are not violating marketing requirements or using protected information like Medicare mailing lists improperly."

McConnell criticized Baucus, without saying his name, for targeting Humana, which is headquartered in Louisville, Ky. Humana executives have contributed heavily to McConnell's Senate campaigns and a university center named for him.

Baucus said Monday, "it is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject -- particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health care reform."

His office said Tuesday he stands by those remarks.