Seniors Have a Right to Know (Rep. Dave Camp)

Seniors have a right to know if and how their benefits will be cut if the Democrats’ health care legislation is enacted.

Yesterday, I, along with my fellow Republican Ways and Means Members, sent a letter to Chairman Rangel requesting a hearing on the growing controversy surrounding the gag order the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) placed on all Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. This, in turn, was triggered by a letter Humana sent to their MA beneficiaries, informing enrollees of cuts proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats that could mean higher costs and reduction in benefits. The Humana letter was likely based on a report from the Congressional Budget Office warning that the policies contained in the House Democrats’ health care bill, “could lead many plans to limit the benefits they offer, raise their premiums, or withdraw from the program.”

While CMS chose to place a gag order on the distribution of factual information by Humana, no such similar order was placed on AARP, which co-sponsors the largest MA plan in the country. AARP continues to contact its enrollees—with the only major difference being that AARP’s communications support the Democrats’ bill and its massive Medicare cuts. This is an abuse of the government’s regulatory authority and likely of the first amendment.

Facts about the Democrats’ proposed Medicare cuts and their impact on seniors should not be censored by the Administration in an effort to ram through health care legislation. These MA cuts threaten the high-quality care 11 million seniors currently receive. Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee want to know why CMS is selectively enforcing their gag order on Humana, whose concerns expressed to seniors have been confirmed by CBO, while CMS has turned a blind eye to false assertions made by AARP.  Finally, the Administration needs to explain why its reversal of previous guidance on this type of communication – which the Clinton Administration said in 1997 was perfectly legal – is not a violation of CMS’ marketing rules.

This political maneuver threatens the integrity of our democracy in an attempt to silence factual criticism of the $500 billion in Medicare cuts.