Obama Administration Calls Criticism of Health Care Takeover 'Thuggery'

by the Left Coast Rebel

Behind the facade of Obama's wide smile, toothy grin, nice-looking family lies a Chicago gangster, crook, criminal and thug. Behind the facade of his inner circle cronies lies the same.

Today's example is Obama's Kathleen Sebelius, Michael Barone:

"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases."

That sounds like a stern headmistress dressing down some sophomores who have been misbehaving. But it's actually from a letter sent Thursday from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans -- the chief lobbyist for private health insurance companies.

Sebelius objects to claims by health insurers that they are raising premiums because of increased costs imposed by the Obamacare law passed by Congress last March.

She acknowledges that many of the law's "key protections" take effect later this month and does not deny that these impose additional costs on insurers. But she says that "according to our analysis and those of some industry and academic experts, any potential premium impact ... will be minimal."

Well, that's reassuring. Er, except that if that's the conclusion of "some" industry and academic experts, it's presumably not the conclusion of all industry and academic experts, or the secretary would have said so.

As Time magazine's Karen Pickert points out, Sebelius ignores the fact that individual insurance plans cover different types of populations. So that government and "some" industry and academic experts think the new law will justify increases averaging 1 percent or 2 percent, they could justify much larger increases for certain plans.

Or as Ignagni, the recipient of the letter, says, "It's a basic law of economics that additional benefits incur additional costs."

But Sebelius has "zero tolerance" for that kind of thing. She promises to issue regulations to require "state or federal review of all potentially unreasonable rate increases" (which would presumably mean all rate increases).

And there's a threat. "We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014."

That's a significant date, the first year in which state insurance exchanges are slated to get a monopoly on the issuance of individual health insurance policies. Sebelius is threatening to put health insurers out of business in a substantial portion of the market if they state that Obamacare is boosting their costs.

"Congress shall make no law," reads the First Amendment, "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."

Sebelius' approach is different: "zero tolerance" for dissent.

I'm sure that all of you lefties in the audience actually cheer this kind of behavior from the Obama team. You even don't mind the first amendment threat against American companies and citizens. Knowing this, I ask you a simple question. What will your position be if/when a right wing administration does the same thing? How about a Republican administration that may threaten a powerful union group like this, attempting to shut down their free speech rights?

I get it, your Dear Leader and his band of cronies can do anything and you don't protest - he's your Philosopher King, after all.

Ed Morrissey sees this threat from the administration pretty simply, it exposes corruption and a bigger problem:

Yes, this is thuggery, but in a free-market system, it would be an empty threat. This is precisely the reason why government should not run private-sector industries — the management of these systems becomes political rather than fiduciary or achievement based. And it’s started already.

Morrissey doesn't understand, however, that Obama and his band of merry thieves don't want a free market system. They want a top-down, command and control, federal hegemony over every single slice of the economic pie that they can get their grubby hands on.

And yes, the health care system is the 'grand prize' and yes, it is thuggery.

Remember in November, cross posted to LCR.