Defeated: Kyl’s Amendment to Let Insurers Frighten Medicare Enrollees

Defeated: Kyl’s Amendment to Let Insurers Frighten Medicare Enrollees
By: Scarecrow Wednesday September 23, 2009 1:30 pm


One of the Medicare "savings" contained in the health reform bills would reduce or eliminate the subsidies Medicare pays to private insurers who administer Medicare benefits through Medicare Advantage plans. They're generally paid an extra 12 to 14 percent to do that.

Insurers who receive these subsidies are protesting the proposed cuts and warning their Medicare enrollees that the cuts would lead to reductions in Medicare benefits. Humana, for example, sent an alert to its enrollees, warning them of likely benefit cuts and urging them to contact Congress to let them know their feelings about the reductions in their benefits.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, immediately directed Humana and all other Medicare Advantage insurers, to cease sending these scare messages to their enrollees, and the insurers are howling -- to their favorite Senators. So the Republican talking point of the week has become that health reform will reduce Medicare benefits, and they repeated that all day long.

In today's Senate Finance Hearing on the Baucus health reform bill, the CMS warning sparked an amendment from Senator Kyl to guarantee that insurers could tell their enrollees anything they wanted with respect to pending legislation, all in the name of protecting the insurers' right to free speech.

The Committee debated the amendment for about an hour and finally voted on strict party lines to defeat the Kyl amendment.

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The one that yelps the loudest, etc. They make it so obvious as to who owns them.
Whoever it was that that said Congress should wear suits with their sponsors decals on them like NASCAR drivers was right.