Parody becomes reality

Hey, remember yesterday? You know, when joking about defending insurance companies being the highest priority of health reform was a funny, tinged with truth joke and not an exact template for a new front of attacks? Someone should have told the GOP that Will Ferrell was joking.

Republicans took to the floor of Congress, the Internet and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page Tuesday in a rush to defend a health insurance company that used taxpayer-subsidized communication to terrify seniors with the prospect that health care reform will cut their Medicare benefits.

Republican leaders in both houses of Congress ripped Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to put a stop to the insurer's efforts, decrying what they called a "gag order" and reading the First Amendment on the floor of the Senate.

So what happened? Humana, a crooked group of fucks, got mad about a provision in one of the health care bills that took the Medicare Advantage plan, where the government pays 14% more to insurers than under regular Medicare, and cut those payments to the tune of $12 billion a year. An OMB study said that through Medicare Advantage the government ends up paying $1.30 for every dollars worth of service it gets from insurance companies. Humana got mad about its profits and used a Medicare beneficiaries list to send out a bunch of dishonest scare letters telling grandma that the government was coming to steal her stuff. After Max Baucus heard about it, thought to himself "this sounds illegal in addition to being full of lies" he got them to stop, so the Kentucky based Humana called up several Senators and Congressmen it owned lock and stock to bitch about it.

Whew! Thank God for this, we had gone a few days without seeing how political opposition to health reform was nakedly fueled by corporate toadying and greed. I'm glad that we have men like John Behner and Mitch McConnell in our congress to stand up for the first amendment rights of government teat suckling insurance companies to lie to the elderly because their "pay a $1.30 for a $1" gravy train is going to be marginally affected. Finally, we're off of discussing this unimportant "making health care coverage more affordable for the people" thing and on to seeing our elected betters fist fight in the aisles of congress for campaign cash. It's much more dignified than pretend concern for health care access.