Today in Washington D. C. - Sept 23, 2009 - Mafia Style Thug Politics in Washington, D.C.

Senate resumed consideration of H.R. 2996, the fiscal 2010 Interior-Environment appropriations bill. The bill provides $32.1 billion in discretionary spending, a $4.5 billion increase from last year.  Votes on amendments are expected throughout the day.  Yesterday, the Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to strip an earmark for the Des Moines Art Center and tabled a motion from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) concerning Interior Department water restrictions based on endangered species rulings.

Speaking on the Senate floor today, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell again highlighted the issue of free speech which he raised yesterday [video here] about how Democrats reacted to a health insurance company trying to inform its customers about how proposed health reform legislation in Congress could affect Medicare benefits.

Sen. McConnell said today, “Let’s review: at the instigation of the Chairman of the Finance Committee, the author of the health care legislation now working its way through Congress, the Executive Branch, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has launched an investigation into Humana for explaining to seniors how this legislation might affect their coverage. One more time: a private health care provider told its elderly clients how health care legislation might affect their lives. And now the federal government is putting its full weight into investigating that company at the request of the senator who wrote the legislation in question.”

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reported on “World News Tonight” last night, “But Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus says it is misleading to say his bill cuts Medicare benefits and ordered the HHS to investigate, prompting the gag order. Some legal experts say the order is unconstitutional. Senator McConnell agrees. . . . And even some Democratic senators are concerned that the bill now before the Senate Finance Committee reduces spending on Medicare Advantage by $123 billion.”

In fact, McConnell noted this morning, “Yesterday, we saw how legitimate those concerns were, when the director of the non-partisan independent Congressional Budget Office said that the administration’s proposed Medicare cuts would indeed lead to significant cuts in benefits to seniors.”  The AP reports, “Despite Obama’s repeated claims that Medicare benefits will not be cut, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf told senators Tuesday that the elderly in the private Medicare Advantage plans could see reduced benefits under Baucus’ bill.”  And Ed Morrissey notes that a staffer for the Senate Finance Committee admitted that Medicare Advantage benefits would be cut during a Finance Committee hearing yesterday.

As Sen. McConnell said, “[W]e now find out that the concerns that this company was raising to its clients were perfectly legitimate, according to the director of the CBO. This is so clearly an outrage it’s hard to believe anyone thought it would go unnoticed. For explaining to seniors how legislation might affect them, the federal government has now issued a gag order on that company, and any other company that communicates with clients on the issue, telling them to shut up — or else.”

But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of heavy-handed reaction from Democrats to skepticism of their health care plans. Sen. McConnell warned “Over the past several months, we’ve seen a pattern of intimidation by supporters of the administration’s health care proposal — including efforts to demonize serious-minded critics at town hall meetings across the country.” Today, Brian Faughnan in a posted on Red State: "The Thugs are Back in Town" examines  the various intimidation tactics employed over health care reform in the past few months. After reading his post, one wonders if a Chicago style political mafia is at work in Washington, D.C. Faughnan is right: "The Thugs are Back in Washington D.C.!"

McConnell expressed it in softer terms, "This is precisely the kind of thing Americans are worried about with the administration’s health care plan. They’re worried that handing government the reins over their health care will lead to just this kind of intimidation. They’re worried that government agencies which were created to enforce violations even-handedly will instead be used against those who voice a different point of view. That’s apparently what’s happening here, and to many Americans, it’s a preview of what’s in store for everyone under the administration’s health care plan.”

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