MO 8th District Coordinator's List: Watchdog Group for Left Tactics

• Like a mafia underboss trying to face down a rival crime family, the powerful California Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has resorted to ugly intimidation tactics with opponents of government-run health care.
• In the spirit of Joe McCarthy, earlier this week, Waxman and House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak, D-MI, sent a letter to 52 of the nation's largest health insurance companies that contained a not-so-veiled threat.
• According to the letter, all this information must be provided by Sept. 14 as part of an investigation of "executive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry."
• Imagine that. An investigation of health insurance compensation launched by two powerful Democratic House Committee Chairmen in the midst of a coordinated campaign to vilify health insurance companies.
• Waxman and Stupak are attempting to use raw political power to silence their opponents, plain and simple. If that's not the case, why single out one sector of healthcare and not others, like physician groups, hospitals, and drug companies? Could it be because many of these groups have publicly supported the emerging Democratic legislation?
• Today, there are more than 1,300 health insurance companies in America divided among 50 different state markets with 50 different sets of regulation of what level of coverage private health insurance plans must offer in each state.
• Consumers are currently prohibited from buying less expensive health insurance policies issued by a private health insurer in another state. Creating a nationwide health insurance market in which individuals or groups can choose better and less expensive coverage from another state would create real competition and force private insurers in each state to create better products, improve service and lower prices.
• Americans know the public option is declining rapidly in support, and Waxman and Stupak know that we know it. That's why they've resorted to Sopranos-style tactics with health insurance companies.

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• Two senior House Democrats are seeking a raft of financial figures from health-insurance companies, upping the ante as President Obama and his allies push to make the insurance industry's flaws a centerpiece of their campaign for health-care reform.
• House Energy and Commerce Chairman  Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep.  Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the panel's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, wrote letters Monday to more than 50 of the nation's largest insurers informing them that the committee "is examining executive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry."
• They requested detailed information on the compensation packages of the companies' highest-paid employees, as well as information on the companies' boards, conferences and events they sponsored, the profitability of the individual health-care products they sell and revenues earned through government programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
• Obama and Democratic leaders on the Hill have sharpened their rhetoric against the insurance industry as the reform debate has progressed. Speaker  Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) advised members of her caucus to focus on insurance companies' alleged misdeeds during the August recess, calling them the "villains" of the health-care system.
• The insurance industry, in turn, has said it supports reform generally but has been a primary opponent of elements of Obama's plan, particularly the public insurance option that is supported by liberals but now receives only tepid backing from the White House.
• Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, said the industry viewed the Waxman-Stupak letters as a "politically driven" distraction from more important issues.
• "This is a fishing expedition," Zirkelbach said. "There has been an effort in recent weeks to shift the debate to focus on the health insurance industry rather than solutions on health care."
• Both in his current post and his previous one as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Waxman has developed a reputation as a master of orchestrating high-profile hearings, often with representatives of major industries in the hot seat. It is not yet clear whether Waxman and Stupak intend to bring insurance company executives to Capitol Hill for similar grillings before banks of television cameras.

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