Indicating it was “inappropriate political pressure,” a ranking member of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee wants answers on why a federal agency is preventing health insurers from discussing the impact of reform efforts with their clients.

Dave Camp

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has requested that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provide him with any documents and communications by Oct. 1 that led it to investigate Humana and any other Medicare Advantage provider for their communications with customers regarding reform.

Earlier this week, at the urging of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), CMS sent a letter to the Louisville, Ky.-based insurer ordering it to stop sending a letter to seniors. The federal agency said the letter featured “misleading and confusing” information regarding efforts in Washington, D.C., to reform health care. Camp and other Republican members of the Ways and Means committee have also requested a hearing on the matter, according to published reports.

Camp said the letter, and any other efforts by CMS, to halt such information from reaching consumers is a “gag order” on private Medicare Advantage plans, “which prevents companies from sharing factual information with their enrollees.

“I have never seen anything like this and I question if politics was the deciding factor,” Camp said in a statement, adding that CMS has gone without a full-time director for the past eight months. “What CMS has blocked is the distribution of facts backed up by the non-partisan, independent analysis of CBO. Yet, they allowed misinformation to be spread by a Medicare Advantage plan sponsor, AARP, who supports the President’s goal to cut $500 billion from Medicare. That kind of abuse of power cannot go unchecked.”

Camp notes that the CBO has found that H.R. 3200, the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, “could lead many plans to limit the benefits they offer, raise their premiums, or withdraw from the program.”

In a letter to Charlene Frizzera, acting CMS director, Camp requested any communication with members of the Obama Administration on the matter, including White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform Nancy-Ann DeParle, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her staff.

Camp’s letter says the gag order may not be a violation of federal regulations, but rather “inappropriate political pressure from proponents of reform within the Administration and outside of it.”

With a CBO estimate that 3 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage could lose their coverage, Camp said, “Any decision you make preventing that information from being relayed to the American people – the constituents I and my colleagues represent – must be made in the open.”