TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Health insurers announced that they are raising rates due to Obama’s healthcare reform. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote a letter in response, in which she said:

I urge you to inform your members that there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.

And:

Later this fall, we will issue a regulation that will require state or federal review of all potentially unreasonable rate increases filed by health insurers, with the justification for increases posted publicly for consumers and employers. We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014. Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections.

So: the Obama administration is (1) threatening uncooperative insurers with being shut out of a government-created and controlled market and (2) going to, in effect, set what rates insurers can charge.

Michael Barone comments:

The threat to use government regulation to destroy or harm someone’s business because they disagree with government officials is thuggery. Like the Obama administration’s transfer of money from Chrysler bondholders to its political allies in the United Auto Workers, it is a form of gangster government.

That’s exactly right. Sebelius is making herself our healthcare dictator, her little fiefdom to rule. And we are supposed to believe that this administration believes in free markets, rule of law and individual rights? It is quite clear they do not. They believe in power, for themselves.