The federal government is demanding that Humana cease and desist writing their clients letters urging them to oppose efforts to cut Medicare benefits.  It is a perfect example of how a public-private syndicate such as Medicare chills political speech and basically requires companies to give up their constitutional rights of free speech and petition for redress of grievances.  In the aftermath of the bank bailouts, we are now also seeing the same attempt to control private companies’ behavior in efforts to impose salary caps on bankers. 

Government always works the same way where businesses are concerned.  First they create a public-private syndicate between government and select businesses in the name of serving some “unmet public need” or “correcting market failure.”  Businesses slobber all over themselves buying into the syndicate in order to nurse at the public teat and eliminate competition.  But like any deal with the Devil, government always extracts its pound of flesh in payment by imposing severe restrictions on the private syndicate members even requiring that they “voluntarily” (as a term and conditions of the contract with the government) give up their rights.

While one might find the government’s demands unreasonable and thuggish, what can one really expect?  This kind of thuggish behavior is in the very nature of government, like the scorpion stinging the turtle.  There is no remedy for it except to avoid public-private syndicates to begin with. 

One is hard pressed to have much sympathy for the companies when they come crying about government abuse.  The companies made their pact with the Devil to feather their own nests at the expense of the American taxpayer.  Uncle Sam has now come to collect their souls.