Michael Barone on comments made by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans where Sebelius threatened to freeze insurance companies out of Obamacare insurance exchanges in 2014 if they make "unreasonable" rate increases in current policies:

So that government and "some" industry and academic experts think the new law will justify increases averaging 1 percent or 2 percent, they could justify much larger increases for certain plans.

Or as Ignagni, the recipient of the letter, says, "It's a basic law of economics that additional benefits incur additional costs."

But Sebelius has "zero tolerance" for that kind of thing. She promises to issue regulations to require "state or federal review of all potentially unreasonable rate increases" (which would presumably mean all rate increases).

And there's a threat. "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."

That's a significant date, the first year in which state insurance exchanges are slated to get a monopoly on the issuance of individual health insurance policies. Sebelius is threatening to put health insurers out of business in a substantial portion of the market if they state that Obamacare is boosting their costs.

Zero tolerance for dissent. They're not even trying to be subtle.