Internal Report Confirms Bush Misled Congress, Public on Real Cost of Medi [View All]

[Ugnmoose]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4796.shtml

(snip)

An internal Bush administration investigation into the new Medicare law confirms there was a coordinated effort to keep its true costs from Congress and the public.
Although the Health and Human Services Department inspector general said in a report released Tuesday that administration officials broke no laws in withholding the cost estimates from Congress, the report described the aggressive tactics that were used to keep lawmakers from learning that the administration had estimates of the legislation's cost that were $100 billion more than the president and other officials were acknowledging.

Thomas Scully, the administration's Medicare chief until December, threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from giving information to lawmakers. Scully, then the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, "has the final authority to determine the flow of information to Congress," the unsigned report said.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said Tuesday: "The IG's report describes the extraordinary deception of Bush administration officials to cover up the true costs of the Medicare bill. What they did was clearly wrong by any definition."