Are these people liars? Are they crooked? How do folks come up with these ridiculous ideas? _____________________ Bush administration ordered Medicare plan cost estimates withheld By Tony Pugh Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan. When the House of Representatives passed the controversial benefit by five votes last November, the White House was embracing an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that it would cost $395 billion in the first 10 years. But for months the administration's own analysts in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had concluded repeatedly that the drug benefit could cost upward of $100 billion more than that. Withholding the higher cost projections was important because the White House was facing a revolt from 13 conservative House Republicans who'd vowed to vote against the Medicare drug bill if it cost more than $400 billion. Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, one of the 13 Republicans, said she was "very upset" when she learned of the higher estimate. "I think a lot of people probably would have reconsidered (voting for the bill) because we said that $400 billion was our top of the line," Myrick said. Five months before the November House vote, the government's chief Medicare actuary had estimated that a similar plan the Senate was considering would cost $551 billion over 10 years. Two months after Congress approved the new benefit, White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten disclosed that he expected it to cost $534 billion. Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which produced the $551 billion estimate, told colleagues last June that he would be fired if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers. "This whole episode which has now gone on for three weeks has been pretty nightmarish," Foster wrote in an e-mail to some of his colleagues June 26, just before the first congressional vote on the drug bill. "I'm perhaps no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policy makers for political reasons." Knight Ridder obtained a copy of the e-mail. Foster didn't quit, but congressional staffers and lawmakers who worked on the bill said he no longer was permitted to answer important questions about the bill's cost. Cybele Bjorklund, the Democratic staff director for the House Ways and Means health subcommittee, which worked on the drug benefit, said Thomas A. Scully - then the director of the Medicare office - told her he ordered Foster to withhold information and that Foster would be fired for insubordination if he disobeyed. Health and Human Services Department officials turned down repeated requests to interview Foster. The Medicare office falls under the control of HHS. In an interview with Knight Ridder, Scully, a former health-industry lobbyist deeply involved in the administration's campaign to pass the drug benefit, denied Bjorklund's assertion that he'd threatened to fire Foster. He said he curbed Foster on only one specific request, made by Democrats on the eve of the first House vote in June, because he felt they'd use the cost estimates to disrupt the debate. "They were trying to be politically cute and get (Foster) to score (estimate the cost of the bill) and put something out publicly so they can walk out on the House floor and cause a political crisis, which is bogus," Scully said. "I just said, `Look, (Foster) works for the executive branch; he's not going to do it, period,'" he said. Otherwise, Scully said, Foster was available to lawmakers and their staffs. " ... I don't think he ever felt - I don't think anybody (in the actuary's office) ever felt - that I restricted access. ... I think it's a very nice tradition that (the actuary) is perceived to be very nonpartisan and very accessible, and I continued that tradition." Scully said Liz Fowler, the chief health lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, could confirm the actuary's independence. Fowler didn't. "He's a liar," she said of Scully. At a Ways and Means Committee hearing last month, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson all but repudiated Scully's tactics. "I may have been derelict in allowing my administrator, Tom Scully, to have more control over it than I should have. ... And maybe he micromanaged the actuary and the actuary services too much. ... I can assure you that from now (on), the remaining days that I am secretary you will have as much access as you want to anybody or anything in the department. All you have to do is call me." Democrats asked Thompson on Feb. 3 and March 3 for a complete record of Foster's estimates. They've yet to get it. Said HHS spokesman Bill Pierce: "We respond to all inquiries in time and we will do the same" with these. Scully left the administration and in January took a job with Alston & Bird, an Atlanta-based law firm that represents numerous hospitals and health insurers. He was exploring jobs in the private sector while he was pushing for passage of the prescription drug bill, thanks to a waiver from Thompson that allowed him to conduct job interviews while he was still a federal employee. In February, the White House announced that President Bush's appointees no longer would be permitted to job-hunt while on the federal payroll. Members of Congress and congressional staffers complained that Scully's handling of Foster has deepened congressional mistrust of the Bush administration and that withholding information makes it harder for Congress to draft good legislation. Myrick didn't think the episode was an effort to "pull the wool over our eyes." But Democratic Rep. Pete Stark of California felt otherwise. "This `need to know, our eyes only' stuff is getting too restrictive for us to do a decent job," said Stark, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means health subcommittee. For years before Scully's arrival in 2001, key lawmakers had direct access to Medicare actuaries. In 1997, when Republicans were having trouble getting health-care cost information out of the Clinton administration, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., who's now the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, added language to the Balanced Budget Act conference report to emphasize the importance of free access to Foster. "The process of monitoring, updating and reforming the Medicare and Medicaid programs is greatly enhanced by the free flow of actuarial information from the Office of the Actuary to the committees of jurisdiction in the Congress," the report says. "When information is delayed or circumscribed by the operation of an internal Administration clearance process or the inadequacy of actuarial resources, the Committees' ability to make informed decisions based on the best available information is compromised."
Again, liars? Crooked? I just can't fathom it... _________________ A Watchdog Sees Flaws in Bush's Ads on Medicare By ROBERT PEAR, Washington Post WASHINGTON, March 10 — The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that advertisements and brochures prepared by the Bush administration to publicize a new Medicare law, although not illegal, misrepresented the prescription drug benefits that would be offered to millions of elderly and disabled people. The fliers and advertisements do not violate restrictions on the use of federal money for "publicity or propaganda purposes," but they are flawed by "omissions and other weaknesses," said the legal opinion by Anthony H. Gamboa, general counsel of the accounting office. For example, Mr. Gamboa said, the administration did not point out that beneficiaries might be charged up to $30 for drug discount cards that become available in June. Likewise, he said, the administration incorrectly suggested that the law set a premium of $35 a month for drug coverage, beginning in 2006. That amount, he said, is only an estimate and ignores the penalties that could be imposed on people who delay enrolling. The administration plans to spend more than $22 million on the advertisements and brochures, which publicize drug benefits, new coverage for preventive health services and new insurance options. Medicare officials said the advertisements and fliers were a way to educate beneficiaries, as the law requires. Democrats said the advertisements were campaign commercials for President Bush, who has taken credit for delivering drug benefits long promised by lawmakers of both parties. The accounting office said the multimedia campaign did "not violate the prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda, because the Department of Health and Human Services has explicit authority to inform Medicare beneficiaries" about the changes. Moreover, it said, the materials "are not so purely partisan as to be unlawful, in light of our prior decisions and opinions." The flier is being sent to all 41 million Medicare beneficiaries. The administration has already revised parts of the leaflet that the Democrats have criticized. For example, it has deleted a section on tax-free savings accounts that can be used to pay medical expenses. An earlier version of the flier told beneficiaries, "If you are happy with the Medicare coverage you have, you can keep it exactly the same." The last three words of that sentence have been deleted. Democrats had complained that some beneficiaries would have to pay more for existing coverage and might be forced into managed care plans. Since its creation more than 80 years ago, the accounting office has issued thousands of authoritative decisions on the legality of federal spending. Nine Congressional Democrats, led by Senators Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, asked it to review the advertisements. Mr. Lautenberg welcomed the report as confirmation of his view that the materials were misleading. "The G.A.O. agreed with us that the administration sugarcoats the drug discount cards and overstates the benefits of the prescription drug plan," he said. Mr. Kennedy said the report confirmed that money from the Medicare trust fund was being used for advertisements full of errors and omissions. "The more senior citizens learn about the bill," he said, "the less they like it." But the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said the report showed the administration was "following the spirit and letter of the law." Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, said, "We are encouraged that the G.A.O. has affirmed our efforts to educate seniors." He promised to continue providing "fact-based information." In a letter to all beneficiaries, Mr. Thompson says that the new law made "some of the most significant improvements to the program since its inception in 1965." The flier gives credit to Mr. Bush and Congress. The accounting office said that statement was acceptable because it simply described "the constitutional process for enacting legislation." The advertising theme is "same Medicare, more benefits," and the flier says the new law "preserves and strengthens" Medicare. Although those messages are political and may look like an effort to persuade the public, they are not "purely partisan" and therefore do not violate the ban on propaganda, the accounting office said. But the office said the new law, rather than preserving and strengthening Medicare, might increase its long-term financial problems.
Democrats: Congress Should Reconsider Medicare Bill Fri Mar 12, 5:16 PM ET By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Democrats said on Friday Congress should reconsider its approval of the Medicare prescription drug bill in response to a published report that a federal expert was threatened with dismissal if he had disclosed how much it might really cost. "I think we ought to bring this bill back for another vote," said Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota after reading excerpts of the report by Knight Ridder newspapers on the Senate floor. "I think an investigation of some kind is certainly warranted," said Daschle. "If not criminal, it is certainly unethical." The administration had no immediate comment. Knight Ridder reported that the government's top expert on Medicare costs, Richard Foster, was warned he would be fired if he told lawmakers about Bush administration cost estimates that could have doomed the measure as too expensive. In the midst of congressional debate on the measure in November, the administration embraced an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (news - web sites) that it would cost $395 billion in the first 10 years. The legislation squeaked by in the House of Representatives, and had an easier time winning Senate passage. But five months earlier, according to Knight Ridder, Foster had estimated that a similar plan the Senate was considering would cost $551 billion over 10 years. House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, joined in Daschle's criticism, saying, "To restore the integrity of the House, I call on (House) Speaker (Dennis) Hastert to immediately bring this bill to the House floor to vote on its repeal." With Republicans controlling Congress, there appeared to be no chance the bill would be repealed. Yet the Knight Ridder report and Democrats' comments about it put a new twist in the already embattled Medicare prescription drug benefit. In January, a month after Bush signed it into law, administration disclosed the prescription drug benefit was expected to actually cost $534 billion, triggering a furor. According to the Knight Ridder report, Foster told colleagues last June he would be fired if he revealed the numbers relating to his higher estimate. "This whole episode which has now gone on for three weeks has been pretty nightmarish," Foster wrote in an e-mail to some of his colleagues on June 26, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder. "I'm perhaps no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policy makers for political reasons." Thomas Scully, who then ran Medicare, was quoted by Knight Ridder as saying he did not threaten to fire Foster but did not want Democrats to try to use him to score political points.
We have ads that are false, a person threatened to be fired for releasing legitimate figures, various reports of Bush changing scientific studies to fit his policy needs, removing people from panels who did the research and found those facts etc. Hopefully teh administration will pay for all of their dishonesty with the loss of election. Hopefully those like the people responsible for the Plame affair will be put in prison, and we can repair the damage done as quickly as possible.
Somebody was finally able to interview the guy... ________________ Medicare cost analyst says he was ordered to provide skewed figures By Tony Pugh Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - The nation's top Medicare cost analyst confirmed Friday that his former boss, Thomas Scully, ordered him to withhold from lawmakers unfavorable cost estimates about the Medicare prescription drug bill. He said the estimates exceeded what Congress seemed willing to accept by more than $100 billion. Richard Foster, the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Friday night that he received a handwritten note from Scully, then the centers' administrator, in early June ordering him to ignore information requests from members of Congress who were drafting the drug bill. Knight Ridder reported the episode in an exclusive story published Friday, but Foster's comments were his first on the matter. On Friday, leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate called for investigations into the alleged muzzling. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D- S.D., said the allegations justified reopening the vote on the drug benefit. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., wrote President Bush demanding to know what cost estimates he used in pushing the new drug benefit. Scully's note, according to Foster, "was a direct order not to respond to certain requests and instead to provide the responses to him and (to) warn about the consequences of insubordination." The note was Scully's first threat in writing, Foster said, and came after at least three less formal threats. They "came in different forms," he said. "Sometimes he would make a comment that `I think I need another chief actuary,' or `If you want to work for the Ways and Means Committee (which was drafting the bill) I can arrange it.' It was that sort of thing." Efforts to reach Scully at his office and home on Friday were unsuccessful. In a recent interview, he denied closing off Foster's lines of communication with Congress. On only one occasion, Scully said, did he block Foster's contact with lawmakers, in this case Democrats, saying their motives were purely political. Foster said Scully insisted upon a pattern of withholding of information. "Estimates that were supportive of the legislation were generally released and estimates that could be used to criticize the legislation were generally not released," Foster said. Foster said he believed higher-ranking members of the administration than Scully knew of the higher cost estimates that his office had computed. "Did the president know? Did (Health and Human Services) Secretary Tommy Thompson know? I don't know," Foster said. The White House press office didn't respond to requests for comment. At one point in his dispute with Scully last June, Foster wrote in an e-mail that he was considering resigning in protest. "I fully intended to resign as I said in the e-mail," Foster said. "My fellow managers talked me out of it with the argument that it was better to stay and work (for change) in the long run rather than to have a minor impact for a day or two and nothing thereafter." Knight Ridder reported Friday that Foster's Office of the Actuary suggested that the drug benefit would cost at least $100 billion more than the $395 billion estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, whose job it is to project costs of legislation. One projection prepared in early June by Foster's office and obtained by Knight Ridder concluded that a Senate version of the bill might cost as much as $551 billion. At the time of the estimate, the House was sharply divided on the proposed new Medicare drug benefit, which the administration strongly backed. Ultimately, the House passed the measure, 216-215, on June 27. In November, House members endorsed a House-Senate compromise version by a 220-215 vote. Approving the version were 13 Republican fiscal conservatives who'd said they'd vote against it if it cost more than $400 billion for its first 10 years. When Bush signed the bill in December the drug benefit bore a $395 billion price tag. In January, the president's budget director, Joshua Bolten, upped the estimate by $139 billion. Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate majority leader and one of the few Republicans to address the controversy Friday, noted that Foster's estimates were based on different and more costly assumptions than those of the Congressional Budget Office. Frist's spokesman, Bob Stevenson, added: "If an individual's job was threatened and if they were trying to shield information from Congress, that could be an issue of concern." Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, said Foster's estimates "should not have been withheld. Government analysts with relevant information should never be muzzled." In a grim-faced floor speech Friday, Daschle called for reopening the vote on the drug benefit. He also called for an investigation into the firing threat and assertions that the administration had withheld its cost estimates from Congress. "Whether this is criminal or not is a matter we will certainly want to clarify," Daschle said. "But if not criminal, it was certainly unethical. And I think we need to know the facts." A group of House Democrats concurred, asking that the Health and Human Services Department's inspector general investigate the matter. In his letter to the president, Kennedy asked Bush what he was told about the drug benefit's cost. Kennedy also wants to know why the administration failed to inform lawmakers if it knew the $400 billion estimate was way off, and who in the administration knew that Foster's boss had threatened to fire him if he released his cost estimates to Congress. Kennedy is the senior Democrat on the committee that oversees health care legislation, the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee. Foster, a senior civil servant, remains on his job. He said he's got new and strong support from Thompson and from Medicare's new chief, Mark McClellan. "They recognize the importance of providing technical information to policy-makers on a nonpartisan basis," Foster said.
And here's an AP story from way back when that is of interest... (via Calpundit) _______________ 6/26/03 White House won't release Medicare memo By LAURA MECKLER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's top Medicare accountant has calculated how millions of senior citizens would be affected by bringing private managed care into the program, but the administration won't release the information. An earlier analysis suggested that a Republican plan to inject market forces into Medicare could increase premiums for those who stay in traditional programs by as much as 25 percent. If that's still the case, it could help Democrats who argue that the GOP plan is risky for those who want to stay in traditional Medicare, where they can pick any doctor, rather than move to a managed care plan. The administration's Medicare chief threatened to fire his top actuary, Rick Foster, if Foster released his calculations to Capitol Hill Democrats who requested the analysis, officials said. Medicare chief Tom Scully said in an interview Wednesday that Democrats had no right to request the information from Foster in the first place. "They don't have the right on the Hill to call up my actuary and demand things," said Scully, chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "These people work for the executive branch, period." Scully said he would release the analysis "if I feel like it." Medicare spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said Foster is working to update his original memo based on changes being considered by House Republicans so the original version is not relevant. Scully added that Democrats want the memo in hopes of scoring political points, as Congress debates legislation adding prescription drugs to Medicare and making other changes to the program. "We're at the end of the Medicare debate," Scully said. "People are looking for bombs to throw." Officials on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Health and Human Services said Scully threatened to fire Foster if he released his memo. Scully said that was an exaggeration, saying his comments were just "heated rhetoric in middle of the night." Democrats responded by pointing to legislative language approved in 1997 that specifically requires the top Medicare actuary to answer questions from Congress. "While the chief actuary is an official within the administration, this individual and his or her office often must work with the committees of jurisdiction in the development of legislation," said the legislative report. Democrats suspect the information is being withheld because it will undercut the administration's case for changes to Medicare. Democrats object to a proposal that would set premiums for seniors through competition between private plans and the traditional, government-run program. Republicans believe it will drive down Medicare spending by directing more seniors to cost-effective plans. Democrats worry that the sickest seniors will wind up in the government-run program, paying more for health coverage than they do today. "The administration is resisting the release of it because it's not good news for the Republican House plan," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The earlier Foster memo, written in 2000, found that a similar proposal would boost premiums for traditional Medicare by 47 percent. But nearly half the increase was attributable to a provision that is no longer on the table. The provision now being considered would increase premiums by 25 percent, Foster said in 2000. Democrats asked for an updated estimate. Scully has repeatedly touted Foster and his colleagues as the best actuaries anywhere. Just last week, in defending a separate Foster analysis that supports the administration's position, Scully noted that Foster has worked for both Democrats and Republicans and is a professional actuary totally divorced from politics.
A quick question before I go for a family hike on a wonderful day... Why is it the most strident defenders of Bush and disparagers of Kerry and Dems are absent from this thread?
(from what I posted in another thread where rim asked the same question. deserves the same answer from me) Because they are too busy searching obscure blogs, National Review, the Washington Times, etc. to post some goofy stuff either supporting their guy without facts or made up of whole cloth, or attacking Kerry with same, or else they realize that this is serious stuff which puts their guy and his friends right in the crosshairs of an immense scandal. Or both... take your pick. It happens here all the time. Anything really, really seriously felony material, with no explanation that makes any sense that could explain it, gets "ignored" like a leper browsing the lingerie department in Macy's. That's my explanation and I'm stickin' to it. Have a fun time, rimrocker.
U.S. Videos, for TV News, Come Under Scrutiny By ROBERT PEAR Published: March 15, 2004 WASHINGTON, March 14 — Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines. The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8. The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government. Another video, intended for Hispanic audiences, shows a Bush administration official being interviewed in Spanish by a man who identifies himself as a reporter named Alberto Garcia. Another segment shows a pharmacist talking to an elderly customer. The pharmacist says the new law "helps you better afford your medications," and the customer says, "It sounds like a good idea." Indeed, the pharmacist says, "A very good idea." The government also prepared scripts that can be used by news anchors introducing what the administration describes as a made-for-television "story package." In one script, the administration suggests that anchors use this language: "In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare. Since then, there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details." The "reporter" then explains the benefits of the new law. Lawyers from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, discovered the materials last month when they were looking into the use of federal money to pay for certain fliers and advertisements that publicize the Medicare law. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/politics/15VIDE.html?hp
Foster: White House Had Role In Withholding Medicare Data HHS Actuary Feels Bush Aide Put Hold on Medicare Data By Amy Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 19, 2004; Page A02 Richard S. Foster, the government's chief analyst of Medicare costs who was threatened with firing last year if he disclosed too much information to Congress, said last night that he believes the White House participated in the decision to withhold analyses that Medicare legislation President Bush sought would be far more expensive than lawmakers knew. Foster has said publicly in recent days that he was warned repeatedly by his former boss, Thomas A. Scully, the Medicare administrator for three years, that he would be dismissed if he replied directly to legislative requests for information about prescription drug bills pending in Congress. In an interview last night, Foster went further, saying that he understood Scully to be acting at times on White House instructions, probably coming from Bush's senior health policy adviser. Foster said that he did not have concrete proof of a White House role, but that his inference was based on the nature of several conversations he had with Scully over data that Congress had asked for and that Foster wanted to release. "I just remember Tom being upset, saying he was caught in the middle. It was like he was getting dumped on," Foster said. Foster added that he believed, but did not know for certain, that Scully had been referring to Doug Badger, the senior health policy analyst. He said that he concluded that Badger probably was involved because he was the White House official most steeped in the administration's negotiations with Congress over Medicare legislation enacted late last year and because Badger was intimately familiar with the analyses his office produced. The account by Foster, a longtime civil servant who has been the Medicare program's chief actuary for nine years, diverges sharply from the explanations of why cost estimates were withheld that were given this week by White House spokesmen and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. They suggested that Scully, who left for jobs with law and investment firms four months ago, had acted unilaterally and that he was chastised by his superiors when they learned of the blocked information and the threat. Two days ago, Thompson told reporters: "Tom Scully was running this. Tom Scully was making those decisions." Thompson said the administration did not have final cost estimates until late December predicting that the law would cost $534 billion over 10 years, $139 billion more than the Congressional Budget Office's prediction. Foster has said his own analyses as early as last spring showed that the legislation's cost would exceed $500 billion. Last night, White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said, "It is my understanding that Mr. Badger did not in any way ask anyone to withhold information from Congress or pressure anyone to do the same." Duffy said he asked Badger this week whether he had done so and that Badger replied he had not. Duffy said that Badger was traveling last night and was unreachable to comment. Calls to his home were not returned. Foster suggested the White House had been involved as new details emerged of the manner in which he had been threatened. The actuary released an e-mail, dated last June 20, from Scully's top assistant at the time regarding one GOP request and two Democratic requests for information about the impact of provisions of the Medicare bill on which the House would vote a week later. In a bold-faced section of the three-paragraph note -- reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal -- Scully's assistant, Jeffrey Flick, instructed Foster to answer the Republican's question but warned him not to disclose answers to the Democratic queries "with anyone else until Tom Scully explicitly talks with you -- authorizing release of information. The consequences for insubordination are extremely severe." The warning came in response to an e-mail Foster had sent to Scully that same Friday afternoon, 22 minutes earlier, in which he said the three questions "strike me as straightforward requests for technical information that would be useful in assessing drug and competition provisions in the House reform package." Foster offered in that e-mail to show Scully his proposed replies in advance. Flick, who now oversees the Medicare agency's regional office in San Francisco, did not return several phone calls. Scully was out of town and did not respond to efforts to reach him via e-mail last night. He said in an interview this week that he and Foster had disagreed over how helpful an executive branch employee needed to be to Congress. He called it "a separation of powers issue." In 1997 budget legislation, Congress sought unsuccessfully to require the Medicare actuary to respond to all of its requests. Such language was included in a conference report on the bill but does not carry the force of law. Foster said that the e-mail was the only instance in which he had been explicitly threatened in writing, but that "there were other instances in which Tom in an e-mail or just over the phone would clearly be unhappy and would say less formally something to the effect, 'If you want to work for the Ways and Means Committee, I can arrange that.' " The actuary said that in June 2001, shortly after Scully arrived, he directed Foster to send weekly reports of any requests for information he had received from Capitol Hill or elsewhere in the administration. Congressional Democrats yesterday called for the General Accounting Office to investigate the episode. Thompson announced Tuesday he had ordered HHS's inspector general to conduct an inquiry. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6339-2004Mar18.html
Well now you have it. Their only big "accomplishment" the drug bill was won with more lies. Don't forget that they threatened the one GOP Congressman with spending big bucks to defeat his son's campiagn for elected office. Well, in the continual pattern, the best we can hope for is that they will investigate themselves and withhold any conclusion till after the election.
