Though the timing is unfortunate for the Bush re-election campaign, the coverup of the Medicare prescription drug bill's cost must be investigated.
Published April 5, 2004
Give former Medicare administrator Thomas Scully his due for cheekiness. He refuses to meet with Congress, but he did send a letter that all but confirms he hushed up cost projections that might have jeopardized passage of the nation's new prescription drug law.
His message: So what?
Medicare actuary Richard Foster may have wanted to alert Congress, but, Scully wrote, "Simply put, I disagreed. And there is no question whatsoever that I made it very clear to Mr. Foster, both directly and indirectly, that I, as his supervisor, would decide when he would communicate with Congress."
There you have it. A political appointee who left to take a job as a health care lobbyist is saying that the facts aren't the facts unless he deems them so, that Congress is not entitled to the honest assessments of a career public servant unless Scully thinks it will serve the administration's policy ends.
People on both sides of the political aisle ought to recognize the danger here, but, this being an election year, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are eager to limit the headlines. The White House, in what is becoming a predictable routine, is refusing to help Congress sort out this mess. The president's health policy coordinator, Doug Badger, is asserting executive privilege. (Didn't Condoleezza Rice try that?) Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has promised an investigation but already is creating distance between himself and Scully, whom he is describing as unmanageable.
The Medicare coverup may be inconveniently timed for the Bush re-election campaign, but it is essential to air. HHS attorneys say Scully's actions were legal, but that is hardly the point. Informed policy debate depends on accurate information. When the House passed the prescription drug bill in November by a mere five votes, 13 Republicans were vowing to oppose any plan that cost more than $400-billion. The Bush administration presented an estimate of $395-billion, but Foster knew better. Foster already had determined the cost to be about $551-billion, a projection the administration now essentially accepts, but he was told he would be fired if he told anyone.
Most people call that deception, but Scully calls it business as usual.
