In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
This is Big!
Medicare expert says he was told to withhold cost
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, according to an e-mail by the expert.
When the House passed the benefit by five votes Nov. 22, the White House was embracing an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that the bill would cost $395 billion over 10 years. But for months, the administration's own analysts in the Centers for Medicare & 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 had 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 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 & Medicaid Services, which produced the $551 billion estimate, told colleagues in June that it would cost him his job if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers.
This piece of news has been out all day, and can be found in the Boston Globe, Houston Chronicle, Miami Herald, even the moonie Washington Times, but the Washington Post and New York Times have yet to mention it. Maybe they're waiting for their Saturday editions?
The New York Times and The Washington Post have got to keep in mind that the world is wired now, if they don't cover a story it won't just disappear like it may have in days gone by. Today, we'll read about the story anyway, we'll see who else is running it, corroborating it, editorializing about it, and if the NYTimes and the WaPo want to be silent, they may find they sound have no voice. Use it or lose it.
- rob 5:26 PM - [PermaLink] -
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