Whata ya know
Joined: 25 Mar 2004
Posts: 1
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:33 am Post subject: Thomas Scully
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Could it be DE was right about Thomas Scully years ago?<
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>seattletimes.nwsource.com...are13.html
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made it a little easier
Joined: 25 Mar 2004
Posts: 1
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 12:47 pm Post subject: busted ?
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WASHINGTON ? The nation's top Medicare cost analyst confirmed yesterday 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, chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said last 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. <
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>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." <
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>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." <
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>Efforts to reach Scully yesterday were unsuccessful. He recently denied closing off Foster's lines of communication with Congress. Scully acknowledged that he blocked Foster's contact with lawmakers once, citing purely political motives by Democrats. <
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>Foster, however, said Scully insisted upon a pattern of withholding of information. <
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>"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. <
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>The House, based on an estimate of about $395 billion over 10 years, passed the Medicare bill by five votes. 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. <
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>Bush administration officials said in January that the cost of the bill that passed would be closer to $530 billion. <
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>Foster said he thought higher-ranking members of the administration than Scully knew of the higher cost estimates that his office had computed. <
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>"Did the president know? Did (Health and Human Services) Secretary Tommy Thompson know? I don't know," Foster said. <
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>Bush officials yesterday noted that the story already appeared last year in other publications. "Rather than rehash old news, what we're going to do is implement the new Medicare law, educate beneficiaries and roll out a drug-discount card as soon as we can," said Peter Ashkenaz, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. <
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>The Associated Press reported Scully's threat to fire Foster in June, but Knight Ridder was the first to reveal the actuary's cost estimates. Foster's comments last night were his first on the matter. <
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>House and Senate leaders yesterday called for investigations into the alleged muzzling. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D- S.D., said the allegations justified reopening the vote. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., wrote President Bush demanding to know what cost estimates he used in pushing the new drug benefit. <
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>Republican leaders, however, noted that lawmakers rely on cost estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. <
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>"At this point, we don't see a need for the revote," said Nick Smith, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "We had our vote. The Senate and House used numbers from the CBO." <
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>Foster, a senior civil servant, remains on his job. He said he has received support from Thompson and from Medicare's new chief, Mark McClellan. <
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>"They recognize the importance of providing technical information to policy-makers on a nonpartisan basis," Foster said. <
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>Copyright ? 2004 The Seattle Times Company <
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