//Probe Starts In Medicare Drug Cost Estimates; Thompson Blames Aide

[Guest guest]

The " One Note Samba " ..... not me it is him, no not me, it is him, I am innocent

 

You would think the Shadows would come up with a better technique then " finger

pointing "

 

Smoke and Mirrors must be broken .... better hurry and fix it, people are

starting to pay attention .....

 

 

 

Probe Starts In Medicare Drug Cost Estimates

 

By Amy Goldstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 17, 2004; Page A01

 

The Department of Health and Human Services inspector general is launching an

inquiry into whether Bush administration officials committed any wrongdoing last

year by withholding from Congress internal analyses showing that Medicare

prescription drug legislation the White House supported would cost significantly

more than lawmakers believed.

 

President Bush's top health adviser, HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, said

yesterday that he had asked the department's investigative arm to examine the

failure to disclose such cost estimates and alleged threats made to the

government's chief analyst of Medicare costs that he risked being fired if he

sent lawmakers that information.

 

" There seems to be a cloud over the department because of this, " Thompson

said. He predicted the agency would be exonerated. But he also lashed out at a

recently departed top assistant, blaming the episode on Thomas A. Scully, who

ran the Medicare program for three years and was a key administration negotiator

on changes to the program that narrowly passed Congress in November.

 

The internal inquiry into the handling of the cost estimates is part of a

broad damage-control strategy HHS officials have begun mounting to defuse

accusations that the administration has put politics above accuracy on an issue

that Bush has cited in his reelection campaign as a prime domestic achievement.

 

Thompson and his lieutenants also sought yesterday to tamp down Democrats'

complaints that a video the administration recently sent to television stations

about the new Medicare prescription drug benefit is misleading.

 

The GOP had anticipated that the law's passage would give them a potent

political victory. Instead, it has produced a partisan, election-year battle and

polls indicating that older Americans covered by Medicare are largely

unconvinced that the changes will help them.

 

The controversy escalated late last week when the Medicare program's longtime

actuary, Richard S. Foster, said Scully had threatened to fire him in June if he

answered lawmakers' requests for data about the fiscal implications of the

Medicare bill. The administration did not disclose until January that its

calculations suggested the law would cost $534 billion over the next decade,

compared with the Congressional Budget Office's prediction of $395 billion.

Foster said that as early as last spring, his analyses consistently had shown

the bills would cost $500 billion to $600 billion.

 

Yesterday, Thompson said he had seen little of the cost estimates Foster was

preparing at the time. Thompson said he had been aware of one prediction by

Foster that an expansion of the role of private health plans would prove more

expensive unless Congress accepted Bush's proposal to use a competitive bidding

system in each region of the country; Thompson said he promptly relayed that

information to lawmakers working on the bill.

 

As for other cost estimates, Thompson said: " Tom Scully was running this. Tom

Scully was making those decisions. "

 

Thompson also suggested that Scully, who left the government for private

consulting work in December, was an unmanageable employee. Thompson told

reporters that he stood by recent congressional testimony that he should have

supervised the Medicare chief more closely, adding: " All of you know Tom Scully.

Do you think that is possible? "

 

The HHS chief of staff, Scott Whitaker, echoed that theme as he said he had

chastised Scully after learning last summer of the threat to fire Foster. " I

called Tom, as I had the job of doing from time to time, to remind him those

threats were not appropriate. "

 

Last evening, Scully said of the inspector general's inquiry: " They can

investigate till the cows come home, but I think I was right. " He repeated his

assertion that he had merely joked about firing Foster and that he only once

barred him from quickly responding to a Democratic request that he believed was

politically inspired.

 

The dispute continued to widen on Capitol Hill. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.)

became the latest lawmaker to call on Thompson to explain what he knew of

Foster's assertion that his work had been suppressed. Democrats yesterday

largely praised the inquiry, with Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle

(S.D.) issuing a statement saying he was pleased the administration " has

acknowledged the growing scandal " over the Medicare law.

 

HHS officials also countered criticism over the video news releases about the

drug benefit, which end with what sounds like a journalist saying: " In

Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting. " Kevin Keane, HHS assistant secretary for

public affairs, said: " She is a freelance journalist. She is not an actor. "

 

Ryan was a researcher at ABC and NBC before forming a communications

consulting business a year ago.

 

To defend their video, Thompson and Keane aired for reporters two videos the

department had made during the Clinton administration in which then-HHS

Secretary Donna E. Shalala appeared to explain Medicare changes that

administration proposed.

 

Staff writers Ceci Connolly and Helen Dewar contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64605-2004Mar16.html