GAO Says HHS Broke Laws With Covert Propaganda Medicare Videos

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41077-2004May19?language=printer

 

 

GAO Says HHS Broke Laws With Medicare Videos

 

By Amy Goldstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, May 20, 2004; Page A01

 

The Bush administration violated two federal laws through part of its publicity

campaign to promote changes in Medicare intended to help older Americans afford

prescription drugs, the investigative arm of Congress said yesterday.

 

The General Accounting Office concluded that the Department of Health and Human

Services illegally spent federal money on what amounted to covert propaganda by

producing videos about the Medicare changes that were made to look like news

reports. Portions of the videos, which have been aired by 40 television stations

around the country, do not make it clear that the announcers were paid by HHS

and were not real reporters.

 

The finding adds fuel to partisan criticism of the new law, which creates drug

coverage and a larger role for private health companies in Medicare, in the

biggest expansion yet of the program that provides health insurance to 40

million elderly and disabled people.

 

For months, Democrats have been assailing the substance of the law, saying it

provides too little help to Medicare patients and too much money to

pharmaceutical and managed-care companies. And now that it is beginning to take

effect, Democratic lawmakers complain about the way the administration is

promoting it. They have also accused President Bush's aides of concealing the

true cost of the legislation while it was being debated last year.

 

In this instance, however, the GAO's legal opinion was not prompted by

Democratic complaints. GAO officials said yesterday that they had decided on

their own to examine the legality of the videos, after receiving the tapes this

spring from HHS as part of a separate review of advertisements the

administration had produced about the Medicare law.

 

The 16-page legal opinion says that HHS's " video news releases " violated a

statute that forbids the use of federal money for propaganda, as well as the

Antideficiency Act, which covers the unauthorized use of federal funds.

 

The finding does not carry legal force, because the GAO acts as an adviser to

Congress. House and Senate Democrats immediately vowed to try to extract a

refund of the $44,000 that the administration had spent for the three videos,

two in English and one in Spanish. And they made it clear they would use the

finding to try to further discredit the law, which surveys suggest is opposed by

most voters.

 

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said he is preparing a bill that would require

Bush's presidential campaign to reimburse the money.

 

Administration officials contended they had not erred with the videos, and they

predicted that the GAO findings will have no effect on their efforts to

implement the Medicare changes -- or on public sentiment. " That's an opinion of

the GAO. We don't agree, " said Bill Pierce, an HHS spokesman. Pierce said video

news releases " are everywhere " in corporate public relations and in the public

affairs work of federal agencies.

 

Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry (Mass.) called the videos

" another example of how this White House has misrepresented its Medicare plan. "

 

Two weeks ago, the Congressional Research Service concluded that the

administration potentially violated the law in a related matter, in which the

Medicare program's chief actuary has said he was threatened with firing a year

ago if he shared with Congress cost estimates that the Medicare legislation

would be a third more expensive than the $400 billion Bush said it would cost.

 

The House ethics panel, meanwhile, is investigating whether Republican leaders

attempted to bribe or coerce a GOP House member to vote for the bill before it

passed by a few votes before dawn after the longest roll call in House history.

 

The GAO objected to one part of the videos that were sent to TV stations this

year. Each of the videos consists of three sections: video clips, information

about the Medicare law and a segment called a " story package, " which appears to

be a news report. It is that last part that the GAO found illegal.

 

The English-language version of the story package concludes with a woman saying,

" In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting. " The Spanish version has the same

ending but shows a man who identifies himself as Alberto Garcia.

 

Pierce said the videos are not misleading because television stations know they

had been produced by the government and because the stations are free to combine

parts of the government-produced material with original reporting.

 

But the GAO decision said the story packages ran afoul of the law forbidding

federal spending on covert propaganda because " in each news report, the content

was attributed to an individual purporting to be a reporter but actually hired

by an HHS subcontractor. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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