Mysterious Fax Adds to Intrigue Over the Medicare Bill's Cost

[hang a left]

March 18, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/politics/18MEDI.html?ei=5043&en=3e89c5ffe3468b0d&ex=1080277200&partner=EXCITE&pagewanted=print&position=


By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 17 — Late one Friday afternoon in January, after the House of Representatives had adjourned for the week, Cybele Bjorklund, a House Democratic health policy aide, heard the buzz of the fax machine at her desk. Coming over the transom, with no hint of the sender, was a document she had been seeking for months: an estimate by Medicare's chief actuary showing the cost of prescription drug benefits for the elderly.

Dated June 11, 2003, the document put the cost at $551.5 billion over 10 years. It appeared to confirm what Ms. Bjorklund and her bosses on the House Ways and Means Committee had long suspected: the actuary, Richard S. Foster, had concluded the legislation would be far more expensive than Congress's $400 billion estimate — and had kept quiet while lawmakers voted on the bill and President Bush signed it into law.

Ms. Bjorklund had been pressing Mr. Foster for his numbers since June. When he refused, telling her he could be fired, she said, she confronted his boss, Thomas A. Scully, then the Medicare administrator. "If Rick Foster gives that to you," Ms. Bjorklund remembered Mr. Scully telling her, "I'll fire him so fast his head will spin." Mr. Scully denies making such threats.

These conversations among three government employees — an obscure Congressional aide, a little-known actuary and a high-level official — remained secret until now, and Ms. Bjorklund still does not know who sent the fax. But Mr. Foster went public last week, and details of his struggle for independence within the Bush administration are now emerging, raising questions about whether the White House intentionally withheld crucial data from lawmakers.

[madrchsod]

1. isn`t this story

well over a week old? the times is just writing about it???

[w4rma]

2. Articles supporting our side after folks are no longer paying attention?

I wonder if they are published late for that reason.

[BadGimp]

3. un-f'in-believable

These Rethuglicans have no shame and no regard for America.

[maddezmom]

4. don't forget where Scully went to work after his stint in the admin

~snip~
Scully left the administration in December to join the law firm Alston and Bird's health care practice. He received an ethics waiver to work on the Medicare bill last year, despite having contacts with prospective employers who would be deeply affected by it.
~snip~
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/03/12/n...