Medicare analyst confirms muzzling (new story)

[enough]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/8174963.htm

Top of front page, Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted on Sat, Mar. 13, 2004

Medicare analyst confirms muzzling

He said his boss told him he'd be fired if he gave lawmakers higher cost estimates for the prescription-drug bill.
By Tony Pugh
Inquirer Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON - The nation's top Medicare cost analyst confirmed yesterday that his former boss had 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 & Medicaid Services, said that in early June he received a written note from Thomas Scully, then the centers' administrator, ordering him to ignore information requests from members of Congress who were drafting the drug bill.

The Inquirer Washington Bureau reported the episode in an exclusive published yesterday, but Foster's comments were his first on the matter. Yesterday, House and Senate leaders called for investigations into the alleged muzzling. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) said the allegations justified reopening the vote on the drug benefit. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) wrote President Bush demanding to know what cost estimates he used in pushing the new drug benefit, which Congress passed in November and which Bush signed into law Dec. 8.

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[priller]

1. "written note"

Busted! Ha ha! Now we'll see if Mr. Scully actually gets fired.

[Badger1]

2. Heard on NPR

last night. Could get legs and become a big story. Once again Congress was lied to by these bastards and voted on faulty information. Kerry is right, these are the most lying, crooked people I've ever seen. This must become a theme of JFK's campaign!

[revcarol]

3. So where is Scully now?

Lobbying for the pharma and/or insurance companies? AEI? Heritage Foundation? Club for Growth?

[PA Democrat]

12. Your first guess was right

Scully now works for Alston & Bird a lobbying firm representing big PhRMA.

And it gets even more filthy, Scully was given permission to conduct employment negotiation with this firm WHILE still on the govt. payroll, and in fact during the time he was involved in drafting the Medicare prescription drug plan.

[Grins]

13. Scully...

More on him. This is not that new a story.

See "Top Ten Conservative Idiots", #116.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. Hmmm - wonder if he made a copy of that note ?

.
.
.

Of course, even then

the WH would just blackball Scully as the "rogue" and wash their hands of him

no? :shrug:

[0007]

5. Thank you very much, this was an issue this morning

on the "Washington Journal" program on c-span. To say this is an outrage is putting it mildly! Talk about a ((((((((bomb)))))))) going off, this is it folks.

'Tis time to call a national emergency and draw attention to the crimes that this administration is guilty. The American people are being sold out by organize crime on Wall Street and the loony toon living in the White House that is governed by groups like Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and the likes.

Since the coup d'état in 2000, All we hear day after day is a different debacle by our rotten government.

We're so fucked!!

[rocktivity]

6. Sounds impeachable

Talk about obstructing goverment administration.

:headbang:
rocknation

[enough]

8. At least investigatable. Hope they stick with it. Now is the time.

snip>

Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson added: "If an individual's job was threatened and if they were trying to shield information from Congress, that could be an issue of concern."

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Finance Committee, said Foster's estimates "should not have been withheld. Government analysts with relevant information should never be muzzled."

In a floor speech yesterday, Daschle called for reopening the vote on the drug benefit. He also called for an investigation into the firing threat and assertions that the administration had withheld its cost estimates from Congress.

"Whether this is criminal or not is a matter we will certainly want to clarify," Daschle said. "But if not criminal, it was certainly unethical. And I think we need to know the facts."

A group of House Democrats concurred, asking that the HHS inspector general investigate.

snip>

[salin]

7. In yesterday's story, didn't Scully deny

ever instructing this gentleman to not speak with Congress?

Also, didn't Scully leave govt to go work for related industry? If so, the case will be made that this isn't about bushco lying, but about a greedy rogue individual obscuring info so he could secure a high paying industry job. Just watch as he suddenly becomes the point person to blame.

Of course some will buy it. And others who have been paying attention to the multitude of stories about govt agencies being instructed to ignore, hide or end studies (re: science) that don't match the admins ideology or policies, and stories about economic reports being buried or blocked, and stories about the admin not including costs related to ... going to war (think: the 87 B second installment for the war in Iraq; and think: a federal budget that doesn't include costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan)... those who have paid attention will not fall for the finger pointing that ends at Scully.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

15. Actually combined with the story about the bribe on the vote

if one can connect the two...we could see or connect dots to a conspiracy charge..i'd have to go back and double check all the characters involved...and meetings etc.....but in case a journalist with more energy is reading....that is the direstion I would go

[salin]

16. That fits with my memory of the event.

If I recall there was great reporting following the twists and turns via the statements of the republican congressman on Slate.

[underpants]

9. That's the MO-hide negative information and rush it to the floor

They tried to do that with the 1,700 page energy policy but even some Republicans said they needed more time to read and study it and gee I don't know let the American people have a chance to offer their opinions.....you know like in a Representative Democracy?

They did the same with war intelligence (several stories of Senators scratching their heads when coming out of closed door intelligence meetings)

and they did the same thing on the child tax credit floor being lifted to 26,000 which it hadn't been until the Republican only reconciliation meetings on the different House and Senate bills. They rushed it to the floor and literally told everyone want was in the new bill, like and executive summary.

[Bandit]

10. Every bomb like this I say all right and then it goes away

Bomb after bomb and these thugs skate by as if nothing happened. When does it end. How can the "Liberal Media" sleep at night? Has America lost it's conscience? Do we no longer care about right and wrong just which side wins?

[Tracer]

11. That guy Foster is a coward.

I don't care if he comes forward NOW. If he had any cojones, he would have come forward at the time the Medicare debate was going on.

Job or no job.

[truthisfreedom]

14. oh my god... mulder was right?

late night television tells all? again?

[kodi]

17. wouldn't this fall under "lying to congress?"

and anyone involved and directing it would be liable to federal charges of conspiracy to do so?