Undermining America

Medicare Deception

Richard Foster, the Medicare actuary that was threatened with "'extremely severe' consequences" if he told Congress the true cost of President Bush's Medicare plan, claims that the threats came from the very top of the Bush White House, according to articles in today's New York Times and Washington Post.

The threats were communicated to Mr. Foster by Thomas Scully, the former head of the Medicare program. The White House has tried to lay the blame for the various Medicare scandals on Scully, claiming that he was acting on his own. Scully left the administration for the private sector last November, after negotiating for a job with health care companies while he was crafting legislation that would heavily impact them.

Foster disputes this White House displacement of blame, though:

Mr. Foster said he had evidence that Mr. Scully was indeed acting under instructions from the White House and from Mr. Badger, in particular.
"There's evidence regarding Mr. Scully's comments about acting on direct White House orders," Mr. Foster said. He refused to give details, but said he would provide them to the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, who is conducting an independent investigation. [NYT]

Republicans are now in damage control mode, claiming that Congress wasn't entitled to the accurate cost information for the program: "Republicans said the actuary followed the law by deferring to his boss to decide how much internal administration information about the legislation Congress deserved." [WP]

Yesterday Foster testified about Medicare's fiscal health in front of the House Ways and Means Committee. The Bush Medicare reforms have left Medicare in critical condition:

The projected Medicare bankruptcy date is seven years sooner than the trustees forecast a year ago. The cost of the new Medicare law, which includes a prescription drug benefit, is responsible for knocking two of those years off the program's life span and will cost a total of $537 billion over 10 years, the trustees said.[Baltimore Sun 3/25/04]

More stories on Medicare's poor financial situation: Knight Ridder; Washington Post; AP; New York Times.