HEALTH |
Medicare officials withheld
information requested by members of Congress about the cost of the Medicare
prescription drug bill and threatened to fire the chief Medicare actuary if he
disclosed those figures, according to an internal HHS probe, but the
investigation determined Medicare officials broke no laws. |
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The report by the HHS inspector
general is the latest chapter in an ongoing controversy over the Medicare bill
and the tactics the administration used to build support for it in Congress.
The issue came to a boil when the administration revealed its $535 billion
estimate of the bill only after Congress -- whose own number-crunchers
estimated it would cost $385 billion -- passed it narrowly last year. |
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The report concluded Thomas
Scully, then-administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, threatened
to fire chief CMS actuary Richard Foster if he shared cost estimates for the
Medicare bill with members of Congress. But Scully or other officials did not
break any laws in doing so, the report found. "The administrator of CMS
has the final authority to determine the flow of information to Congress,"
the report stated. And since Scully has left the administration, no further
action is needed, the report concluded. |
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Democrats greeted the report with
outrage, claiming the administration could not fairly investigate the
politicized issue. "It sounds as though the Bush administration examined
itself and found it did nothing wrong," said House Ways and Means Health
Subcommittee ranking member Fortney (Pete) Stark, D-Calif. |
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House Ways and Means Health
Subcommittee Chairwoman Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., called the report, "A
major embarrassment to Democrats because it exposes and rejects their partisan
motives." |
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The report cited six separate
requests by members of Congress or their staffs that Medicare officials did not
meet. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 requires congressional access to
Medicare's actuarial staff, a provision Republicans included to gain better
access to the actuary's data. But the inspector general report stated HHS
officials have the right to ban their employees from divulging information to
lawmakers, citing a Justice Department opinion on the matter. |
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That conclusion refutes a
Congressional Research Service memo issued in April, contending Scully
likely broke the law in blocking Foster from sharing information with Congress.
The matter also is being investigated by GAO. |
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Johnson noted the CRS report
was written before either of the two Ways and Means Committee hearings held on
the issue. |
The IG report stated it took
"no policy position on withholding information from Congress or on the
importance of any information that may have been withheld."
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