Administration Threatened Truth-teller on Medicare Bill

The behind-the-scenes intrigues surrounding the passage of the controversial Medicare prescription-drug bill last fall continue to mount. First, congressional leaders violated House rules in extending the voting period on the bill up to three hours after the initial vote count came up short. Then Rep. Nick Smith (R- MI) confessed – and later recanted – that he switched his vote in favor of the bill after threats and bribery attempts including promises of $100,000 from business interests for his son's campaign. Next, the White House unveiled a multi-million dollar ad campaign – using taxpayer funds – to defend the faulty legislation. The GAO released a report this week stating the ads misrepresented the prescription drug benefits and included "notable omissions and other weaknesses." And just yesterday, Knight-Ridder reported the Bush administration threatened to fire the government's top expert on Medicare costs if he told lawmakers about the real price tag for the bill prior to the voting.

• The administration and its allies purposefully misled the public about the true costs of the Medicare bill. In order to ensure passage of the controversial bill in November, the administration asserted it would cost $395 billion in the first 10 years – deliberately low-balling the costs to assuage skeptical Republicans and Democrats. Five months before the vote, the top expert on Medicare costs, Richard Foster, stated the new drug benefits would cost $551 billion over 10 years. Foster told colleagues in June he would be fired for revealing the true costs to legislators according to Knight-Ridder. Two months after Congress approved the bill, the White House admitted the Medicare benefits would cost at least $534 billion.
• The Bush administration's Medicare prescription-drug plan is a raw deal for seniors. The facts are clear on the Medicare bill: it forces seniors out of traditional Medicare and provides weak drug benefits. As the GAO report shows, the administration's misleading ads don’t tell seniors that those "who do stay with Medicare will not get the proposed drug coverage in 2006. The ads also don't say that to get the drug benefit, seniors must sign up for a separate insurance plan, similar to an HMO. And they don't say that if a senior stays in the traditional Medicare plan, they'll also have to pay more."
• Congress must demand legal accountability for any threats or bribery used to pass the Medicare legislation. Charges of out-right intimidation and bribery of legislators and government bureaucrats should not be taken lightly. The public deserves to know whether any federal laws were broken in the passage of the Medicare bill, and should investigations turn up malfeasance, all perpetrators must be held fully accountable.

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