More Administration Deceptions on Medicare Bill

Richard S. Foster, the nonpartisan Medicare actuary, confirmed this weekend that Bush administration officials threatened to fire him last year if he disclosed the true costs of the prescription-drug bill to Congress. Thomas Scully, head of the agency that oversees Medicare, repeatedly told Foster he would be terminated if he complied with requests from lawmakers to provide real cost estimates for the prescription drug legislation. Following these charges of intimidation, the public also learned this weekend that the Bush administration used actors posing as journalists to defend the Medicare bill in television segments produced for local stations. The administration's deceptions on Medicare continue to grow.

• The Bush administration deceived Congress about the true costs of its radical changes to Medicare. Knowing the prescription-drug bill was a lemon, the Bush administration hid the real costs of the bill in order to quell concerns among skeptical Republicans and Democrats prior to passage. Only after Congress passed the bill – breaking rules to extend voting and employing threats and bribes to change lawmaker's votes in the process – did the Bush administration reveal the true costs and implications of its legislation.
• The administration used taxpayer funds to deceive the American public about the implications of the Medicare bill. The General Accounting Office reports taxpayer funded fliers and advertisements touting the new Medicare law contained "notable omissions and other weaknesses" that distort facts about the changes in Medicare. Now the public finds out the administration created phony news segments – on the public’s dime – using actors posing as journalists to defend the faulty Medicare bill.
• Congress must fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the passage of the Medicare legislation. Congress should follow the lead of Representatives Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Pete Stark (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and fully investigate all charges of intimidation and deception involved with the prescription-drug bill.

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