The $720 Billion Medicare Plan D -a history you've heard before [View All]

[underpants]

AS I heard this mentioned on news shows last night I noticed that the agreed upon story was about how confusing it was. No mention was made of the lies and cover-up in the selling of the plan. It's like there is a trend or something......

The executive summary- Everyone wanted to say they did a drug bill. Insurance and Big Pharma had one ready to go. Congress said it couldn't "cost" more than $400 Billion, the White House Wal-marted the price down to $395. Richard Foster said he figured it would cost about $550. His boss, a Bush appointee, told him to keep quiet about or he would lose his job-if he DID keep quiet his boss offered to get him his dream job at OMB. Foster didn't speak until after the bill passed and was signed.


Washinton Post leads off Sept.11, 2004-from during the campaign
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12758-2004Sep10.html

The Medicare prescription drug benefit has given Bush some political ammunition on an issue that voters tend to identify with Democrats. But many senior citizens have expressed confusion about the new plan, which the administration has spent millions explaining and promoting.

Kerry's assertion of illegal behavior has not been proved in court. Federal investigators, in a legal opinion, said this week that the Bush administration withheld information on the law, and they have proposed that the former head of the Medicare agency, Thomas A. Scully, should repay seven months' salary as a penalty.

The investigators found that Scully had pressured a government actuary, Richard Foster, not to disclose his cost estimates of the drug bill. Lawmakers in both parties have said the bill might not have passed if Foster's information had been known.

Bush administration officials have said they do not intend to enforce the proposed penalty. They have said Scully acted within his legal authority and have argued that it is unconstitutional for Congress to force the executive branch to disclose information.

Forbes has more detail-March 12, 2004 Wonder why Kerry had to bring this up 6 months later?
http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2004/03/12/rtr1297339.html

WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) - Top Democrats said on Friday Congress should reconsider its approval of the Medicare prescription drug bill in response to a published report that a federal expert was threatened with dismissal if he had disclosed how much it might really cost.

Knight Ridder reported that the government's top expert on Medicare costs, Richard Foster, was warned he would be fired if he told lawmakers about Bush administration cost estimates that could have doomed the measure as too expensive.

In the midst of congressional debate on the measure in November, the administration embraced an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that it would cost $395 billion in the first 10 years. The legislation squeaked by in the House of Representatives, and had an easier time winning Senate passage.

But five months earlier, according to Knight Ridder, Foster had estimated that a similar plan the Senate was considering would cost $551 billion over 10 years.


In January, a month after Bush signed it into law, administration disclosed the prescription drug benefit was expected to actually cost $534 billion, triggering a furor.