Report confirms U.S. Medicare cost estimates kept secret

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06301769.htm

WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - The former Medicare chief pressured an agency official to keep secret his high cost estimates for prescription drug coverage for the elderly but did not break the law, government investigators said Tuesday.

The Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed allegations that former Medicare Administrator Tom Scully, appointed by President George W. Bush, worked to keep the estimate from lawmakers as they considered whether to pass the bill last year.

Scully left the government last year for a private law firm.

Some congressional Democrats called for a congressional probe, saying the report lacked independence and relied on the administration's own legal reasoning.

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[NMDemDist2]

1. they are just covered in scandal, but slide right thru

:cry:

[NC_Nurse]

2. disgusting

why is this not against the law?

if a drug company know of potentially serious side effects of a drug and they don't inform others - that would be a crime.

[BattyDem]

3. I don't get it

"... former Medicare Administrator Tom Scully ... worked to keep the estimate from lawmakers as they considered whether to pass the bill last year."

Isn't it against the law to lie to Congress? :shrug:

[aquart]

4. This is what CORRUPTION looks like.

They're telling us we have no laws against that.

Who decided this again?

[Miss Authoritiva]

5. Now I get it: The trick to committing willful malfeasance in public office

is to resign before anybody figures it out. Then you're home free. Life inside the US government is definitely unlike life in any other place in the universe.

[mom cat]

6. wasn't illegal???I can't wait for the new Attorney General, Eliot

Sptizer to get in there and clean up the mess. Those "law and order" hypocrites will be shitting in their pants!

[grytpype]

7. Spitzer is going to need an army.

The Bush Administration is the most corrupt in US history, any way you measure it.

I think out of all the crimes, some of them absolutely must be punished:

1. The Plame Affair
2. The Iraq contract corruption (Halliburton, etc.)
3. Leaking intelligence about Iran to Chalabi
4. Senate-memo-gate
5. The Medicare fiasco
6. Arbitrary detentions and torture
7. Using the FAA to track down the Texas Dems

That's a lot. That's going to take a bunch of prosecutors and staff.

[MGKrebs]

8. So, the HHS says that the HHS withheld information from Congress,

but that it's OK for the HHS to withhold information from Congress, according to the HHS.

Thanks guys. You can go ahead and hire your private lawyers now.