HHS Starts Probe Into Medicare Estimates (washingtonpost.com): "The Department of Health and Human Services inspector general is launching an inquiry into whether Bush administration officials committed any wrongdoing last year by withholding from Congress internal analyses showing that Medicare prescription drug legislation the White House supported would cost significantly more than lawmakers believed.
... The controversy escalated late last week when the Medicare program's longtime actuary, Richard S. Foster, said Scully had threatened to fire him in June if he answered lawmakers' requests for data about the fiscal implications of the Medicare bill. The administration did not disclose until January that its calculations suggested the law would cost $534 billion over the next decade, compared with the Congressional Budget Office's prediction of $395 billion. Foster said that as early as last spring, his analyses consistently had shown the bills would cost $500 billion to $600 billion. "
- posted by geoff @ #