That the Bush administration withheld cost information from Congress about its Medicare scheme is no longer controversial. Questions remain, however, as to who in the administration was directing the effort to conceal the truth.
Medicare’s top actuary, Richard Foster, knew the administration’s cost estimates were entirely wrong, but was told to keep the information secret or he’d lose his job. The threats came from Thomas Scully, then Medicare’s top administrator, but Foster is now coming forward to explain that he believes others knew about the deception, including officials at the White House.
As the Washington Post reported today:
Richard S. Foster, the government’s chief analyst of Medicare costs who was threatened with firing last year if he disclosed too much information to Congress, said last night that he believes the White House participated in the decision to withhold analyses that Medicare legislation President Bush sought would be far more expensive than lawmakers knew.
Foster has said publicly in recent days that he was warned repeatedly by his former boss, Thomas A. Scully, the Medicare administrator for three years, that he would be dismissed if he replied directly to legislative requests for information about prescription drug bills pending in Congress. In an interview last night, Foster went further, saying that he understood Scully to be acting at times on White House instructions, probably coming from Bush’s senior health policy adviser.
Foster said that he did not have concrete proof of a White House role, but that his inference was based on the nature of several conversations he had with Scully over data that Congress had asked for and that Foster wanted to release. “I just remember Tom being upset, saying he was caught in the middle. It was like he was getting dumped on,” Foster said.
Foster added that he believed, but did not know for certain, that Scully had been referring to Doug Badger, the senior health policy analyst. He said that he concluded that Badger probably was involved because he was the White House official most steeped in the administration’s negotiations with Congress over Medicare legislation enacted late last year and because Badger was intimately familiar with the analyses his office produced.
This could be a fairly devastating charge if it can be bolstered with documents showing White House pressure on Scully. This week, as the controversy has blossomed, Scully has been hung out to dry as the one who threatened Foster and drew rebukes for his conduct. If Foster’s right, Scully was just a link in the chain, following the orders of White House officials who knew Congress wouldn’t pass Bush’s legislation if lawmakers knew the truth about the price tag.
Foster’s charges would also bring Thompson’s competence into question.
Two days ago, Thompson told reporters: “Tom Scully was running this. Tom Scully was making those decisions.” Thompson said the administration did not have final cost estimates until late December predicting that the law would cost $534 billion over 10 years, $139 billion more than the Congressional Budget Office’s prediction. Foster has said his own analyses as early as last spring showed that the legislation’s cost would exceed $500 billion.
And how does the White House respond to Foster’s belief that Badger was pushing Scully to keep the cost estimates quiet?
Last night, White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said, “It is my understanding that Mr. Badger did not in any way ask anyone to withhold information from Congress or pressure anyone to do the same.” Duffy said he asked Badger this week whether he had done so and that Badger replied he had not.
That’s not exactly a categorical denial, is it? I half-expected to hear phrases like “that’s outrageous,” or hearing Duffy call Foster’s charges “patently false.” Instead, the White House offered a much meeker version of “We don’t think so.”
First, it was Foster’s fault. Then it was Scully’s fault. Now it may be Badger’s fault. I wonder who may have been pushing on Badger?