With all of the scandals swirling around the Bush administration, let’s not forget that the Medicare controversy is still lingering. In fact, yesterday it got ratcheted up a bit.
Let’s step back and review for a moment and consider what we already know. While Bush’s Medicare bill was pending in Congress, the administration told lawmakers the plan would cost $400 billion. Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, knew that was false, but his boss, Thomas Scully, told to him to hide the true estimates or get fired. Congress passed the bill and a few weeks later, the White House “revised” the price and said the Medicare plan would actually cost $551 billion, almost 38% more than the administration had told Congress and the public.
Since then, congressional Dems have sought to determine how this deception took place. They are particularly interested in reviewing the administration’s Medicare cost estimates from before the congressional vote. Initially, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said he would cooperate fully, insisting, “We have nothing to hide.”
A month later, Thompson decided that he wouldn’t cooperate at all and refused to share the administration’s cost estimates.
Then, just two weeks ago, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service determined that the Bush administration broke the law by silencing those who knew the truth. Nevertheless, congressional Republicans have refused to pursue the matter.
Yesterday, left with no other choice, 19 congressional Democrats filed suit against Thompson to get the information to which they are entitled.
Democratic lawmakers filed a federal lawsuit Monday in an effort to force the Bush administration to turn over estimates of the cost of last year’s Medicare legislation.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, hometown of Rep. Henry Waxman, one of 19 Democrats challenging the administration’s refusal to provide the documents.
Specifically, the lawsuit argues that the administration broke the law by forcing Foster into silence and also insists that Congress is entitled to the administration’s secret cost estimates about the Bush Medicare plan.
Yet the lawsuit could have sweeping implications. As The Hill noted a couple of weeks ago:
House Democrats are poised to sue the Bush administration for failing to give them more specific answers on a Medicare scoring controversy that is the focus of a government investigation.
The outcome of the likely lawsuit could clearly define the long-debated parameters of congressional oversight over the executive branch.
The real test in this case will be the applicability of something called the “seven-member rule.”
The Dems argue that the rule requires the executive branch to turn over requested documents if seven or more members of Government Reform Committee request it. The GOP argues that the rule doesn’t apply here, if it applies to the administration at all.
Will the suit be effective? It’s certainly too soon to tell, but it’s worth noting that Waxman has had some success with this recently. Two years ago, he sued Bush’s Commerce Department when the administration refused to share census data with congressional Dems, who were citing the seven-member rule. A federal judge in California agreed with Waxman and ordered the administration to comply with the request. As it turns out, the ruling didn’t matter because the documents were released by way of a different lawsuit, but it’s still a good sign.
Stay tuned.