A White House health-cost estimator says he would have been fired if he had told Congress of higher costs for a prescription-drug benefit.
BY TONY PUGH
tpugh@krwashington.com
WASHINGTON - The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan.
When the House of Representatives passed the controversial benefit by five votes last November, the White House was embracing an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that it would cost $395 billion in the first 10 years. But for months the administration's own analysts in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had concluded repeatedly that the drug benefit could cost upward of $100 billion more than that.
Withholding the higher cost projections was important because the White House was facing a revolt from 13 conservative House Republicans who had vowed to vote against the bill if it cost more than $400 billion.
The Bush administration has a record of doing this kind of thing by leaning on staffers who do the research, strong arming congress things, stocking positions with people who will toe the party line, or withholding information until after an important vote or speech. Along withthe medicare bill, EPA results, the evidence for war in Iraq, and the impending costs of social security come to mind as other examples of this kind of thing.
Is this something no other presidents or administrations have done? Certainly not.