HEADLINES
Bush Administration Broke the Law With Medicare Lie
The Bush administration broke the law when it lied to Congress about the cost of Bush's special interest Medicare drug plan, according to an investigation conducted by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
President Bush's then-Medicare administrator, Thomas Scully, ordered chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster not to talk to Congress about estimates that showed the cost of Bush's Medicare plan to be more than $500 billion. Bush had promised that he wouldn't sign a plan that cost more than $400 billion.
Just weeks after Bush signed the bill, his administration went public with the information that the plan would cost much more than Bush had told Congress it would cost.
Foster said that Scully threatened to fire him if he went to Congress with the data. The CRS determined that federal employees have a right to communicate with Congress.
After pushing the bill through Congress, Scully left the administration to become a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Among other special interest giveaways, the Bush Medicare plan forbids the government from negotiating lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.