26 Apr 2004

Feds refuse to release Medicare data

WASHINGTON - Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is refusing to make public or give congressional Democrats the Bush administration's estimates of the cost of last year's Medicare legislation.

In a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a senior HHS official writing on Thompson's behalf said Democrats have no right to review administration estimates that the Medicare overhaul would cost substantially more than what President Bush and Thompson disclosed last year. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter on Friday.

Thompson's decision seems certain to reignite Democratic complaints that the administration concealed its higher estimates of the bill's cost at a time when several conservative Republicans were wavering in support of the Medicare overhaul because of concerns about its price tag.

The administration has rejected the accusation.

The bill won final congressional approval in November, after a close vote in the House of Representatives that GOP leaders held open for an unprecedented three hours while they worked to persuade re- luctant Republicans to vote for the centerpiece of the president's domestic agen- da.

Bush and Thompson said repeatedly that the legislation would cost no more than $400 billion over 10 years, even as Medicare's top analyst forecast that it would cost at least $100 billion more.

"The range of our estimates was $500 billion to $600 billion all the way through the process," Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, told a congressional panel in March. Bush and Thompson have said they were unaware of Foster's estimates until after Bush signed the Medicare law in December.

Congressional budget experts, on the other hand, said the bill would cost $395 billion, a figure they reaffirmed even after the White House said in January that it would cost $534 billion.

Democrats have been seeking Foster's estimates since.

In the letter to Waxman, D-Calif., Dennis Smith, who had been the acting Medicare administrator, said Foster's analyses and estimates of various versions of the legislation that were prepared last year were exempt from disclosure.

Instead, HHS provided four documents that already were made public.

"In the spirit of comity, we are releasing these documents to you," Smith wrote.

Waxman has threatened a lawsuit to obtain the information.

"The response is completely inadequate," Waxman said in a statement.

"The administration is stonewalling our investigation. We are evaluating our next steps."

Mark Sherman Associated Press Apr. 24, 2004 12:00 AM

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