The $100 billion Medicare scandal that will sink Bush.... [View All]

Congress is PISSED. Is this an impeachable offense? And Martha Stuart is going to jail for a few thousand bucks.

The WH knew they could not pass the bill if the real cost was known. They had to keep it under $400 billion. So they lied. And they have tried to keep the fact that they lied under wraps by threatening the top Medicare actuary if he disclosed the truth.

Now, Henry Waxman is hot on their trail.

On top of the myriad Bush scandals, this is another proven deception. They have lied about EVERYTHING, including the cost of medicare coverage for our seniors.

Bye, bye Bushies.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/8231107.htm

Bush Medicare Reform Bill Become a Nightmare for GOP

By William Douglas, Knight Ridder Washington Bureau Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Mar. 19--WASHINGTON - Enactment of a sweeping Medicare reform law last year was supposed to be the crowning achievement of President Bush's "compassionate conservatism" as he readied himself for re-election.

By providing a federally subsidized prescription-drug benefit for senior citizens, albeit a limited one, administration officials felt they usurped a major issue from the Democrats and cut into Democratic support among seniors age 65 and over -- an especially important voting bloc in key battleground states such as Florida.

But less than four months after he signed it into law on Dec. 8, Bush's Medicare-reform dream has turned into a nightmare and a potential drag on his bid for re-election.

-- The Bush administration deliberately didn't tell Congress that the measure could cost more than $100 billion more than advertised.

-- House Republican leaders abused House rules to push the measure to a narrow victory. There are also allegations of threats and bribes that are under investigation.

-- The Bush administration spent millions of taxpayer dollars on public service TV ads touting the Medicare reform law that look suspiciously like Bush campaign commercials. Those, too, are now under investigation.

-- Polls show that a majority of Americans don't like the Medicare reforms.

"It's something that's eating away at the credibility of the administration in an election year on a bill that he (Bush) thought was a building block for his re-election," said Stephen Hess, a political analyst for the Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank, and a former aide to President Eisenhower.

The law's afterglow faded fast once lawmakers learned it could cost at least $100 billion more than the $395 billion over 10 years that the White House originally advertised. That White House revelation in late January riled budget hawks who'd said they wouldn't vote for the measure if it cost more than $400 billion. The measure probably would have failed if the higher cost estimate had been known.

Lawmakers got steamed after the nation's top Medicare actuary, Richard S. Foster, told Knight Ridder that he had projected the higher cost long before Congress voted in November. Lawmakers were never told about his higher cost estimates because he says he was ordered by his boss, former Medicare Administrator Thomas Scully, to withhold them from Congress or he would be fired.

House Democrats, led by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee, are threatening a lawsuit to force Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to turn over all of Foster's undisclosed estimates. And they're not stopping with Thompson.

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