Republicans yesterday prevented two Bush administration officials from being forced to testify about last year’s cost estimates for the Medicare prescription-drug bill, blocking Democrats efforts to question them about higher cost forecasts some legislators think were covered up.
Democrats tried to subpoena testimony from Doug Badger, special assistant to President Bush for Economic Policy, and Thomas A. Scully, former administrator of the Health and Human Services’ Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services — both of whom had declined to testify before the Ways and Means Committee yesterday.
Republicans defeated the Democrats’ subpoena requests on two party-line votes of 23-16.
“There is no way you are going to shut down discussions of these issues,” Rep. Sander M. Levin, Michigan Democrat, said as the subpoena was voted down.
“Get real here,” Rep. Jim McCrery, Louisiana Republican, responded. “This is a lot about politics.”
Last week, Richard S. Foster, the administration’s top Medicare cost expert, testified that his former superior, Mr. Scully, wouldn’t let Mr. Foster provide lawmakers with higher cost estimates for parts of the Medicare bill as it was being crafted last summer.
Yesterday, officials who worked with Mr. Scully testified that one Democratic request from Congress was delayed by Mr. Scully and that there was no legal requirement to provide the information to Congress.
Leslie Norwalk, a top center lawyer who is currently the acting deputy administrator and chief operating officer of the center, testified that Mr. Foster was not legally compelled to share his analyses with Congress. She said HHS lawyers have agreed with her opinion.
“I believe Mr. Foster had no legal obligation to report to Congress,” she said.
When the Medicare drug measure was approved, Congress had used the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) estimate of $395 billion over 10 years, which it is bound by law to use. But after Mr. Bush signed the bill into law in December, the administration put its own cost estimate of the measure at $534 billion over 10 years.
Jeff Flick, who managed Mr. Scully’s office when he headed the center, testified that Mr. Scully told Mr. Foster not to release one analysis that Democrats requested of Mr. Foster in June 2003 regarding one part of the bill. The bill still was being crafted, and Mr. Flick said Mr. Scully was concerned that some of the information requested had to do with provisions no longer in the bill.
Panel Democrats yesterday said they had made several requests to the administration regarding the bill as it was being crafted, which were denied.
“There were energetic efforts by the administration to prevent information from going to Congress,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, North Dakota Democrat.
Administration officials say that they didn’t have their cost estimate of the final bill until December, but that lawmakers were well aware the administration generally thought the bill would cost more than the CBO’s estimate. Mr. Scully noted in a letter to the panel yesterday that “virtually everyone” involved in crafting the bill knew that CBO and the administration generally differed in their analysis of various aspects of the bill. He publicly testified to this in the Senate in June 2003, his letter noted.
Mr. McCrery said Democrats aren’t concerned about cost at all, because all of their prescription-drug proposals were estimated to cost billions more.
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