Foster: White House Had Role In Withholding Medicare Data HHS Actuary Feels Bush Aide Put Hold on Medicare Data By Amy Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 19, 2004; Page A02 Richard S. Foster, the government's chief analyst of Medicare costs who was threatened with firing last year if he disclosed too much information to Congress, said last night that he believes the White House participated in the decision to withhold analyses that Medicare legislation President Bush sought would be far more expensive than lawmakers knew. Foster has said publicly in recent days that he was warned repeatedly by his former boss, Thomas A. Scully, the Medicare administrator for three years, that he would be dismissed if he replied directly to legislative requests for information about prescription drug bills pending in Congress. In an interview last night, Foster went further, saying that he understood Scully to be acting at times on White House instructions, probably coming from Bush's senior health policy adviser... Of course he was. When will America wake up?
He got fooled again? [independent centrist]Bush didn't lie. He is just the poor victim of faulty data given to him by the CIA![/independent centrist]