Mysterious Fax Adds to Intrigue Over the Medicare Bill's Cost

March 19, 2004 7:17 AM

Mysterious Fax Adds to Intrigue Over the Medicare Bill's Cost
"Late one Friday afternoon in January, after the House of Representatives had adjourned for the week, Cybele Bjorklund, a House Democratic health policy aide, heard the buzz of the fax machine at her desk. Coming over the transom, with no hint of the sender, was a document she had been seeking for months: an estimate by Medicare's chief actuary showing the cost of prescription drug benefits for the elderly....

"Ms. Bjorklund had been pressing Mr. Foster for his numbers since June. When he refused, telling her he could be fired, she said, she confronted his boss, Thomas A. Scully, then the Medicare administrator. 'If Rick Foster gives that to you," Ms. Bjorklund remembered Mr. Scully telling her, "I'll fire him so fast his head will spin.'"

(NYTimes.com, reg req)
posted by jpoulos (5 comments total)

nah... bush and the rest of his administration aren't LIARS ... not at all.
posted by specialk420 at 7:33 AM on March 19, 2004

Transparency in government should be the goal.

For the Bush administration, it is subterfuge and deceit, with transparency being grounds for termination.

Evil times, worth remembering come November.
posted by the fire you left me at 8:19 AM on March 19, 2004

Non-Reg Link.
posted by Blue Stone at 10:19 AM on March 19, 2004

Restoring honor and integrity one partisan appointment at a time.
"Who cares what you think?" - GWB quote
posted by nofundy at 10:25 AM on March 19, 2004

"Who cares what you think?"
posted by homunculus at 1:10 PM on March 19, 2004