This NY Times article reports on the finding of an internal Department of Health and Human Services investigation that Thomas A. Scully, the former top Medicare administrator, threatened to fire Richard S. Foster, the program’s chief actuary, if Mr. Foster told Congress the true probable cost of the drug benefits to be provided under the Bush Administration’s Medicare prescription drug benefit legislation passed last year. Here is an earlier post on this flap.
Interestingly, the report concluded that neither the threat nor the withholding of information violated any criminal law. The report accepted the Justice Department’s view that Mr. Scully had the final authority to determine the flow of information to Congress and that the actuary had no independent authority to disclose information to Congress. Mr. Scully, who resigned in December, 2003, denied threatening Mr. Foster but acknowledged having told him to withhold the information from Congress.