White House won't answer questions about Medicare

When did President Bush find out that the Medicare prescription-drug program he strongly lobbied Congress to pass last year carried a $511 billion price tag -- $116 billion more than the estimate lawmakers had been given?
That question demands a straight answer from the White House in light of last week's testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee from Richard Foster, former top financial analyst for the Medicare program. Foster contends he told the president's chief health-policy adviser and others in the administration in June that the drug program might cost $511 billion in the first 10 years. Just how far up in the White House the information was sent remains a mystery.
After the passage of the president's Medicare initiative, the administration acknowledged that the $395 billion price tag was on the low side.
Given this history, Bush owes it to the American people, who will be footing the bill for this huge prescription-drug initiative, to provide a full accounting of what took place last year. The White House is doing a great disservice to the nation by refusing to permit Douglas Badger, the president's health-policy adviser, to appear before Congress. Invoking executive privilege in the wake of Foster's sworn testimony simply fans the flames of suspicion that the president and his top aides are involved in a cover-up.
While it is true that executive privilege, which is not a constitutional provision, has been recognized by the Supreme Court as necessary to enable the president to have candid conversations with members of the White House staff, there are times when the public's right to know holds sway.
9/11 commission
The administration conceded that very point on Monday when it agreed to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's testifying in public and under oath before the bipartisan, independent 9/11 commission. Before that decision, the White House had refused the commission's request for such testimony, citing executive privilege.
However, faced with mounting criticism from the commission and from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the administration succumbed.
To be sure, the need to find out how terrorists were able to attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, is much more urgent than getting answers to questions about the Medicare prescription-drug initiative. But that does not mean the White House should get a pass.
Given that several Republican legislators had announced they would vote against the Medicare bill if the cost surpassed $400 billion, and given the amount of arm-twisting that went on before the vote, there is reason to wonder if someone in the White House made the decision to deep-six the true cost of the program until after the measure was signed into law.
Foster, the former top financial analyst, has said he believed in June that he would be fired by Thomas Scully, who was Medicare administrator at the time, if he responded to requests from members of Congress on how much specific provisions of the bill would cost and how the legislation would affect the traditional Medicare program.
Scully has said the threat of firing was not serious.
But the fact remains that members of Congress voted on such an important measure without having all the facts. And that should be of concern to all Americans.