http://www.uft.org/?fid=196&tf=1137&nart=1406
Bush's Medicare deceit
The release last month of documents relating to the passage of the
Medicare privatization bill have raised disturbing questions about how
the Bush White House knowingly deceived Congress and the American
people.
Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, now tells us that his former
boss, Thomas Scully, had forbidden him to answer congressional queries
about the bill's true cost before the vote.
Foster had figures showing that the bill's true cost would be way
beyond the $395 billion estimate that President Bush was telling us.
But then a funny thing happened:
Scully threatened Foster with being fired if he told the truth.
(Scully, fittingly, has since resigned to take a job lobbying for the
drug industry which will be the main beneficiary of Bush chicanery.)
It took Congress nearly 20 years to pass Medicare after it was first
suggested by progressive Democrats after World War II in the face of
fierce opposition led by the medical profession, the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, the American Association of Manufacturers, conservative
Republicans and Democrats, and other big-business fronts.
There isn't a working or retired person in this country who doesn't
know someone who has benefited from Medicare.
In fact, 85 percent of America's 40 million senior citizens now depend
on Medicare for their health insurance.
The Bergen Record had it right in March when it wrote:
"Given the inherent flaws in the bill, the shadowy manipulations
surrounding its passage, and the Medicare trustees' new findings that
provisions of the law raise serious doubt about the sustainability of
Medicare under current financing arrangements, Congress owes it to the
American people to go back to the drawing board and get it right."
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Deceit is a Bush family tradition.
Harry
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