Muzzling the Truth, Again

I don't know why I'm surprised at any of this:

The Bush administration was facing opposition last fall, even within Republican ranks, for its Medicare drug-presciption legislation. Thirteen GOP congressmen said they'd vote against the bill unless the price tag came to less than $400 billion. Fine, the administration said, the tab will be $395 billion. The House passed the bill by only five votes. Then, in January, the White House disclosed that the total cost would be dramatically higher, at around $550 billion. Faulty prior estimates? New information came in?

No. As it turns out, the administration knew all along that the program would cost $550 billion. When Richard Foster, Medicare's chief actuary, felt compelled to publicly disclose this, his boss, Medicare chief Tom Scully, threatened to fire him if he did so. (Scully, incidentally, was actively interviewing for a new job within the healthcare industry as the same time as he was helping to push the Medicare legislation through Congress. This blatant conflict of interest was approved by his boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Scully has since left the government, and is now a top lobbyist for the healthcare industry.) The higher estimates were not disclosed by the White House until January 29, after Bush had signed the bill into law.

And now, the New York Times reports, the White House has hired actors to pose as journalists, who praise the new Medicare law in scripted news segments sent to local TV stations across the country. (Local news programs being what they are, the canned segments were undoubtedly swallowed hook, line and sinker and unquestioningly rebroadcast.) The segments have already been broadcast in several states.

So once again America is lied to, government employees who want to do the right thing are muzzled, deception is used to justify the White House's actions after the fact, and government regulators move seamlessly into cozily lucrative careers with the industry they formerly oversaw.

Will the shameless dishonesty of this adminstration ever cease? Before Inauguration Day, that is?

(As always, kudos to the Center for American Progress for reporting on this story. You can sign an online petition to the House of Representatives demanding an investigation of this latest malfeasance by clicking here.)