From The Guardian, (UK):
The Bush administration's top Medicare accountant has calculated how millions of senior citizens would be affected by bringing private managed care into the program, but the administration won't release the information.
An earlier analysis suggested that a Republican plan to inject market forces into Medicare could increase premiums for those who stay in traditional programs by as much as 25 percent. If that's still the case, it could help Democrats who argue that the GOP plan is risky for those who want to stay in traditional Medicare, where they can pick any doctor, rather than move to a managed care plan.
The administration's Medicare chief threatened to fire his top actuary, Rick Foster, if Foster released his calculations to Capitol Hill Democrats who requested the analysis, officials said.
Medicare chief Tom Scully said in an interview Wednesday that Democrats had no right to request the information from Foster in the first place.
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`They don't have the right on the Hill to call up my actuary and demand things,'' said Scully, chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ``These people work for the executive branch, period.''
Scully said he would release the analysis ``if I feel like it.''
The Bush administration's top Medicare accountant has calculated how millions of senior citizens would be affected by bringing private managed care into the program, but the administration won't release the information.
An earlier analysis suggested that a Republican plan to inject market forces into Medicare could increase premiums for those who stay in traditional programs by as much as 25 percent. If that's still the case, it could help Democrats who argue that the GOP plan is risky for those who want to stay in traditional Medicare, where they can pick any doctor, rather than move to a managed care plan.
The administration's Medicare chief threatened to fire his top actuary, Rick Foster, if Foster released his calculations to Capitol Hill Democrats who requested the analysis, officials said.
Medicare chief Tom Scully said in an interview Wednesday that Democrats had no right to request the information from Foster in the first place.
`
`They don't have the right on the Hill to call up my actuary and demand things,'' said Scully, chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ``These people work for the executive branch, period.''
Scully said he would release the analysis ``if I feel like it.''
More: White House Won't Release Medicare Memo
From CNN:
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday the parts needed to develop a bomb program that the CIA says were found in Baghdad are not "evidence of a smoking gun" proving Iraq had a current weapons of mass destruction program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday the parts needed to develop a bomb program that the CIA says were found in Baghdad are not "evidence of a smoking gun" proving Iraq had a current weapons of mass destruction program.
More: U.N. watchdog: Iraq had no nuclear weapons program after '91
From Yahoo News:
US State Department experts disputed CIA conclusions that tractor-trailers found in Iraq were mobile biological weapons labs, while the White House stuck by the claim.
US State Department experts disputed CIA conclusions that tractor-trailers found in Iraq were mobile biological weapons labs, while the White House stuck by the claim.
More: State Department experts question CIA claim Iraqi trailers are weapons labs
Another update most likely today.
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