From Yahoo! News -
White House Won't Release Medicare Memo

WASHINGTON - 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."

Ah the true test of checks and balances... whether or not a member of the executive branch (you know us the peoples' employees) feels like telling us. I love the government!