Wednesday, July 07, 2004

OIG's statement re: Scully, the CMS chief auditor, and the price of Medicare reform.

The Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General's statement is on the OIG website. Chairman Grassley released a brief statement about the IG's report and posted it to the Senate Finance Committee's website. The IG's statement says the report has been forwarded to the Secretary of HHS, but so far there's nothing in that agency's web site about the report. The folks who should be really upset at this are the Republicans who relied on CMS' budget projections when they cast their votes in favor of Medicare last fall. Where's the noise?

Also, OIG may have concluded that Scully broke no laws, but apparently the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service concluded otherwise. At least, that's what Rep. Charlie Rangel said in a letter to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in which he quotes from the CRS report that he (Rangel) requested. So far, at least, the CRS report itself seems not to be available on the Web.

According to Rangel's letter, the laws in question are 5 U.S.C. § 7211, §§ 618 and 620 of P.L. 108-199 [NOTE: see 118 Stat. 354-55 (pp. 352-53 of 455)], 42 U.S.C. § 1317, and 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8).

For a great summary of the issues, the responses, and the next steps for this controversy: Kaiser Family Foundation's Daily Health Policy Report.

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