UPDATE: The Medicare Actuary says there is no truth to this report. (Via the Corner.)
UPDATE: The Spectator is standing by its story, sort of, saying that although the actual report had not been delivered, the data underlying it had. I have no idea whether or not that’s true, but in any case it’s not what they said originally. This gives the media an excuse (if they needed one) not to pursue the story, so I think this story will go away quickly. (Via Instapundit.)
Whether or not the Spectator is right now, there’s a lesson here: details matter. If you work for the MSM, you can afford to get the details wrong at first. If you’re on the outside, you have to get them right.
ORIGINAL POST:
Last week I noted that the Democrats had hurried through a vote on the health care nationalization bill before the Medicare Actuary could complete his report, which ultimately found that the bill would raise costs, not lower them. Now a far more serious allegation has been made, that the Democrats actually had the report and covered it up:
The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama’s health care “reform” law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius’s staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.
“The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote,” says an HHS source. “Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think.”
The analysis, performed by Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, which in the past has been identified as a “nonpolitical” office, set off alarm bells when submitted. “We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff,” says the HHS staffer, “and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted to the secretary’s office. Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report.”
In the end, the report was released several weeks after the vote — the review by the secretary’s office reportedly took less than three days — and bore a note that the analysis was not the official position of the Obama administration.
If these allegations are substantiated, this is a huge scandal. Will the press investigate?
(Via Instapundit.)
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