Yahoo! News - Medicare Official Recounts Firing Threats
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Medicare official at the center of a storm about a bill on health benefits for the elderly publicly recounted for the first time on Wednesday the threats and pressures he faced to keep his higher estimate of the bill's cost secret.

Richard Foster, the top actuary at the federal agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid, told the House Ways and Means Committee he was ordered last year to withhold technical information and cost estimates about the Medicare drug benefit bill which was narrowly approved by Congress last November.

Foster said he decided to resign in protest after Medicare administrator Tom Scully ordered him to withhold cost data from Congress last June but his staff persuaded him to stay on and fight within his agency.

Scully, who left the agency for the private sector late last year, did not return a phone call or e-mails.

And why did Mr. Scully leave, hmmmmm? Offered a cushy job in the "private sector", was he? Who ordered Mr. Scully to withhold data? Inquiring minds want to know...