Tag: senate finance committee

Republican leaders in the Senate on Monday asked the top actuary at the Health and Human Services Department for a cost analysis of the Democrats’ health-care reform proposal. That would be exactly as dry as it sounds except for this: the actuary, Richard Foster, is the very same official muzzled by the Bush administration in 2003 when Democrats asked for a similar examination of Medicare’s prescription drug benefit — an unfunded initiative that Republicans rammed through Congress in order to solidify the seniors’ vote in the run-up to the 2004 elections.

It should come as no surprise that health care companies, executives and lobbyists would target their political donations to the lawmakers who will guide...