WASHINGTON -- Bush administration officials were wrong to prevent a budget specialist from giving Congress estimates of the cost of Medicare legislation, congressional researchers concluded.
In a report made public yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said efforts to keep Richard Foster, the chief Medicare actuary, from giving Democratic lawmakers his projections of the bill's cost -- $100 billion more than the president and other officials were acknowledging -- probably violated federal law. Recent estimates set the bill's cost at more than $500 billion.
