Bush Expected to Name Scully as HCFA Administrator

President Bush is expected "soon" to announce plans to nominate hospital lobbyist Thomas Scully as HCFA administrator, the New York Times reports. According to federal health officials, Scully, who currently serves as president of the Federation of American Hospitals and on the board of directors of Oxford Health Plans, has emerged as the leading candidate for the nomination, which requires Senate approval. From 1989 to 1992, during the term of former president George Bush, Scully was an associate director at the White House Office of Management and Budget. While in that position, he supervised spending for all federal health programs and helped devise a plan offered by the elder Bush in 1992 "to provide coverage to millions of people" lacking health insurance, which was "not adopted." The Times writes that as HCFA head, Scully would have to invert the concerns he has held as a lobbyist. In his current position, Scully has advocated more money for hospitals and "has often lamented the tendency of Congress to cut payments to providers while sparing beneficiaries." But as "steward of Medicare and Medicaid," he would have to work to "hold down" Medicare and Medicaid spending, and the welfare of beneficiaries would be "his chief concern." Several members of Congress also recommended Bobby Jindal -- former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, current president of the University of Louisiana System and executive director of a 1998-99 "federal advisory commission that recommended radical changes in Medicare" -- for the HCFA post. However, the Times reports that Jindal has since been "tentatively selected" for the position of "chief policy analyst" at HHS (Pear, New York Times, 3/4).