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Lawmaker offers rhetorical pay raise to HCFA chief
Rep. Fortney Stark, D-Calif., fired off a letter late last week encouraging Health Care Financing Administration chief Nancy-Ann DeParle to request an eight-fold pay raise.
"You should immediately ask - heck, demand - a $866,700 pay increase," Stark urged in a tongue-in-cheek missive he made public Tuesday.
Stark opposes legislation sponsored by Sens. John Breaux, D-La., and Bill Frist, R-Tenn., that would replace the head of HCFA, which runs the Medicare program, with a seven-member board, each paid nearly $20,000 more than DeParle's current salary.
"You are doing the job of seven people! And under the Breaux-Thomas premium support bill, Congress would replace your $122,400 salary with $989,100," Stark wrote."In other words, if we increased your pay $866,699, we'd still be a buck ahead."
Stark wrote that the Breaux-Frist bill - a product of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare led by Breaux and Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif. - would use higher premiums on Medicare beneficiaries to "force seniors into managed care plans," creating "the largest HMO in the country."
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