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A report by the Government Accountability Office says that former Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Thomas Scully should give back his salary for the last six months of his tenure there. Scully left in December to become a lobbyist in private industry.

The GAO report calls for the Scully penalty after another federal agency found that he had prevented a CMS actuary from revealing an expected price tag for the Medicare reform law (that was being debated, and ultimately passed) that was $130 billion more than Bush administration sources had already given to lawmakers.

According to a published report, the GAO sent some members of Congress a letter Tuesday, stating that Scully should return salary paid for the June to December 2003 period because it is illegal for federal employees to prohibit or prevent any other employee from giving information to Congress.