Medicare chief defends job-hunting activity

Departing Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Thomas Scully is defending his job-hunting activities while negotiating the final provisions of the new Medicare prescription drug bill.

"I am a lawyer, and I spent a lot of time making sure I followed every ethical guideline," Scully told reporters in a conference call Wednesday afternoon.

Scully said he was told by the Health and Human Services Department general counsel that: "I was a model citizen. I did this by the book." And the frequently thin-skinned Scully said a New York Times story suggesting a "bidding war" for his services was unfair. "What really irritates me is that I followed the rules absolutely to the 'T.' For somebody to suggest other than that is absolutely outrageous," he said.

Scully also said that while he has not yet formally been offered any of the jobs he has been discussing, he thinks it unlikely he will return to lobbying in any case, and would prefer "to spend more time on the business and policy side of health care."

Scully said he personally would like to stick around at the helm of CMS while the huge job of implementing the massive Medicare bill gets underway, "but I lost a family vote of 4-1."