A senior House Republican has stepped up his call for HHS to turn over cost estimates it received from federal actuaries about the healthcare reform legislation before it became law.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), a physician, late Tuesday introduced a resolution of inquiry requiring HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to hand over any documents, e-mails, records of telephone calls or internal discussions that centered on cost estimates made by the CMS.

Burgess said that reports made public after lawmakers passed the legislation show “clearly the cost of this bill was much in excess of what was given to the Congress as the cost of this bill.”

In April, CMS' Office of the Actuary released a report predicting that overall health expenditures would increase over the next decade by $311 billion under the reform law.

“It's one of those what did you know, and when did you know it questions,” Burgess said about his resolution.

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