On July 24, the House approved a resolution (H. Res. 1368) putting off any action this year on the so-called Medicare “trigger.” That section of the act contained the trigger provision that said Congress would have to reduce Medicare spending if the trustees, in two consecutive years, should predict that more than 45 percent of the program’s funding will come from the general fund. The second prediction came last year. Congress would have been required to act on the president’s savings proposals or alternatives by the end of July 2008.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt in a statement on July 24 took issue with the action of the House leadership, saying in a press release, “The Congressional Budget Office may have determined that budget gimmicks contained in Medicare legislation passed last week meet the technical requirements of the trigger law. But parliamentary sleight-of-hand will do nothing to resolve the enormous financial challenges presented by Medicare in the near future.”
