In a bipartisan battle over how to protect Medicare's future, the House passed a measure last week to prevent President Bush from going forward with a proposed Medicare savings plan.
The House, which doesn't need Senate approval in this case, has curtailed for the rest of the year a "trigger" bill introduced by President Bush, as mandated under the 2003 Medicare law. The president is required to issue a "trigger bill" each time Medicare is reported to draw more than 45 percent of its funding from general government revenue. For the second year in a row, the Medicare Trustee Board has issued a "trigger" warning.
Last March, the Medicare Board of Trustees said it was "increasingly concerned about inaction on the financial challenges facing the Social Security and Medicare programs."
"The longer action is delayed, the greater will be the required adjustments, the larger the burden on future generations, and the more severe the detrimental economic impact on our nation," the board said.
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt called the recent House action to curtail the President's Medicare budget plan "morally irresponsible" and said it "ignores the clear duty to preserve and improve Medicare for our senior citizens."
"Congress' continued inaction will impose the crushing obligations of a broken system on our children and grandchildren and undermine our country's economic viability in a global economy," he said.
Many Democrats believe the 45 percent rule for judging Medicare's solvency is arbitrary and not a valid indicator. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) responded to the March Medicare Trustees report with a call for cooperation between the administration and Congress to find "smart solutions" for the long-term solvency of the program.
"The Medicare (Trustees) report shows that the rising costs of healthcare are threatening not only private coverage, but also the Medicare program," he said. "Working to make payment systems across Medicare more accurate and reasonable, coupled with systemic reforms to increase quality and slow the growth of costs, will be necessary to fix what ails this vital program."
The president's trigger bill, the Medicare Funding Warning Response Act of 2008 (H.R. 5480), was introduced in the House last February and included measures that would require the government to develop and encourage nationwide healthcare IT and require healthcare quality measures to be reported and made publicly known by 2013.
A recent bitter bipartisan battle over Medicare had Medicare Advantage as a kingpin of dispute, with Democrats urging cuts to the program and Republicans holding firmly against it.