CRFB Urges Congress Not to Eliminate the Medicare Trigger

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget strongly urges Congress not to eliminate the Medicare trigger—one of the few remaining statutory budget controls in place.

The Medicare trigger was created as part of the Medicare Modernization Act in 2003. It is pulled when for two consecutive years the program’s trustees estimate that general revenue funding will exceed 45 percent of Medicare’s total funding in any year within the next seven years. In the spring of 2007, the trustees pulled the trigger for the first time, setting in motion the requirement that the President send Congress a plan to rebalance Medicare so that it does not exceed the 45 percent general revenue limit. The trigger does not require that Congress accept the recommendation or develop an alternative, only that it considers the President’s recommendation on an expedited basis.

Dishearteningly, efforts to repeal the trigger are underway in the House of Representatives. The House has included repeal of the trigger in its bill to reauthorize SCHIP; the Senate bill does not include repeal of the trigger. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget sees this course of action as irresponsible and unwise considering that unsustainable health-care cost growth is the single largest threat to the federal budget and that other plans to address this looming problem have not been put forth by those who would repeal the trigger. While it is true that there are a number of different ways to craft an effective trigger, it is critically important that Congress heed the warning signs the trigger is sending.

“The Medicare trigger is one of the last emergency brakes left in the budget,” said Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “Congress should abide by it, or improve it, but certainly not eliminate it.”

Committee Co-Chairs, Bill Frenzel and Leon Panetta expressed their concern that “eliminating the Medicare trigger means ignoring a warning signal when we should be taking action. The longer we wait to tackle the challenge of controlling health-care costs, the more difficult it will be to make the necessary changes,” said the Committee’s Chairmen. The Committee urges Congress to keep the trigger in place and work in a bipartisan fashion to find ways to rebalance the Medicare program.

Learn More About: Maya MacGuineas
Related Programs: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
Topics: Fiscal Policy