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A week after the Alaskan delegation secured a permanent fix for the Medicare discrepancies in Alaska, the House Democratic Leadership voted to block a requirement that would require the House to consider legislation by July 30th in order to protect the solvency of the Medicare program. As per the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA), if Medicare expenses exceed 45% of the total amount of funding two years in a row, a "trigger" goes into effect that says Congress must pass legislation to reign in spending so as to put the program back on track. Today, in an effort to avoid a touchy election year subject, House Democrats passed a procedural effort to change the "trigger" rule. Instead of dealing with the coming fiscal crisis of Medicare, the Democrats chose to ignore the problem by turning off the "trigger" to avoid debate.

"The amount of games the Majority has played with House procedures this year is ridiculous," said Rep. Young. "They’ve allowed election year politics to dictate procedure, legislation, and ultimately the policies that Mr. and Mrs. America must abide by. Because they don’t want to open up a debate that might hurt them in an election year, they are willing to let funding for the healthcare of our nation’s seniors fall to the wayside; that hurts me. I don’t know why I should be surprised; they have done this time and time again this Congress. But it does not make it any easier to tolerate. The Alaskan delegation, led by Senator Stevens, worked very hard to secure a permanent Medicare fix for the seniors of Alaska so that they have access to the quality health care they deserve. Now we sit by and watch the Majority, led by Speaker Pelosi, decide that funding is not as important as retaining their seats in Congress. We are elected to help provide solutions to the problems of our country, not avoid them. Today the Majority should be ashamed of themselves."

In accordance with MMA, Majority Leader Hoyer and Republican Leader Boehner formerly introduced H.R. 5480 on February 25, 2008. The proposal includes the following major provisions to reduce Medicare spending:

Reforms the nation’s medical liability laws in order to put patients’ interests before those of trial lawyers (CBO estimates show this provision would save Medicare $4.8 billion over 10 years);

Focuses the Medicare prescription drug program on low-income seniors by limiting the amount of taxpayer funded benefits for seniors with incomes of more than $82,000 (saves Medicare an estimated $12.1 billion over 10 years).